Natsukashi 80s bideopod!
Mar. 23rd, 2008 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusHere's a video podcast / playlist thing from a trawl through YouTube in which I was looking for "natsukashi bideos" from the 80s. The first one you'll have to click yourself to get to the YouTube page, embedding is disabled. It's Miharu Koshi in 1984, singing synthpop on a TV show. 懐メロ!
The Miharu Koshi I really love is her later 80s work with Haruomi Hosono, like this one, when she went all eccentric and arty and angular. But it's fascinating to see her as a more mainstream synthpopper earlier on. Here's her later mentor Hosono playing Flower Bird Wind Moon with Tomoko Yasuno (also non-embeddable) the same year.
If that's too low-key and schmaltzy for you (personally I love that sort of thing), try a bit of Phew, collaborating here with Can's Holger Czukay on a track called "Circuit":
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Phew was the vocalist in Japanese "no-wave" band Aunt Sally. Here she is after going solo and recording with Conny Plank in Cologne. This is "Finale", a 1980 song by Ryuichi Sakamoto:
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Sakamoto was, of course, in YMO with Hosono at this point. But Hosono was a man with his finger in many pies. Here's some video music he composed, given a disco treatment on an Emulator in 1984 (watch out for the spoof NHK interview midway through):
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Now it's time for a little diversion. Just because it's one of my favourite songs ever written, here's Holger Hiller's 1986 song "Oben im Eck" (featuring ghostly backing vocals from Billy Mackenzie):
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And here's a track from the 1981 Crepuscule Christmas album by Antena, a song called Noëlle a Hawai:
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I like the static video, because I love that Antena album sleeve (one of Benoit Hennebert's classics for Crepuscule). I could stare at it for hours.
Now, to come full circle and yet end somewhere completely unexpected, here's a Haruomi Hosono tribute with images and music by Wisut Ponnimit, a Thai animator now working in Kobe:
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The Miharu Koshi I really love is her later 80s work with Haruomi Hosono, like this one, when she went all eccentric and arty and angular. But it's fascinating to see her as a more mainstream synthpopper earlier on. Here's her later mentor Hosono playing Flower Bird Wind Moon with Tomoko Yasuno (also non-embeddable) the same year.
If that's too low-key and schmaltzy for you (personally I love that sort of thing), try a bit of Phew, collaborating here with Can's Holger Czukay on a track called "Circuit":
[Error: unknown template video]
Phew was the vocalist in Japanese "no-wave" band Aunt Sally. Here she is after going solo and recording with Conny Plank in Cologne. This is "Finale", a 1980 song by Ryuichi Sakamoto:
[Error: unknown template video]
Sakamoto was, of course, in YMO with Hosono at this point. But Hosono was a man with his finger in many pies. Here's some video music he composed, given a disco treatment on an Emulator in 1984 (watch out for the spoof NHK interview midway through):
[Error: unknown template video]
Now it's time for a little diversion. Just because it's one of my favourite songs ever written, here's Holger Hiller's 1986 song "Oben im Eck" (featuring ghostly backing vocals from Billy Mackenzie):
[Error: unknown template video]
And here's a track from the 1981 Crepuscule Christmas album by Antena, a song called Noëlle a Hawai:
[Error: unknown template video]
I like the static video, because I love that Antena album sleeve (one of Benoit Hennebert's classics for Crepuscule). I could stare at it for hours.
Now, to come full circle and yet end somewhere completely unexpected, here's a Haruomi Hosono tribute with images and music by Wisut Ponnimit, a Thai animator now working in Kobe:
[Error: unknown template video]
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Hikashu
Date: 2008-03-23 12:52 pm (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD7jZzjAQ-A
i love them very much, they are so static, and on the other hand the singer´s strange vibrato-voice.
Maybe we see each other on the Holger Hiller Tribute Festival in Berlin on day.
All the best
Tex
Re: Hikashu
Date: 2008-03-23 01:00 pm (UTC)They remind me somewhat of Maywa Denki (but without their sense of humour):
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Re: Hikashu
Date: 2008-03-23 01:12 pm (UTC)http://www.sweatyfrog.com/knockman-wh.html
could be used as advert for Aspirin.
TR
Re: Hikashu
Date: 2008-03-23 02:39 pm (UTC)By all means watch the other Hikashu videos on youtube.
