Yujiro Ishihara -- Sabita Knife（錆びたナイフ）

 

Somewhere out there, Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）is welcoming his older brother, Shintaro, and proposing a drink together with Tetsuya Watari（渡哲也）.

When I woke up this morning, I found out that Shintaro Ishihara（石原慎太郎）, author and former governor of Tokyo (1999-2012), had passed away at the age of 89. He was indeed the guy in charge of the area where I worked for most of my second go-around as an English teacher, and it was interesting realizing that he acted like a taciturn and often cranky Showa Era father during the Heisei Era. To be honest, I wasn't a fan of his opinions on history and people outside of Japan, but feel free to take a look at his Wikipedia article from the link above.

But that's all I'll say here. In any case, let me segue to his younger brother, Yujiro Ishihara. I'm going back to his early years when he was the young tough guy, an archetype of the people that he and his police squads used to pursue in the 70s and 80s when he was Da Chief in shows like "Taiyo ni Hoero"（太陽にほえろ）.

"Sabita Knife" (Rusty Knife) was a 1958 movie that Ishihara starred in, and it's been described in its own Wikipedia article as a Japanese film noir in which he plays an ex-con out for revenge against the gang responsible for the rape and subsequent suicide of his girlfriend. There's one scene above shown in the montage which he had a hungry face of hate and glee, something that I'd never seen before as an expression since I have been so accustomed to his older face of wisdom and calm in character as a chief of detectives.

The theme song by Ishihara, also known as "Sabita Knife" was apparently released a bit earlier in August 1957, so it's possible that the movie was produced around this song. Written by Shiro Hagiwara（萩原四朗）and composed by Kenroku Uehara（上原賢六）, "Sabita Knife" has that familiar combination of muted horns and mournful saxophones with the crooning voice of The Tough Guy, and I guess that sound might be the go-to arrangement for these songs fit for Japanese film noir: that tough march which seems to have a perpetual hangdog expression as the protagonist goes through an arduous ordeal in the search for justice or vengeance.

The song comes in at No. 7 within Ishihara's top-selling singles according to J-Wiki's list as it sold 1.75 million records.

Haruomi Hosono -- Peking Duck（北京ダック）

 

As Larry mentioned in his Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）article last night, indeed it is Chinese New Year, so I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Sorry that my photo of the tiger above didn't come out too well. I have a number of friends who have been celebrating over the past couple of days.

The timing couldn't have better since last night, I decided to go on a small shopping spree and get some CDs which includes the compilation album "Yokohama Fantasy"（横浜幻想）, a 2004 collection of Yokohama-themed kayo. It even has its own J-Wiki article and there I found a song having to do with one of the most famous neighbourhoods in one of Japan's premier port cities, Chinatown.

Now, nikala first wrote about Haruomi Hosono's（細野晴臣）3rd single "Peking Duck" when she contributed her article on Tin Pan Alley's "Yellow Magic Carnival". I just wanted to add some of my own notes to this April 1976 song by Harry who wrote, composed and arranged this playful ditty about a couple in love perhaps taking a walk through the rainy neon-filled streets of Chinatown, an area that I've also had a number of opportunities to visit. The music and arrangement has that mix of 1940s nightclub and 1970s contemporary style.

I also discovered a request through Reddit's translator community to give "Peking Duck" a go but there was also some confusion about what Hosono was trying to say, which I think was in a more metaphoric sense when it came to that duck. Hopefully, there wasn't a real duck attempting to flee a blaze in the area which would make the song considerably more tragic than the cheerful music. Instead, that fire could have been more representative of the regular hullaballoo in Chinatown, although perhaps that poor duck was indeed real as it jumped into the young lady's bosom to escape the cleaver.

The top video has the album version from Hosono's 2nd studio album "Tropical Dandy"（トロピカル・ダンディー）that came out in June 1975 (it hit No. 50 on Oricon). Meanwhile, the later single cut from 1976 above has even more of the Latin jazz orchestra flavour with former Happy End bandmate Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）on the electric guitar, Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）on the piano and clavinet, and Motoya Hamaguchi（浜口茂外也）on percussion.

Nakamori Akina - Namida no Katachi no Iyarinngu 中森明菜ー涙の形のイヤリング

 

While I was writing about North Wing (or Kita Wing 北ウイング) a few weeks ago, I discovered something new and interesting.

