So Nice -- Nichiyoubi no Summer Train（日曜日のサマートレイン）

 

Recently, thanks to Rocket Brown, I had the opportunity to translate the liner notes for the one and only full album "LOVE" (1979) by the band So Nice, a group led by vocalist/guitarist Katsuyuki Kamakura（鎌倉克行）. I was surprised to discover that this group which lavishly followed the sounds of Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）old band Sugar Babe was actually not a professional band but a student group from the Nihon University College of Art. For the years that Kamakura and his bandmates were students up to the late 1970s, they did the university and school festival route which ended up with them creating "LOVE", an album that only had 200 copies pressed. 

The liner notes also included a 2011 interview with Kamakura, vocalist/keyboardist Misako Matsushima（松島美砂子）, and drummer Nobuhide Mori（森信英）in which they expressed how over the moon they were over the fact that their university-age labour of love (no pun intended) that had no intention of being a serious resident on the record shop shelves was being put into service onto CD.

To quote one paragraph by Kamakura from the liner notes as translated by me: I thought I was going to die, this was such a dream (LOL). This is a record that was made by us as a graduation memento 30 years ago and now it’s become a CD to be sent to the world. On top of that, once remastering was done and we took another listen to it, the sound was so great that I was on the verge of tears. Up until then, we had a lot of doubts. The order forms were already out, but we were thinking whether they were thinking of us as riding on Tatsuro Yamashita’s coattails or defrauding fans. But listening to the remaster, we gained a bit more confidence. We had a feeling that our performance had been more all over the place but then we realized that we actually did do what we had set out to do. And finally, I feel that a lot of people including the younger generations will listen to this.

And that was back in 2011. Not too long after that, the whole Vaporwave thing was on YouTube and then some years later, "Plastic Love" exploded onto the international scene and the floodgates for City Pop opened up. I can only imagine how the band felt then.

Then again, perhaps I don't have to imagine all that much since in September 2018, the folks at So Nice amazingly got back together to record an analog 7" single with one lovely cover titled "Nichiyoubi no Summer Train" (Sunday Summer Train). Kamakura was behind the melody and a fellow named NOBE was the lyricist; I'm assuming that NOBE stands for drummer Nobuhide Mori. 

"Nichiyoubi no Summer Train" shows that So Nice never seemed to have left that band stage of 1979. It sounds as if it would be a perfect fit for "LOVE", and the So Nice/Sugar Babe sensation is still fully intact within the voices of Kamakura, Matsushima and all of the others involved in the chorus. I guess that lightning can be captured twice in a bottle.

So Nice -- Love

I first wrote about the band So Nice back in 2015 through the song that I found by them on YouTube, "Kousoku Douro"（光速道路）, and I was so charmed by its resemblance to Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and Sugar Babe that I wanted to hear more. Well, I got to hear more through another song that came from their album "Love" (1979), "Love Sick", and then and there I decided that if I could ever track a CD version of this album, I would happily purchase it.

To be honest, I did have my doubts since as I had written on "Kousoku Douro", there was a very limited number of LPs released of "Love", and I had felt that for such an obscure album, it probably wouldn't be converted into a CD. Happily, I was wrong...it did get its conversion a number of years ago, so when I discovered that it was indeed the case through Tower Records Japan...goodbye yen.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/love/483110367

(excerpt only)

Track 1 is the one-minute-and-thirty-two-second prelude with the title of "So Nice", presumably involving the entire band spearheaded by Katsuyuki Kamakura（鎌倉克行）and Misako Matsushima（松島美砂子）in a bit of sunrise harmony.

Track 3, "Last Kiss" is a sweet and sultry number by Kamakura about a couple snuggling up at night on the beach, and if this had been the first song by So Nice that I heard, then I would have totally believed that this was an unknown track by Sugar Babe. The guitar and percussion reminded me of some of the summery love songs from the 1950s and 1960s, something that Yamashita was inspired by when it came to his music.

