Tsuyoshi Kon -- Monster Mash/Chickenshack -- Godzilla on My Pillow

Good Free Photos

 

Last night, I wrote about P-Model's avant-rock "Zombi" which I found out about due to a commenter steering me to the Japanese Halloween playlist from university radio station WMUC a few days back. I'd like to throw in a couple of more songs.

One is guitarist Tsuyoshi Kon's（今剛）"Monster Mash" which has nothing to do with Bobby Pickett's novelty Halloween hit from 1962. In fact, the song is right from Kon's July 1980 solo album "Studio Cat" which I've already referenced because of my posting of the track "THINK ABOUT THE GOOD TIMES". I would say that the monsters here are probably sporting silvery metal jackets and skinny ties according to Kon's rock-sided AOR.

Meanwhile on the other side of the decade, Chickenshack put out "Godzilla on My Pillow" as a track for "Chickenshack V" from 1989. Created by jazz and R&B guitarist Junshi Yamagishi（山岸潤史）, the big green lizard is strutting through Roppongi on a wave of nuclear-fired funk that reminds me a fair bit of The Dazz Band. Let's Wang Chung tonight!

Emiko Nakayama -- Mr. Lonely（Mr.ロンリー）

 

It was almost eight years ago when I first featured Emiko Nakayama and her "Black Coffee" with that bossa jazz sound. Of course, as has been the case with many singers in Japan, their choices of the music they perform will evolve over time, and that was apparently the case with Nakayama, too.

"Mr. Lonely" was an October 1981 single released by Nakayama, who also changed the writing of her name from（中山恵美子）to（中山エミコ）in the last several months before she retired from the industry in mid-1982, and its sound is markedly different from "Black Coffee". Written and composed by the singer with arrangements handled by Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）, the music seems to be a mixture of West Coast AOR and some jangly 1950s rock-n-roll. It's not too bad although Nakayama's vocals almost get drowned out but I think that was more of the stereo equipment being used.

Tsuyoshi Kon -- THINK ABOUT THE GOOD TIMES

 

With all that's happened in the world this year, and certainly there have been a couple of bumps in the road personally, I don't think the year 2022 will go down as a particularly happy year, although when it comes to the blog, I'm happy to say that we did celebrate our 10th anniversary. And so, maybe that's what we need to hang onto...let's think about the good times as we enter the final day of 2022.

Guitarist Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）may be onto something then when he sings "THINK ABOUT THE GOOD TIMES", the second track on his first solo album "Studio Cat", released in July 1980. Beginning with a strutting rhythm, Kon comes out with his funky vocals although I can't quite get every word he's singing out there. However, he and his twangy guitar flying over the shimmy-worthy rhythm make it all worthwhile to forget about the worries in the world, even if it's for just four minutes and forty-four seconds. 

I checked out the JASRAC database expecting that it would be Kon taking care of words and music. But then I found out that those were created by H2O! Is it really the same H2O duo that took care of folksy pop tunes such as the graduation-friendly "Omoide ga Ippai"（思い出がいっぱい）? Enquiring minds want to know.

Kazuhiro Nishimatsu -- Good Times (Follow-Up)

 

Back in June 2019, so a mere three years ago, I wrote up something on Kazuhiro Nishimatsu's（西松一博）1981 debut album "Good Times" that I purchased on not only the merits of a couple of tracks that I'd covered individually, the happy-go-lucky "My Last Lady" and "Crescent Night"（クレッセント・ナイト）, but also because of Nishimatsu's 1985 second very different album "Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）which had that cabaret-on-Tatooine feeling.

Now the copy of "Good Times" that I got came with six bonus tracks consisting of Nishimatsu's singles and a couple of songs that he did for the soundtrack of the anime movie "Crusher Joe"（クラッシャージョウ）. I was able to cover a couple of those in the original "Good Times" article, but I could still only find one more bonus track on YouTube.

Back then when I did the 2019 article, I rather lamented that there weren't any more tracks for me to cover. Well, that has changed over the past three years for which I want to thank the YouTuber, Minmo. One reason for having good times with the eclectic "Good Times" is that it's not just a straight City Pop album but it also has elements of other genres in there, too, such as New Wave and some hints of that techno jazz that would be part-in-parcel for the later "Bouekifu Monogatari".

Track 3 is "Sasurai City"（さすらいCity...Wandering City） which was created by the sibling songwriting team of Etsuko and Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）with guitarist Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）arranging it (along with a number of the other tracks). It's an interesting tune since it has Nishimatsu singing with that falsetto that I've come to associate with his cabaret style on "Bouekifu Monogatari" although Takao's melody and Kon's arrangement result in a sports car-driving West Coast AOR style along the Ventura.

(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)

"Swan" is a gentle pop ballad of coming to terms with a romantic situation with Nishimatsu and Kon working on the melody while Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）wrote the lyrics. It becomes further tenderized thanks to those slow and shimmering strings and the old-timey piano. Again, due to Nishimatsu's high-toned vocals, we get hints of what's to come with that second album. The way that "Swan" ends with those key shifts in the instrumental shows that there is hope over the horizon.

