Shojotai 少女隊 - How Are You My Friend? お元気ですか？マイフレンド

Before Napster and Internet, there're 4 ways you can dub a song onto a cassette tape without buying it.

1. Find a friend who owns the song and ask him to dub it for you.  Or borrow it and dub it yourself.

2. Go to a record shop that rents LPs or CDs.  Rent the one you want and dub it yourself.

3. If you happen to make friends with the record shop staff, ask them to dub it for you.  You may have to pay a small fee but the good thing is you can pick and choose.  This is the ORIGINAL playlist.

4. Dub the song as you're listening on the radio station.

I have done all four back when I was in secondary school in Hong Kong but no. 4 was by far my most used method when I found a song I like.

Back to the future.  In the past few days, a melody suddenly popped up in my mind and it wouldn't go away.  Not only the melody but I remember the lyrics as well.  "How are you my friend? da da da da da da da," it sang in my head.

At the beginning, I was somehow convinced that it was from Matsuda Seiko 松田聖子 but didn't follow up further.  As the melody played again and again in my head, the memories of my "dubbing days" came back and it felt so nostalgic that I wanted to listen to the whole song.  So, this morning, I asked Gemini AI which Japanese song in the 80s included the lyrics "how are you my friend".  Voila!  It's NOT Seiko but Shojotai 少女隊!  What a surprise.  I immediately listened and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I'm pretty sure I dubbed this song when I was in Hong Kong but I forgot whether it's through method no. 3 or no. 4.  I threw away all my tapes (regret!) 10+ years ago so there's no way I can find out anymore.  There's a good chance that it's no. 4.  I still remember that in the 80s, Radio Hong Kong had a weekly program that published a top 10 chart for Japanese songs.  It could be from that.

For those of you who are interested in knowing more about Shojotai, J-Canuck already wrote an article here.  As expected, it's very hard to find a Japanese singer or group that has not been covered by Kayo Kyoku Plus.

Going back to the song itself, given the Aidoru background and the atmosphere, the story of the song likely happened in a high school.  A young girl was having a small fight with her boyfriend who's her senior i.e. her senpai.  She's still thinking of him and wanted to speak to him.  So, "how are you my friend?" was the message she had been keeping in her heart.

The song was written and arranged by Tokura Shunichi 都倉俊一.  Obara Jouji 小原丈二 penned the lyrics.  The single was released January 1985 and so this was one of those songs that included Chiko チーコ, an original member who left the group later the same year.

One more thing, I just saved the YouTube video on my playlist 😉

Shojotai -- Daydream Believer

 

Starting off this weekend on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with a brief tangent into another area of my interests, namely the Marvel Cinematic Universe, although I haven't subscribed to Disney+, it has been impossible for me to avoid what's been the latest buzz, post-"Avengers: Endgame" through the first of the Phase Four film and TV show entities, "WandaVision". Wham scenes and lines have been popping up all over and the most recent episode, Episode 5, have had the reactors on those reaction videos losing their minds and possibly their bodily fluids.

I've noticed that "WandaVision" has been paying homage to the sitcoms of the past right down to the theme song stylings over the decades. For that, give thanks to Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez who came up with those different themes for the episodes thus far, but I also want to acknowledge Canadian composer Christophe Beck for the overall score since he also whipped up one of my favourite hero themes in the MCU, that for "Ant-Man". I think that was a nice homage to 70s cop shows, especially since "Ant-Man" co-star Michael Douglas was in one of those, too.

Not sure who came up with the music for the trailers advertising "WandaVision", but one of the trailers has adapted the classic 1967 "Daydream Believer" originally done by The Monkees, and being someone who used to watch their TV show on Saturday afternoons as a kid, I know the song really well. In any case, my compliments to whoever came up with the "WandaVision" version of the song with the epic Marvel touches.

I can imagine that the sunshine-y pop of "Daydream Believer" was enough for plenty of singers to record their covers, and off the top of my head, I know that Canada's Anne Murray was one of them. A ton of singers in Japan also did their takes on it including Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）, Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）and Finger 5（フィンガー5）, perhaps under the original title or simply through "Daydream".