I always thought Refrain (リ・フ・レ・イ・ン) was the B side song of North Wing.  I was wrong.  When North Wing was initially released January 1, 1984, Namida no Katachi no Iyarinngu (涙の形のイヤリング) was on side B.  Then, on December 15 the same year, North Wing was released as a Special Double A-side Single (特別盤両A面シングル).  But they changed the B side song to Refrain!

If you're interested, you can go to Wikipedia for details.

Back to the song.  Namida no Katachi no Iyarinngu talks about a young girl whose boyfriend was also dating a more "mature woman".  They're driving around the sea shore and were about to break up.  The young girl kept crying and asked why he did not choose her.  She also remembered the earring she's wearing, whose shape resembled a teardrop, was her boyfriend's present.  It was like a bad omen leading to their break up.

Even though it's a sad song, the melody is a bit light hearted.  On the other hand, another B side song that I like, Nukumori 温り, which is also about break up, its music has a much darker mood that fits the moment.  Maybe I'll write about it in the future when I get the chance.  In fact, I like many B-side songs of Akina.

Today's Chinese New Year Eve in North America.  To all Chinese readers, Happy Chinese New Year! 恭喜發財！

Anri -- V.S. Space Power

 

Beijing's Winter Olympics are pretty much on our doorstep, so my memories go back to 1998 when the Winter Games were being held in Nagano Prefecture. How could I ever forget? It was also the time when I smashed my ankle at the Export-Import Bank of Japan going down the stairs and I was stuck at home for three weeks.😭 Fortunately, I was able to see the nation's ski jump team win Gold live as it happened because I was cooped up on my sofa.

One other thing that I remembered although the Opening Ceremonies took place before the accident was seeing singer-songwriter Anri（杏里）take to the stage to sing a song. But let's not remind ourselves that a lot of us are in a bitter winter. Instead, why not get that summer feeling that Eiko Kawashima usually brings us? Therefore, here is "V.S. Space Power" from her June 1990 No. 1 album "Mind Cruisin'".

I'll be honest when I say that on seeing that title for the first time, I was scratching my head for a while (luckily Head & Shoulders shampoo cleared that up). Was that nomenclature for some starship? Still, it was darn catchy and funky enough which her go-to triumvirate at the time in the late 80s going into the early 90s: herself as the composer, Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）as the lyricist and Yasuharu Ogura（小倉泰治）as the arranger, was handling here. As it turns out, once I finally read through Yoshimoto's lyrics, "V.S. Space Power" stands for "versus space power", as in encouraging those young lovers out there to not get caught in those fortune-telling traps (the titular space power) such as horoscopes and to rely on themselves to generate that sustainable love. 

Also, have a go at the title track for the album which later became the No. 5 album of the year.

Kouhei Fukuda -- Ichiban Maguro no Uta（一番マグロの謳）

 

Happy Monday! And it's certainly been a downright balmy start to the week at -6 degrees Celsius this morning. Didn't need a scarf, toque or gloves to get the errands done. I've even got the window open to get some fresh air into the room for the first time in several days.

Ah yes! The photo above is of a plate of scrumptious negitoro sushi that I had at that basically automatic kaiten sushi place in Yodobashi Akiba, the electronics emporium right by JR Akihabara Station. It's definitely one of my favourites and I haven't had one of those in years. If I ever return to Tokyo, I'm making a beeline to that place or any kaiten, really.

That is just the segue I need to introduce a really old-style robust enka to start off the week. "Ichiban Maguro no Uta" (Celebration of the No. 1 Maguro). I can smell the sweat and the sea spray as enka singer Kouhei Fukuda（福田こうへい）tears into this song of a fishing crew battling the cruel elements to get their hoard of tuna for market. Hearing this for the first time on "Uta Con"（うたコン）almost a couple of weeks ago, I began reminiscing about Saburo Kitajima's（北島三郎）muscular tunes of the rough-and-tumble fellow putting in a hard day's work no matter how Herculean the task.