"Gosan"（誤算...Mistake） is a nice slice of light Latin Resort Pop written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, composed by Takao Kisugi and arranged by Akira Inoue（井上鑑）. Despite the ominous warning of that title, the music by Kisugi and Inoue certainly don't show any foreboding. If anything, everything seems very copacetic on the boardwalk.

Let me first get the name of Seabornia out of the way. I automatically did get some marine vibes from the word, and when I checked it out in the search engines, I found out that there was a yacht club and a restaurant with that name in Kanagawa and Tokyo respectively. I gather then that Nishimatsu must have truly savored his "Seabornia Lunch" (it likely included one fine vinaigrette on his salad) . The song itself has got more of that West Coast AOR with a side of rock, and the singer even puts on a bit of a growl in the delivery. Ohtsu provided the lyrics while the melody was another Nishimatsu and Kon collaboration.

https://paraisorecords.com/?pid=154745849

(excerpt only)

Some soft-shoe French jazz finishes the original album before all of the bonus tracks thanks to "Michelet Dori"（ミシューレ通り...Av. Michelet）. Now I'm not sure if that's the romaji that Nishimatsu was aiming for since I couldn't find anything online that corresponded with the katakana of 「ミシューレ」. However there was 「ミシュレ」without the bar which did lead to 19th-century French historian Jules Michelet. And when I punched in "Av. Michelet" into the search engines, I did get a few hits of streets with that name in a number of French municipalities. On the other hand, I did throw in the title verbatim into Google Translate and got "Michele Street" which actually exists in Dearborn, Michigan, but I rather doubt that Nishimatsu was pondering about the Midwest when he came up with the song (for instance, I did hear "bonjour" in there along with some other French words).

Ah, good heavens. My apologies for making the above sound like a CIA intelligence briefing. Getting back to "Michelet Dori", Chii Uchida（内田栞）, who was the lyricist for the title track of the album, came up with the words for this one, while Nishimatsu and Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）worked on the romantic French music (aside from a bit of City Pop midway) together with Inoue once again providing arrangement. I could imagine if there had been a music video, it would have had Nishimatsu dancing around in tuxedo, hat and cane like Charles Boyer. Once again, there is that hint of what he would do on "Bouekifu Monogatari" except that "Michelet Dori" is a straight jazz interpretation without the synths.

As I mentioned all the way up at the top, I could only find one more bonus track which was, "Hishou ~ Never End"（飛翔...Flight）, the theme song to the 1983 anime motion picture treatment of "Crusher Joe". Although I wouldn't say that this would have been a fit for "Bouekifu Monogatari", it does have that epic ballad vibe to span the cosmos. The singer is officially known as Kazuhiro Nishimatsu by ARAGON and he was responsible for the melody. Meanwhile, the lyrics were by Fukuoka Prefecture-born poet Ryuichiro Fujiwara（藤原龍一郎）under the pseudonym Tsukihiko Fujiwara（藤原月彦）.

Yes, those were indeed good times with "Good Times", but I'm now going through tired times after today's bunch of articles so I will call it a night. See you tomorrow!

Akira Terao -- The Stolen Memories

 

Another warm one today. But anyways, good to have you all for a bit of urban contemporary this Friday on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". Hope you can stay a while.

If anyone asks me about actor and singer-songwriter Akira Terao（寺尾聰）, I'll always think of his laconic down-home form of City Pop from the early 1980s such as "Shukkou Sasurai" (舟航～SASURAI) among other metropolitan music that he's come up with. So, it's with some fascination when I hear the material from his February 1987 4th album "Standard", especially that opening track, "The Stolen Memories".

Tamami Shaku（釈珠実）came up with the English lyrics for Terao to quickly croon. The words almost seem to describe a story from a sci-fi film noir along the lines of "Blade Runner" as a man tries to remember a woman (and fails) who's left a deep impression but what that impression is escapes him. If a movie had ever been made of this, I think Terao would have been the star for sure.

Composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）and guitarist-arranger Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）were behind the nighttime strutting and plucky melody that feels like a late 1980s City Pop although there is a reminder of where Terao came from, musically speaking, with that wailing electric guitar. For anyone like me who's wondered how the actor/singer would handle another form of City Pop, I can happily lead them to "The Stolen Memories".

Tsuyoshi Kon -- Zig-Zag

 

I've gone through enough liner notes for various Japanese pop albums in the 1970s and 1980s to recognize the famous musicians helping out any singer or band. There's saxophonist Jake H. Concepcion, chorus group EVE and keyboardist Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）. Another musician that I've seen and can identify easily through his very brief two-kanji full name is veteran guitarist Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）.

