I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Showing posts with label Sadistic Mica Band. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sadistic Mica Band. Show all posts
The beginning of another work week although down in the United States, it'll be a shortened one due to American Thanksgiving. From what I've been reading though, it could be another tough travel time because of some threatening weather. Incidentally up here in Toronto, we're supposed to be having the annual Santa Claus Parade downtown over this coming weekend, and once that is done, then I'll know that the Yuletide season is here again.
Well, for another dreary Monday, maybe some early libations are in store. Regrettably, I can't offer any Tiki bar cocktails but on the musical plane of existence, perhaps KKP can provide this song by the Sadistic Mika Band（サディスティック・ミカ・バンド）. From their short single discography, here is their 5th single"Mada Mada Sanba" from November 1975. Yes, this song is 48 years old today.
Created by lyricist Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）who were part of the band, "Mada Mada Sanba" (The Midwife is Yet to Arrive) is a happy-go-lucky mixture of Latin and pop. Sadistic Mika Band has been categorized as hard rock, glam rock, jazz fusion and progressive rock on Wikipedia, but I think with this one, perhaps the only word that can apply here is fusion. It's a tongue-in-cheek tune which not only takes cross-linguistic liberties (i.e. a pun) between samba and sanba（産婆）in the title, but the lyrics happily make light of a midwife's tardiness as a baby is on the way most urgently. At this rate, the kid's gonna hit the finish line before their deliverer.
One funny quip in the comments for the above video is that a small snippet of the song sounds like the theme from "Coronation Street". I would heartily agree.
Sadistic Mika Band（サディスティック・ミカ・バンド）has been one of those legendary Japanese groups whose name has been bandied about along with Happy End and Tin Pan Alley. All of them sprouted into existence in the 1970s and as has been the case with the other two, Sadistic Mika Band has had its members who have gone onto some big things on their own or with other musical projects. Among them were the late songwriter Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）who was also with The Folk Crusaders, bassist and prolific composer Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）, guitarist Masayoshi Takanaka（高中正義）and drummer/songwriter Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）who would head into technopop band Yellow Magic Orchestra later that decade.
Former contributor JTM in one of his earliest articles for "Kayo Kyoku Plus" wrote about the band when it had that slight change in its spelling to Sadistic Mica Band in the late 1980s. But I'm here today to talk about its early days when it still had that "k" in "Mika". According to JTM, Sadistic Mika Band was influenced by the glam rock produced by T. Rex and David Bowie along with the art rock of Roxy Music and the pop rock of Badfinger. This is good to know since I couldn't find anything about these influences online.
I'm still kinda slapping myself upside the head since I missed out on the opportunity to purchase a copy of SMB's November 1974 2nd album, "Kurofune"（黒船...Black Ship） when I saw it right then and there at an old store of books and records called BMV downtown a few years ago. Simply speaking, I broke my own cardinal rule of grabbing something when I had the chance since I had wrongly assumed that it would still be hanging around when I returned to BMV a week later. Ah, much to my chagrin, it was gone! 😞 I don't know what the condition of the LP was but I was willing to take a chance on it.
Anyways, as I rise out of that self-pity, there is one track on "Kurofune" that's gotten my attention and that would be "Time Machine ni Onegai" (Request for a Time Machine). The song was also SMB's 3rd single from October 1974 and it's the fun rocker about doing all sorts of wonderful things with the titular time machine, although I'm not sure if it would be the right sort of tune to accompany The Doctor's TARDIS (I've always thought something techno for the ol' Type 40 because of the show's iconic theme). Kato was behind the music while lyricist Takeshi Matsuyama（松山猛）provided the words to this rollicking magical carpet ride which vocalist Mika Fukui（福井ミカ）saucily blasts out like a teen punk, although she was already 25 at the time. In fact, because of her vocals, I kinda wonder whether Sadistic Mika Band itself had some influence on future bands such as Sheena & The Rokkets; there's something rather New Wave about "Time Machine ni Onegai", but for now, I'll be happy to label it as New Music.
