Air Suspension Club Band -- Jack in the Box

Happy Monday! I've got no idea who the members were in this supposedly one-off project called Air Suspension Club Band, but according to this track "Jack in the Box" from their sole 1982 album "Another World", these guys knew how to funk.

The greatest information that I could find on ASCB is from the Ondas Record Store, and that was only to point out that the band was into fusion boogie. In any case "Jack in the Box" is a nice way to get out of those Sunday night "Oh, woe is me...back to work tomorrow" blues and get back into the swing of things. Along with the funk, there are some of those dreamy passages that take listeners into the sky, and then the clip-cloppy percussion that start and finish the song off.

Daisuke Shima/Yokohama Ginbae -- Otoko no Kunshou（男の勲章）

In my years living in Japan, I did have a very few sightings of yakuza in the some of the entertainment districts of Tokyo and there were the annual appearances of the ultra-rightists making tons of noise around Ueno Station on one day over Golden Week. But I never caught any sight of the bosozoku（暴走族）...the motorcycle gangs of pompadoured young toughs rumbling through the streets and highways. I occasionally used to hear the sound of motorcycle engines way off in the distance when I went to sleep in Ichikawa, but...happily...I never encountered these guys in person. Well, considering that I never learned how to drive, I think any chances of encountering them were pretty much negligible to begin with.

Over the years watching TV there, I did learn that there had been a few folks who came from the bosozoku or other forms of delinquent gangs to become tarento or actors or singers. One such fellow is Daisuke Shima（嶋大輔）who was born in Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan but became part of a bike gang in his teens around in the southern part of Kanagawa Prefecture in the Kanto. However, according to the Nihon Eiga Jinmei Jiten（日本映画人名事典...Japan Movie Biographical Dictionary）in 1996, Shima was at a Yokohama Ginbae（横浜銀蝿）concert where he was smoking in a public washroom. It just so happened that the president of the production company handling the band was there at the same time, gave him a scolding and then scouted him into show business (that was quite the stick-and-carrot approach). Shima became a younger brother of sorts to the band.

He got his first acting gig on television in 1981 in the TBS series "Akane-san no O-Bento"（茜さんのお弁当...Akane's Box Lunch） but then made his debut as a singer the following year. A couple of months later in April 1982, his second single "Otoko no Kunshou" (A Man's Honour) got him his first big break.

The reason that I'm writing about this is that I heard the song being performed by the enka aidoru group Junretsu（純烈）on last week's "Uta Con"（うたコン）, and I automatically remembered the melody. Although I did say at the top, I would never want to be in a dark alley facing any one member of a bosozoku, let alone an entire gang, there is still a certain poignancy listening to "Otoko no Kunshou" with the wailing 50s-style guitars and good old-time rock-and-roll while watching Shima in that huge hair twisting away. In recent years, the only time that I've seen anyone looking like that has been in Yoyogi Park next to an ancient ghetto blaster. In a way, "Otoko no Kunshou", a tribute to the life of a biker, reflects one aspect of my observation of Japanese pop culture in the early 80s.

The song peaked at No. 3 on Oricon and sold close to 400,000 records, becoming Shima's biggest hit as a singer. It would become the 25th-ranked single of 1982. "Otoko no Kunshou" was also used as the theme for the NTV drama "Ama made Agare!"（天まであがれ!...Get Up To Heaven!）which also starred Shima.

"Otoko no Kunshou" was written and composed by Johnny who was the guitarist and vocalist for The Crazy Rider Yokohama Ginbae Rolling Special (and is now a senior executive for King Records under his real name, Masato Asanuma), the official name for Yokohama Ginbae. The band did their own cover of the song in their 1983 album "Bucchigiri R"（ぶっちぎりR...Breaking Away Reverse）.

Then, Shima revisited his big hit in 2003. He was a little paunchier (please don't kill me, Mr. Shima, sir) but the pompadour and voice are still there.

Keiko Nose -- Hadashi de Young Love（裸足でヤングラブ）

As much as there has been a backlog of parcels and mail due to these rotating Canada Post strikes over the past month, I've had somewhat of a backlog of bookmarks for YouTube videos of songs that I have wanted to feature. Slowly but surely, I'm starting to plow through and get them shown on the blog.

