metro trip -- Summer Days

 

Summer days are as far away as they can be right now when the temperatures outside of my home are closer to Absolute Zero and the winds are bearing down on us at about Warp One. It would be really nice for some of that sun and warmth to return but we'll probably have to wait a few more months.

Anyways, another vicarious attempt at the hot season will be granted here via the 2000s pop duo metro trip. "Summer Days" was written and composed by one-half of the pair, musician Taka Aoki（青木多果）, while his partner, vocalist Tomoka Hino（日野友香）, has a fine time singing the melody influenced by bossa nova and samba. And there is no hint of snow or ice in there at all. 😀The song shares track space with my first exposure to metro trip, "BABYBABY" on their debut full album "Tsuki to Drive" （月とドライブ...The Moon and The Drive） from January 2006.

Kids, you might want to recheck your seating in the car there!

metro trip -- Driving

 

Sunday evenings at 6 pm in Ichikawa usually meant dinner time for me. Television choices varied almost as much as my cooking at that time. Fuji-TV was always "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）, but there was also a program on TV Tokyo at the same time called "Drive A Go-Go!"（ドライブ A GO!GO!）.

Japanese TV will never fail to fascinate me when it comes to the breadth and depth of ideas and new angles to apply to programs based on edutainment. "Drive A Go-Go!" was a half-hour travelogue featuring tarento and other celebrities taking a drive together with one of the stars behind the wheel as the gang for that week (could number between three and five folks per episode) head for a certain area in Japan to explore and nosh. The above video is labeled as a 1998 episode and that's when "Drive A Go-Go!" began as it went through its odyssey of eighteen years. The duo above (if it doesn't get deleted) is the late singer-songwriter KAN and former aidoru Wakako Shimazaki（島崎和歌子）.

Of course, a long-running TV show like "Drive A Go-Go" will have had lots of ending themes by various bands and singers, and sure enough, somewhere in the middle of its run, the program had the duo metro trip come up with one such ending theme. I've already spoken on metro trip back in October when I introduced their tune "BABYBABY" from 2006. "Driving" hails from metro trip's 2nd and final album "Lovers" which was released in July 2007. Written and composed by one-half of the duo, Taka Aoki（青木多果）, it's a suitably breezy and funky piece for the highways and byways.

metro trip -- BABYBABY

                                          

I discovered another nifty group from that 2003 compilation "good compi" by abcdefg* record. It's the same collection where I found out about Sonic Coaster Pop and naivepop or petitfool. And as was the case with those two groups, I couldn't glean too information about the duo known as metro trip. 

They do have a J-Wiki file in which the following became known to me: metro trip consisted of vocalist Tomoka Hino（日野友香）from Tokyo and musician Taka Aoki（青木多果）from Mie Prefecture. They formed in 2000 and put out a couple of mini-albums and full albums each between 2004 and 2007. As well, metro trip also participated in other projects such as "good compi" but after that, the trail runs cold. Any external links to sites such as one for the group itself are dead.

Now, speaking of "good compi", metro trip's contribution to that album was "Dance Music"（ダンスミュージック）which I couldn't find elsewhere on YouTube, but I did find the music video for their "BABYBABY" that was the first track on the duo's first album from January 2006 "Tsuki to Drive" （月とドライブ...The Moon and The Drive）. A pretty catchy pop song, I could also pick up on some nice groove and maybe even a bit of Shibuya-kei. I've been to places in Japan that look like that café or restaurant in the video, but I don't think I've ever encountered a flash mob of dancers suddenly coming to life like that. It's just as well.