Some more evidence about Sadistic Mika Band's prescience may have presented itself through its debut single "Cycling Boogie" which came out in June 1972 (yes, almost 50 years ago). It's rock but as in good ol' rock n' roll...and I know that the 50s rock n' roll culture became really popular in the late 70s going into the early 80s in Japan, but perhaps SMB kinda had a hint about what was to come even in the early part of the decade.
I believe that it was Kato handling the vocals in the recorded version since that is indeed him performing "Cycling Boogie" on stage in this video with Fukui doing the boogie twist. Kato was once again behind the music while drummer Hiro Tsunoda（つのだ☆ひろ）, another member of SMB who also made his own fame later on, provided the lyrics of having a totally raunchy time on the streets (Fukui yells out "Let's go doughnut!" right off the top), and I don't think we're talking about banana-seat bicycles here; it's about the motorcycles.
As for the reason behind featuring these particular two singles by the band...well, "Time Machine ni Onegai" and "Cycling Boogie" were used for the opening and ending themes respectively for a 1992 Fuji-TVanime titled "Maboroshi Mabo-chan"（まぼろしまぼちゃん...Little Mabo Maboroshi）. Pretty inspired choices for a show about a stalwart boy and his sister who head over to a mystical land in the attempts to save their petrifying parents.
I'm finally happy to have the opportunity to explore some of that Sadistic Mika Band at last.
With a name like Sadistic Mika Band (サディスティック・ミカ・バンド) one might halfway expect either an angry punk band or some kind of wacky performance group but they are in fact a unique musical collective which has been around from the early 70s and whose music has evolved over the years from Glam Rock to Electronic/New Romantic to Jazz Fusion and Progressive Rock. Formed in 1972 by husband and wife team of gutarist 加藤和彦/Kato Kazuhiko and his wife, singer 福井ミカ/Fukui Mika, the band name was in parody by John Lennon's "Plastic Ono Band" and was said to have been inspired by Mika's insensitive sense of humor.
It's core membership consisted of a number of musicians who would later go on to successful solo careers and musical collaborations including guitarist 高中正義/Takanaka Masayoshi, bassist 小原礼/Obara Ray and drummer 高橋幸宏/Takahasi Yukihiro (who would later go on to join YMO)
The band's early music was heavily inspired by the Glam Rock music of T.Rex and David Bowie but over time slowly evolved as London's music scene changed (Kato was at the time living in Kensington, London). They would incorporate a number of musical influences especially the art rock of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music and pop rock of Badfinger.
They would release a number of albums during the 70s and had a minor memorable hit with the fun rock song Time Machine Ni Onegai/タイムマシンにおねがい.
The band would see a few member changes over the years as well as a name change to The Sadistics/サディスティックス in 1978 but as Kato and the various members pursued solo careers and other projects, the band temporarly disbanded.
The band has reunited three times. Each time Kato, Takahashi and Takanaka have formed the core of the band, with a different female lead vocalist and supporting musicians.
In 1985, they collaborated with 坂本龍一/Sakamoto Ryuichi and 松任谷由実/Matsutoya Yumi under the tongue-in-cheek name of "Sadistic Yuming Band" 「サディスティック・ユーミン・バンド」.
In 1989 they would go back to their original name only this time changing it to "Sadistic Mica (with a "C") Band". With new vocalist 桐島 かれん/Kirishima Karen they would have their first Oricon Top 100 hit in 1989 with the very catchy single 「Boys and Girls」 which would also be used as a CMソング for Mazda's ファミリア (FAMILIA) car line. What really was unique about this the song was its heavy use of bilingual lyrics owing to Karen's native English ability. The above clip is from their appearance on the music variety program 夜のヒットスタジオ, one of my favorite music programs in the 80s along with ザ・ベストテン.
In 2006, pop singer 木村カエラ/Kimura Kaela would collaborate with the band and they would release an album under the quirky name "Sadistic Mica Band Revisited" AKA "Sadistic Mikaela Band".
Here's the original Sadistic Mika Band in 1974 with their song ハイ・ベイビー/Hey Baby in 1974.
And here's Sadistic Mica Band with 木村カエラ in 2007 singing their hit song タイムマシンにおねがい.