Matsushima is behind the mike for Track 5, "Tight Night" (15:51), a cool piece of 1970s City Pop/New Music. I love the keyboard work and there is some of that wonderful bass and percolating guitar in there. Considering the lengths of many of the tracks, I think the band wasn't particularly looking for Oricon fame but just loved to jam together. Good for them and us.

One standout is Track 8 "Earth Mover" (33:38), a sad tale of love lost in the big city done up as a slow funk as Kamakura sings about hoping for that title machine to smash down everything around him. It's time for the guitars to shine here. As such, I don't think "Earth Mover" is solely a City Pop song as it invites in some rock in the latter half.

My last song for tonight is "Dancing All Night Long" at 45:34. When I saw the title, I imagined that it was going to be a disco gig but instead it feels somewhat more old-fashioned as if a couple of friends having a dance in the middle of a street party. Once again, there is the yell of Sugar Babe going through my head as Kamakura and Matsushima perform this one.

Well, "Love" may not be all that rare but it's still quite special. I don't know whether So Nice ever put out a follow-up album but if not, the band left a nice little legacy. Plus, it's a good disc to put on during a sunny Sunday.

So Nice -- Love Sick

Happy Friday! Back in late 2013, Toronto was pounded with a huge ice storm which took out power to several areas in the city including my neighbourhood for a couple of days before Xmas. Well, it looks like its little brother will be wreaking havoc for this weekend, so there is a good chance that the electricity will be going down once again. If so, I may not be doing too much blogging for the next couple of days. Just wanted to warn you.

Yes, this is happening in mid-April. Anyways, simply to take things away from that meteorologically unpleasant topic, let's go for something more summery, shall we? For example, how about some So Nice with "Love Sick". I mentioned about this band back in 2015 as a unit that sounded so much like the New Music group Sugar Babe with Tatsuro Yamashita and Taeko Ohnuki（山下達郎・大貫妙子）that I almost pegged them as Sugar Babe themselves.

This is another track from their debut album in 1979, "Love", called "Love Sick", this time vocalized by Misako Matsushima（松島美砂子）rather than Katsuyuki Kamakura（鎌倉克行）. To be honest, aside from the different vocalist, "Love Sick" doesn't sound all that much different from "Kousoku Douro"（光速道路）which I featured for the first article but listening to each of them apart from each other, it's nice to hear some of those mellow sounds of 70s City Pop. Not sure how rare "Love" is but if other tracks show some more variety, I could be tempted to part with my yen.

So Nice -- Kousoku Douro （光速道路）

The band so nice that they called themselves So Nice....err, sorry about that. Actually, according to the Japanese music blog, "Magical Mystery 'Music' Tour", Katsuyuki Kamakura（鎌倉克行）and Misako Matsushima（松島美砂子）, who were members of a folk song club at Nihon University created their own band in 1976. The name of the band, by the way, came from the Minako Yoshida-penned lyrics of a Haruomi Hosono tune, "Rum wa O-suki?"（ラムはお好き？...Do You Dig Rum?）

Although So Nice identified as a folk band, they did a lot of covers of Sugar Babe (Tatsuro Yamashita, Taeko Ohnuki, etc.) songs. A few years later, they came out with their debut album, "Love" in 1979 and the one track I've being seeing and hearing on YouTube has been "Kousoku Douro" (Lightspeed Highway). When I first encountered the song, I swore that this was actually Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）singing with Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）on backing vocals. Was there a secret single released years after Sugar Babe broke up, I wondered. As it turned out, it was Kamakura and Matsushima.

Indeed Kamakura sings the lyrics like a Sugar Babe-era Yamashita but there is also that extra layer of City Pop sheen. It's almost as if the Yamashita of two eras combined to sing "Kousoku Douro". And that title...along with the album cover...pretty much screams City Pop. Apparently, only 200 original copies of "Love" were printed out so the LP is one of the rarest of the rare out there.