While Akito Yomo（四方章人）provided the shamisen, proud trumpet, wailing electric guitar and the pounding drums, it was actually a prominent fisherman from the northern part of Japan, Yoshinobu or Yoshinori Kumagaya（熊谷義宣）*, who came up with the lyrics, and what better person to describe the battle between tuna and Man than a man who's always in the thick of it himself? "Ichiban Maguro no Uta" broke into the Top 10 by hitting No. 5 after its release on New Year's Day this year.

(short version)

*I had enough trouble trying to find the readings for the first name but the family name has even more readings, and I couldn't find any hiragana transcription for the kanji or hear any introductions of the fisherman on the videos. Therefore, if anyone can confirm what his name is, that would be greatly appreciated.

SPARKLING☆CHERRY -- Windy Rain

 

Had a nice conversation with Rocket Brown from "Come Along Radio" today in which we talked about the possibilities of me finally visiting him in the Los Angeles area someday once COVID has been wrestled under control. Sushi and ramen would be great; maybe even catch a City Pop dance party since I am keenly interested in observing how people would shimmy to City Pop. Of course at my age, if some of those young fans ever caught me on the floor, they would most likely go "Wow! He must have gone to school with some of those singers!".

Ooh! I think I'll just slink on back to my table and order another Metamucil with a cherry on top. 😦

As I said in "Happy 10th Anniversary, Kayo Kyoku Plus!", I've been happy to have become friends with Rocket Brown since we've been able to talk on our favourite genre, I've been able to be a guest on "Come Along Radio" a few times and also because he's been able to recommend some good new artists to me. One such band that he was able to introduce me to is SPARKLING☆CHERRY which can be considered to be one of the Neo-City Pop crowd along the lines of Hitomitoi（一十三十一）, Ryusenkei（流線形）and Blue Peppers（ブルー・ペパーズ）among other contemporary groups.

But one interesting point is that the artistic people who have been involved with this Neo-City Pop band were involved with the original City Pop decades ago. SPARKLING☆CHERRY, which started up in 2014, has had music journalist Toshikazu Kanazawa（金澤寿和）, who has helped out on the "Light Mellow" CD project and has his own blog on the lighter and mellower stuff from both sides of the Pacific, has been the executive producer. Also, in the last 8 years, the band has had guest performers and songwriters helping out in any which way including guitarist Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）, Kingo Hamada（濱田金吾）and Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）. The core of this band, by the way, consists of vocalist Cherry, bassist yoshiro and keyboardist Takashi Aoki with special member drummer Masahiro Miyazaki（宮崎まさひろ）.

Their 4th and most recent album is "Windy" which was released in December 2021, and I have here one of the tracks "Windy Rain". Written and composed by Cherry, the aforementioned Hamada and SPARKLING☆CHERRY handled the arrangement with Hamada even contributing his electric guitar skills to the song. As I informed Rocket, the first 14 seconds of the song got me hook, line and sinker! It just seems as if all of those various City Pop elements which I've encountered over the years assembled to create "Windy Rain": that thin veil of Steely Dan, the 80s AOR/soul/disco feeling, some PAZZ-ivity, the boppy bass, and Cherry's vocals that remind me a bit of EPO and Hitomitoi.

CD Japan has been nagging me again on those points. Use them or lose them! Well, I'll put them to good use tonight on "Windy" and a few more albums including Blue Peppers' recent "Symphony". We all raised KKP to pre-teen levels so I think that I deserve a little parenting reward in terms of new CDs.

10th Anniversary Special: It's The Numbers, Baby

 

It may be a 10th Anniversary Special, but this one isn't quite as sentimental as the previous two articles. The thought that had invaded my head was that since we're celebrating the number of years that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" has been in existence in the wonderful world of cyberspace, why not devote one article to the "numbered" kayo? So, as one fellow who I follow on YouTube has said: Let's make this, shall we?

Noriyuki Makihara -- No. 1

Pedro & Capricious -- Go-ban Gai no Mari e (五番街のマリーへ）

Akina Nakamori -- Jikai (1984) (十戒 (1984))

Saori Minami -- Juu-nana Sai （17才）

Yumi Matsutoya -- 78

(Vocaloid cover version)

Yellow Magic Orchestra -- 1000 Knives

Takao Horiuchi -- Kimi no Hitomi wa Ichi-man Boruto （君のひとみは 10000 ボルト）

Hiromi Go -- Ni-Oku Yon-Sen-Man no Hitomi (2億4千万の瞳）