Kon hails from Hokkaido and began his career in the late 1970s just as the Japanese fusion boom was beginning. At the tender age of 18, he helped form the band Panta & Hal in 1977 and then also joined the supergroup Parachute with drummer Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）, fellow guitarist Masaki Matsubara（松原正樹）and keyboardist Akira Inoue（井上鑑）. Throughout his long career, he's worked everyone from Akira Terao（寺尾聰）to Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）, and for those two singers, he was involved in their big hits "Ruby no Yubiwa"（ルビーの指輪）and "Automatic" respectively.

In July 1980, Kon released his first solo album "Studio Cat" which was produced by the aforementioned Hayashi. The first track is "Zig-Zag" which was created and performed by the man himself as a good-time sparkling and rollicking tune heading down the Ventura Freeway. Sounds like he's going at about 100 mph along the West Coast with his buddies which include Hayashi, keyboardist Mark Jordan and synthesizer operator Michael Boddicker.

Kazuhiro Nishimatsu -- Good Times

As the adage goes, "Don't judge a book by its cover".

My semi-annual purchases of CDs went off without a hitch and among them is Kazuhiro Nishimatsu's（西松一博）debut album "Good Times". And I definitely have had some good times with this one, but my assumptions that this was a totally City Pop album were rather like a sieve trying to hold water. In fact, this wasn't the only disc that had that sort of revelation but I'll talk about that one later next week.

Commenter Matt and I were talking about Nishimatsu's second album from 1985, "Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）, and I could describe that one as a techno-cabaret with the singer-songwriter holding court in his own nightclub on Coruscant. From listening to "My Last Lady" and "Crescent Night"（クレッセント・ナイト）from his first album for which I've already provided articles and that cover of Nishimatsu in sunglasses, skinny black tie and sharp gray suit, my natural assumption was that "Good Times" was all about the Japanese metropolitan music circa 1980s.

Well, not exactly. Actually, "Good Times" has a fairly interesting mix of other genres along with the City Pop/AOR. In fact, the title track and Nishimatsu's debut single "Good Times" is more of a hint of what he would provide in his second album. Composed by the singer and written by Chii Uchida（内田栞）and Aki Fukunaga*（福永史）, this is a song that Toshikazu Kanazawa（金澤寿和）from lightmellow.com referred to as old-timey in the liner notes for the remastered album. I would heartily agree. The setting for "Good Times" would have Nishimatsu wearing a brown derby and playing away on an upright piano in some 1920s bar in New York or Berlin. Heck, there's even a bunch of fellows giving some "La-la-las" as the song fades away.

*That first name has a number of readings for both men and women so I'm taking a wild guess here. Once again, if anyone knows the correct reading for the lyricist, please let me know.

"Back Street" still retains some of that old-timey but there's also some nighttime jazz. Moreover, I can even hear a bit of City Pop and perhaps a tad of Billy Joel's "The Stranger" in there, too. In "Back Street" and the other tracks, I think that although Nishimatsu has shown the ability to go really high in his vocals, he can also provide some low growl in his voice a bit on the Tom Waits side of things, if not quite down to Waits' level. Overall, it has that sound of how some of the 1970s pop singers over here in North America were interpreting some of that jazz in their pop songs. Kumiko Tomoi（友井久美子）provided the words while Nishimatsu and Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）composed the music. Incidentally, both this one and the song below get cut off before the end.

Kanazawa refers to this track "Moon Island" as having some of that Phil Spector style although there isn't that famous Wall of Sound. It's a relaxing and sun-dappled number contemporary AOR featuring some of those higher tones from Nishimatsu, and is worthy of some Corona while listening to it. Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）and the singer were behind this one.

Since I did get the remastered version, there were six bonus tracks included onto the original album. One of those extra songs came through his Aragon days and is quite different from the tone of "Good Times". This would be "Bloodbath Highway" created by Nishimatsu and lyricist LEO. In contrast to the horror-hinting title, this was an image song for the anime motion picture "Crusher Joe" from 1985, and it has a poppy New Wave vibe.

Another one of the bonus tracks and my last video for the article is "Saiteru Otoko no"（咲いてるオトコの...Man In Bloom）which was Nishimatsu's 4th single from 1983. Unlike the other tracks, Nishimatsu had nothing to do with its creation which was left to lyricist Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）and composer Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロー）. This is somewhat of a frenetic number done in a tango-esque style that was also used as the campaign song for a car commercial, apparently.

I would have loved to have covered some of the other tracks on "Good Times" since they were also created by folks such as Etsuko & Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）and Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and further reflect some of the genres that have been heard here. Plus, most of the tracks were arranged by Akira Inoue and Tsuyoshi Kon（井上鑑・今剛）. However, they aren't currently on YouTube or on any other video platform so I hope that they appear someday. In the meantime, then, I can say that "Good Times" is an enjoyably variegated first album by Nishimatsu which is also a prelude to what I will look forward to in "Bouekifu Monogatari" (still haven't got it...yet).

June 17, 2022: I have a follow-up for "Good Times".