Shoukichi Kina & Champloose/Makoto Kubota & Yuyake Gakudan -- Haisai Ojisan（ハイサイおじさん）

It's rather amazing what I can find within a span of a few hours. I've said it before on the blog and it's happened again.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCppDP4y1L-5TWttVOkBDm7A

I dropped in at New J Channel's 24-hour broadcast of City Pop/J-AOR stuff as I do everyday and encountered one song by singer-musician Makoto Kubota（久保田麻琴）that sounded awfully familiar with its Okinawan twang. Didn't take me too long to figure it out either.

There was an episode of one of my favourite anime this decade, "Joshiraku"（じょうしらく）in which the character of Marii took some medicine for an agonizing toothache, and well, let's say it worked all too well on her. I had always thought that the music director for the show came up with the Okinawan festival jaunt.

Well, I found out that was probably not the case. I'm not particularly a fan of Okinawan music but even I have heard of Shoukichi Kina（喜納昌吉）who I think is one of the most famous musicians of the genre in the last several decades. Kina's debut single with his band Champloose（チャンプルーズ）was "Haisai Ojisan" (Hey, Old Man). Now, depending on either the J-Wiki article for the song itself or the Wikipedia article for Kina, the year of the song may vary. According to Wikipedia, "Haisai Ojisan", which was apparently created by Kina when he was in junior high school, was released in 1972. However, the J-Wiki article claims that the Okinawan record company Marufuku Records released the single in 1976.

"Haisai Ojisan" which is a cute little bit of banter between the old man and a boy became a big hit right off the bat for Kina as it sold 300,000 records. Initially, though, it was criticized as not being a true Okinawan folk song but over the years, it has been accepted as such and even as an example of Kachāshī, a festive form of Okinawan dance.

The one that I heard on J-Channel tonight is the above version by Makoto Kubota & Yuyake Gakudan（久保田麻琴と夕焼け楽団）which has a bit of an AOR intro before the familiar Okinawan melody (with a bit of Hawaiian added) comes in. His cover was on his 1975 album "Hawaii Champloo"（ハワイ・チャンプルー）.

To finish off, I found out from the J-Wiki article on "Haisai Ojisan" that one of the most famous characters by veteran comedian Ken Shimura（志村けん）based his silly theme dance on the song. The character is Henna Ojisan（変なおじさん...Strange Man） who appeared on Shimura's long-running Monday-night variety show "Shimura Ken no Daijoubu da"（志村けんのだいじょうぶだぁ...Ken Shimura's Everything's OK）. To think that I had watched that shtick for so many years and I only discovered the source tonight. Talk about your pop cultural connections!

Jigoku no Sata All-Stars -- Dai! Jigo Jigo Bushi（大！地獄地獄節）

I've been watching the second season of the anime "Hoozuki no Reitetsu"（鬼灯の冷徹...Hozuki's Coolheadedness）, a sardonic poke at the afterlife in Hell. I caught the first couple of episodes at my anime buddy's place last year and he even gave me a copy of the season. Frankly it hasn't been my cup of ocha after 4 episodes but it's OK enough for me to get through the entire run. Never saw the first season.

Having said that, the opening theme for that second season has become a fair earworm (Ji~go, ji~go). "Dai! Jigo Jigo Bushi" (Great! Hell Hell Dance) sounds like a countrified Japanese festival tune that the cast had a fun time recording. It was done by the Jigoku no Sata All-Stars（地獄の沙汰オールスターズ...Hell's Affairs All-Stars）consisting of seiyuu Hiroki Yasumoto（安元洋貴）, Takashi Nagasako（長嶝高士）, Yumiko Kobayashi（小林由美子）, Hiroki Goto（後藤ヒロキ）, Takashi Matsuyama（松山鷹志）, Satomi Sato（佐藤聡美）, Yui Ogura（小倉唯）, Atsumi Tanezaki（種崎敦美）and the Japanese ska band YOUR SONG IS GOOD.