One theme that has cropped up in my own backlog is that of the many unsung aidoru who came and went during the 1970s and 1980s. I've shown some of them already and here is another one by the name of Keiko Nose（能瀬慶子）. Born in 1963 in Chiba Prefecture but raised in Bunkyo Ward in Tokyo, according to the Shukan Asahi journal from 1979, she had been selected from 38,700 girls in the Hori Pro Talent Scout Caravan contest in 1978 while she was in high school.

Making her first appearance in show business as an actress, she later made her debut as an aidoru in January 1979 with "Attention, Please"（アテンション・プリーズ）which was composed by Shogo Hamada（浜田省吾）. Then, her second single (and topic of this article), this time written and composed by Hamada, was "Hadashi de Young Love" (Barefoot Young Love) was released just a few months later in April. A typically summery and breezy aidoru tune that is of its time (memories of very early Seiko Matsuda come to mind), "Hadashi de Young Love" has those middling-but-cute aidoru vocals by Nose with some interesting 50s beach party sax thrown in there.

Nose would release two more singles and one album before she retired from the industry at the age of 20 in 1983. She married a musician and raised three children.

Monday Michiru -- Sands of Time

A rather damp and dreary final November 2018 day in Toronto. Pity, actually...I was hoping for something a bit more positive, meteorologically speaking.

Well, what Saturday J-Canuck cannot provide can perhaps be alleviated by Monday Michiru（Monday満ちる）via her 2008 album "Nexus". Specifically, I am referring to her track "Sands of Time", which is this gorgeous R&B walk in the park on a sunny day. The video certainly exemplifies that. I can only fantasize walking in such a lovely New York neighbourhood when compared to the not-so exciting area around my home.

Monday Michiru wrote and composed "Sands of Time" which I believe talks about all of the ups and downs to be had in life. The singer-songwriter just makes it sound much more upbeat and fun. I've sometimes hoped aloud that this sort of soul could make its way back into Japanese music at large, but perhaps all I have to do is dig deeper among the current stock of J-Pop.

L⇔R -- Knockin' On Your Door

Toronto Buddhist Church

I remember seeing the video for "Knockin' On Your Door" countless times on shows such as "Music Station" and "Countdown TV"; it was quite the longtime resident on the singles charts but at the time, I had never really gotten into the song or the band that was performing it, L⇔R. First off, my big question was how to pronounce that name. As it turned out, it was just a simple "L, R"; apparently, the double-headed arrow was silent.

At this time in the mid-1990s, guitar-based pop-rock bands seemed to be all the rage in Japan, so I've placed L⇔R in the same company as groups such as Mr. Children and Spitz, and listening to "Knockin' On Your Door" again after so many years, which was their 7th single from May 1995, I got a hint that there was a bit of that Beatles influence. Plus, seeing the video again has brought in some nostalgia, to boot. I will never enter an old building again without thinking of that video although I think I will be able to refrain from knocking on one of the doors.

"Knockin' On Your Door" is an uptempo romantic serenade for that special woman, and it also acted as the theme song for the Fuji-TV comedy-drama "Bokura ni Ai wo!"（僕らに愛を！...Give Us Love!）. Written and composed by vocalist/guitarist Kenichi Kurosawa（黒沢健一）, it became the band's biggest hit by going all the way to No. 1, becoming a million-seller, and ending up as the 16th-ranked single for 1995.

As for L⇔R, it had a 7-year run between 1990 and 1997 with 13 singles and 7 albums under its belt. Joining Kurosawa was his younger brother Hideki（黒沢秀樹）and then bassist Hiroharu Kinoshita（木下裕晴）. A former member who had left several months before "Knockin' On Your Door" was Takako Minekawa（嶺川貴子）as the keyboardist.

One thing that I had been curious about was how the band got its unique name. From an interview on the music show "HEY!HEY!HEY!MUSIC CHAMP" via the J-Wiki article on the band, when L⇔R was coalescing, all of the members and a producer agreed that the name should be something resembling a signal of some kind, and one day, while everyone was in the studio, one of the folks at least was looking at the mixing console and saw the left and right channels (L and R) for the audio, and apparently a 💡went off (figuratively). At least, that is one of the theories bandied about on the show but it was never made conclusively clear.