The 1980s aidoru group Shojotai（少女隊）provided their cute-as-all-heck cover of "Daydream Believer" in their 1986 Xmas Day-released album "SUPER VARIO" (oh, one letter away from video game legend). An album of cover versions of non-Japanese songs, this version has the added subtitle (translated) of "I Hate 5th Period English Class" (I guess the girls didn't have me as their teacher!) and Japanese lyrics provided by Ren Takayanagi（高柳恋）. Despite their antipathy toward my old career, they have done a pretty nice take on The Monkees song.

They may be in Hawaii but they look like they
actually lost the bet.

Up in the thumbnail photo at the top which I took from an old "Myojo"（明星）magazine, the ladies are from top down, Reiko, Miho and Tomo. This is the second Shojotai article thus far in KKP and in the first article for their "Motto Charleston"（もっとチャールストン）, I rather threw out the members' names without any context since for a group that has been remembered as a trio, there were actually four names. 

According to the J-Wiki article for Shojotai, the group had started out with Miho, Reiko and Chiiko, but in 1985, Chiiko suffered a hernia of her spinal disc in August 1985 which necessitated her retirement from the group, and so Tomo replaced her. Incidentally, Tomo was born as Tomoko Hikita（引田智子）and is the daughter of the late magician Isao Hikita（引田功）, aka Tenko Hikita I（引田天功 (初代)）. The magician trained a young aidoru named Mari Asakaze（朝風まり）, nee Mariko Itakura（板倉満里子）, who became Tenko Hikita II（二代目・引田天功）. She's better known outside of Japan as the illusionist Princess Tenko.

Shojotai -- Motto Charleston （もっとチャールストン）

I used to know the aidoru group, Shojotai（少女隊）, mostly through the pages of the teen aidoru magazines such as "Heibon" and "Myojo" back in the 1980s. However, there was one song of theirs that got onto one of those compilation tapes that I had bought in Chinatown.

First, a bit of background on Shojotai through the auspices of J-Wiki. Through auditions held in 1983, three girls were selected by the names of Miho, Reiko and Chiiko（ミホ・レイコ・チーコ）, with their debut single, "Forever - Gingham Check Story" coming out in August 1984. Apparently for that song and their first album, "Shojotaiphoon", the powers-that-be for the girls went sky-high on the money and All-American for the production values. Shunichi Tokura（都倉俊一）, one of the masterminds behind the songs for Pink Lady and Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵） back in the previous decade, was the first producer, some of America's top-flight studio musicians were brought into the mix with the recordings done in Los Angeles, and a video and photobook were also produced for the occasion. But as they say about the best-laid plans, Shojotai didn't take off. And over the next several months, a planned commercial for a candy company starring the girls was heavily delayed due to a mysterious poisoning case involving the confectionary industry, Chiiko decided to leave the group, Reiko was injured and a number of their TV appearances were cancelled.

It was a rather sad state of affairs until Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康） came into the picture in early 1985, and a member to replace Chiiko was selected by the name of Tomo（トモ）. Suddenly, their 3rd and 5th singles started making inroads onto the charts (at least, those on the music shows "The Best 10" and "The Top 10") and their popularity started rising to the point that by 1986, concerts were taking place not only domestically but in Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. This story would've made for a fine comeback drama series.

The song that got onto my compilation tape was "Motto Charleston" (More Charleston) which was their 7th single from March 1986. It was written by Akimoto and composed by Yasushi Maeda (前田保...I hope I've gotten the first name right). I don't think Benny Goodman or Glenn Miller need to fear any encroachment on their territory (although they might roll over a bit in their graves), but the song is a cute aidoru approach to some early jazz through synths. And perhaps Akimoto's current charges in AKB48 may give (or might already have given) this a shot on the concert circuit. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out how successful in terms of the rankings "Motto Charleston" got.

Shojotai released 14 singles before their initial breakup in 1989 and then a 15th came out 10 years later when Reiko, Chiiko and Tomo got back together as 1999 Shojotai. Miho was also in there at the beginning of the reunion but had to pull out due to a baby on the way. As of now, it seems that Reiko has had the most recent action in showbiz as an actress and voice actress under her real name of Reiko Yasuhara（安原麗子）.

Shojotai in the pages of Myojo