Was trying to find the full version but even seeing some of the cover versions and karaoke takes, it seems like "Dai! Jigo Jigo Bushi" was only meant to be a minute-and-a-half. Perhaps the full version was too devilishly taxing for everyone involved. Anyways, it was written and composed by YOUR SONG IS GOOD member Jun "JxJx" Saito（サイトウ "JxJx" ジュン）with further work on the lyrics by Gokusotsu Ongaku Renmei（獄卒音楽連盟...Devils Music Alliance）.

This version was uploaded by the Anison Kan Copy MIDI Seisaku (Omage)（アニソン完コピMIDI製作「おまげ」）.

Miki Ishioka -- My Life（マイ・ライフ）

I discovered this song during one of my usual sojourns through YouTube a number of months ago but only found the opportunity to put it up today. This is Miki Ishioka's（石岡美紀）"My Life".

Writing the blog all these years, I've been realizing some of the trends that were happening over the decades with one of them being the sophisticated pop from female singers and songwriters in the late 1980s going into the early 1990s. Perhaps with "My Life", I've come to the realization that the first half of the 1990s was a period of heartwarming pop ballads for some of these singer-songwriters. I think that would make for a nice little refresher genre considering that the time was also filled with a lot of guitar pop-rock bands and the advent of the Komuro Boom.

"My Life" was the final song for what would be Ishioka's final album to date, "In My Life" from June 1995. Ishioka wrote the lyrics and Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）came up with the music which would also hint at some of the pop ballads from America of the 1980s. It was Yamakawa's work that got me to listen to this one a lot more since Ishioka doesn't have the strongest vocals here.

As for Ishioka, the Tokyo-born singer and songwriter got into music and dance at an early age, and during her elementary school years, she was drawn to the music of Pink Lady（ピンク・レディー）and Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）. However, on watching the American comedy "The Monkees" (as I did), she also became interested in Western music, and became impressed with The Eagles and Linda Ronstadt.

Ishioka released 9 singles, 5 albums and 2 mini-albums in the 1990s. The singer also became a flamenco dancer, and in fact, she has opened her own flamenco school in Tokyo.

B'z -- Easy Come, Easy Go!

Time for some of that B'z sound once more, and for today, this will be through the duo's 6th single "Easy Come, Easy Go!"

Released in October 1990, and of course, written by vocalist Koshi Inaba（稲葉浩志）and composed by guitarist Takahiro Matsumoto（松本孝弘）, I was reading in the J-Wiki article on the song about how there was opposition from people around the duo about making this an actual single, and apparently there were record and CD shops when the powers-that-be were making visits to them to campaign for "Easy Come, Easy Go!" that simply remarked that the song was too blah to sell successfully.

I gather with that story behind it, this single was well-named then. To be frank, "Easy Come, Easy Go!" isn't exactly my favourite B'z song with other singles such as "Bad Communication" and "Love Phantom" easily ranking over this one. What it has is the remembered title and the nostalgic aspect of the melody in a "Aw, yeah...I remember this one!" sort of way.

Still, "Easy Come, Easy Go!" proved the naysayers wrong. It went Platinum, hitting the No. 1 spot on Oricon and staying there for 3 straight weeks, the first B'z single to hang in there on top for more than 2 weeks. Selling over 470,000 copies, it ended up as the 28th-ranked single of 1990. It also ended up on a number of albums, the first one being "Risky", B'z's 4th original album from November 1990 which also hit No. 1. The album quickly ranked in at No. 26 on the annual charts for that year and even became the 10th-ranked release for 1991. Still hung in there for 1992 as well by charting in at No. 50. Becoming a million-seller was pretty much fait accompli.

The single was re-released in 2003 and charted in at No. 7.

First Brand -- The Other Side of Life

Gotta say that this may be one of the most obscure bands or singers, if not the most obscure band or singer, that I've ever come across in my travels through this blog. And that's saying something considering I just wrote an article about another singer deep in the underwater part of the iceberg earlier tonight.