Sad to finish this article this way, but unfortunately Kenichi Kurosawa passed away almost a couple of years ago in December 2016 at the age of 48.

Sing Like Talking -- Maboroshi ni Koi suru Hibi（幻に恋する日々）

I wasn't quite sure about the meaning of the title for this Sing Like Talking ballad, "Maboroshi ni Koi suru Hibi", so I just threw it into the Google Translate for laughs, and got "Every Day I Fall in Love with Visions". Strangely enough, I kinda reacted with "Hm...not too bad".

https://music.apple.com/jp/album/togetherness/1536351667

(excerpt only)

Well, my reaction to the actual song was quite a bit more enthusiastic since Sing Like Talking is one of my favourite bands, and they've usually come up with the goods for fans of smooth urban contemporary music in Japan. This track from their 7th original album "togetherness" (April 1994) is another round of soulful evening goodness to me led by Chikuzen Sato's（佐藤竹善）wonderful singing, as he relates his bandmate Chiaki Fujita's（藤田千章）lyrics about a man wringing his hands at the loss of his love. Sato came up with the silky melody. The whole song reminds me of the good ol' days of folks like Anita Baker and DeBarge.

"togetherness" also has the great dynamic track "Together" which was the very first article on the band that I provided for "Kayo Kyoku Plus". The album did hit the No. 1 mark on Oricon.

Yoshie Kashiwabara/Chika Takami -- Shinobi Ai（し・の・び・愛）

By kismet, I guess this article could be considered to be a sequel to a couple of other articles with one being a slightly more distant cousin of sorts. Earlier today, I had written about the City Pop tune "Tawamure no Koi no Mama ni"（たわむれの恋のままに）whose refrain sounded fairly similar to the one for the song of this article here. And since I didn't want to leave readers hanging, I've decided to write on it tonight. The other cousin is the article that I'd written was "Osaka Tsubame"（大阪つばめ）just in the last several minutes, simply because 80s aidoru Yoshie Kashiwabara（柏原芳恵）is a born-and-bred Osakan herself.

"Shinobi Ai" is Yoshie Kashiwabara's 23rd single from September 1985. According to the J-Wiki article on the song and its lyrics that fairly scream "TAKE ME, I'M YOURS!" (well, not so loudly), the theme is about having an illicit affair. I was trying to figure out the meaning of shinobi in this case since the title is written in hiragana and depending on the different kanji, the definitions are quite different. If it's read as 「偲ぶ」, then it could mean "nostalgic" but the other kanji 「忍ぶ」could refer to "concealed" or "enduring". Frankly, I would go with the latter. The above is of Yoshie-chan's 2nd appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen singing "Shinobi Ai".

I do like the original recorded version for the single. "Shinobi Ai" has that hint of City Pop in it and that breathy synthesizer intro adds some sultriness to the atmosphere. Plus, the arrangement (especially with the backing chorus) makes it sound like a ballad that Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）could have performed at that time as well. The song peaked at No. 9 on Oricon and also got onto her 12th studio album of the same name from October 1985. That release got as high as No. 17.

Surprises are always welcomed on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" when it comes to writing about songs here. For example, the lyricist and composer for the song is Toshihiko Takamizawa（高見沢俊彦）, one of the members from rock band ALFEE, and I found out here that Kashiwabara had actually provided a cover and not an original song. The original version was actually recorded all the way back in November 1979 as a B-side for Chika Takami's（高見知佳）5th single, "Cezanne no E"（セザンヌの絵...A Cezanne Painting）, and that original was titled "Shinobi Ai ~ Don't Leave Me Alone" with a different set of kanji（しのび逢い...Secret Encounter[?]）.

Although the lyrics are the same, the song here by Takami sounds more melancholy, innocent, folksy and 70s...perhaps as if the lovers are high school kids in a Romeo & Juliet situation sneaking off for a double-straw milkshake in a café on the other side of town. No idea how well the single did, but I'm glad to know of the song's original existence.