I had to search like crazy through the Net and all I was able to find about this band First Brand was through auction sites and a Tower Records Japan description of a Light Mellow series CD that I have yet to add to my collection. From Tower, I found out that First Brand had initially acted as the backup band of 7 musicians for singer Yuki Okazaki（岡崎友紀）who had just come back from wedding hiatus around 1980~1981.

From the same site and those auction sites, I discovered that First Brand put out their one and only album "Lovers In Office" in 1981, but I am not sure whether the song above is the actual title track or one of the other songs from the album. The Light Mellow CD "Wing" has the track "The Other Side of Life" included so it may be that one which is represented on the YouTube video (indeed it is, so I have made the correction above). Whatever the case may be, this particular track (sound quality isn't great) definitely has a Steely Dan vibe to it which is something that was also mentioned in the Tower description about them. The description also pondered whether First Brand had walked along the same path as current acts such as Kirinji and Tomita Lab.

I do wonder but I'm rather intrigued about getting "Wing" now. I'm also quite impressed by the fact that I've come across the only Japanese pop song to namedrop Neil Simon and Mel Brooks.

Gamu -- Gin'iro no Joukei（銀色の情景）

I wrote about the band Gamu（雅夢）all the way back in 2014 since Kazuto Miura（三浦和人）and Toshikazu Nakagawa（中川敏一）had created their most famous hit "Ai wa Kagero"（愛はかげろう）, one of those wistful numbers that can bring back the memories of yesteryear for a certain generation. The thing is that perhaps bands like Gamu could be perceived as being one-hit wonders since nothing has been known before or after that one big success.

It shouldn't stop folks from checking out their material, though. Certainly I will say this especially after discovering this lovely number from their first album from April 1981 "Yume Tsuzuri"（夢つづり...Dream Weaving）which also has "Ai wa Kagero".

"Gin'iro no Joukei" (Silver Spectacle) bears comparison with "Ai wa Kagero" since while the latter is this classic pop/folk song, the former takes things straight into City Pop. It feels like a song to be heard in a cafe/bar along the Ginza with some rain outside to take the edge off. Along with the downtown piano, I really like the chorus and the strings backing Gamu up...it seems to add a more sophisticated air and when I first heard it, I thought it sounded ahead of its time of 1981. Despite the downtown aspect, it also has that dreamy quality.

While Miura composed the music here, this time the lyrics were written by Haruaki Kato（夏冬春秋）, and the song deals with heartbreak in the rain.

From a quick glance of their BEST compilation, "Gin'iro no Joukei" isn't even placed there so perhaps "Yume Tsuzuri" may be the only source to find this song. Let us hope for remastering and re-release.

Yoko Oda -- Sunset Lonely Girl（サンセット・ロンリー・ガール）

Not a bad start to May, if I may say so myself. Reasonably warm temperatures and darn sunny out there. Will not complain and I'm hoping that April took the last of this very long winter with it.

Found another video by a singer who has been unearthed from the submerged nine-tenths portion of that huge iceberg of old Japanese pop. Yoko Oda（小田陽子）has a very limited J-Wiki entry which basically only consists of her discography and then media appearances. Plus, her website has been erased.

What I could find out was that she comes from Osaka and made her debut in 1982, releasing 5 singles up to 1986 and 5 albums including her latest in 2006. The song here is "Sunset Lonely Girl" from her September 1988 3rd album "Half-Swing Romance". In a way, this melancholy ballad reflects the fact that she's become a bit of a mystery lady (her haunting vocals help out there), and I enjoy the song for its arrangement bringing together elements of European jazz and some late 1980s Japanese sophisticated pop. Perhaps I can venture the theory that this could have been the sort of song that Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）could have released if she had continued on her European pop sense from the late 1970s and early 1980s.

There were some pretty big names behind this song in itself. Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）wrote the lyrics with Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）providing the gently lilting melody. According to the information for the YouTube video, Suzuki himself was also on the guitar with Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）even providing backing vocals.