Or this piece of vocal weirdness by their singer:
http://www.makigami.com/voiceart.html
BTW, isn't/wasn't Koshi Miharu Mrs. Hosono?
Re: Hikashu
Date: 2008-03-23 04:09 pm (UTC)Koshi and Hosono certainly dated, but I don't think they were ever married.
Re: Hikashu
Date: 2008-03-25 08:55 am (UTC)Makigami Koichi, their frontman, is an absolutely outstanding vocalist who also plays trumpet, theremin, & jews harp, and who has become one of the world's most expressive and eminent vocal improvisers. He began his career in japanese theater (a career which ran in tandem with Hikashu's early existance), and he once described Hikashu as "a play pretending to be a band". He's always a pleasure to watch because of his theatricality - as you saw in that video, he can alternate between drop-dead drama and hilarity in the blink of an eye.
He's got 3 great solo CDs on Tzadik that you'd probably enjoy - two solo voice CDs, unaccompanied, no overdubs; my fave of the three is his voice & jews harp CD "Electric Eel" - a collab with Anton Bruhin, who has created an array of specialized harps which he & Makigami play in tandem with Makigami's khoomei throat singing and vocal improvs.
He's also got a wonderful solo voice & theremin CD from 2 years ago called "Moon Ether" on the japanese DoubtMusic label, who also released the Otomo Yoshihide New Jazz Orchestra CDs which feature Kahimi as a vocalist.
Another personal fave of mine is Makigami's second solo album of song material, "Koroshi No Blues," which was produced in NYC by Zorn in 1992 and is entirely composed of covers of old Nikkatsu movie themes and old japanese standards from the 50's & 60's by the likes of Ryoichi Hattori, the Folk Crusaders, Akira Kobayashi, Tony Tani, the Jacks, etc. It's loooong out of print and tends to go for big bucks (mostly because of Zorn fanatics), but if you ever see a copy, do the right thing. Quite a few of my friends play on that record - it features a cornucopia of "downtown" NYC musicians - and it's become a desert-island disc for me.
Ok, I've sufficiently snobbed out on Makigami (he's a total hero of mine whom I've had the pleasure of performing with here in New York, and who gave me what I consider one of my most prized posessions - a hungarian-made jews harp which I use in nearly every performance.) You've been given the crash course - now go do some homework, Nick!
-Mikey IQ.
Sweet!
Date: 2008-03-23 12:55 pm (UTC)Hiller
Date: 2008-03-23 05:09 pm (UTC)see: http://www.intro.de/platten/kritiken/23035674
they later made a funk version of it with Palais Schaumburg called "WIR BAUEN EINE neue STADT"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSFznM6CgxM
Billy MacKenzie died in a kennel, what may Holger use to do these days?
TR
Re: Hiller
Date: 2008-03-23 05:55 pm (UTC)Billy MacKenzie
Date: 2008-03-23 10:31 pm (UTC)Anon indicates Billy Mac Kenzie died in a kennel, his passing - though wretched and tragic - was not quite that degraded...
http://www.billymackenzie.com/articles/uncut0697.htm
Re: Billy MacKenzie
Date: 2008-03-25 07:54 am (UTC)Flower Bird Wind Moon
Date: 2008-03-23 05:40 pm (UTC)off topic
Date: 2008-03-23 07:56 pm (UTC)http://home.flash.net/~numatic/mrblowup/mrblowup.htm
TR
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-23 08:51 pm (UTC)Are you into Yukihiro Takahashi's solo stuff at all, or any of his stuff as part of Beatniks?
This is just fantastic:
So is this, but not as much as the former(although the vid is really absurdly brilliant in that Labyrinth/Legend sort of way):
The Ippu-Do stuff on YouTube's pretty great too. Masami Tsuchiya's stuff circa-Rice Music is really, really great(one song sounds like what would happen if the Talking Heads were produced by a very manic Steve Nye and David Byrne learned Japanese), but there's nothing on YouTube, sadly. .-.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-24 01:24 am (UTC)florian
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-24 03:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-24 03:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 04:28 pm (UTC)great post mom
im just missing some togawa jun
(i work at a bar around the corner from her dad's cabaret. my yakuza boss told me stories of her doing crazy stuff)
and my favorite hosono video. check him reading the synth's manual while playing or something. i dont think hes too proud of his videogame work cos everytime i find any of it in a record store its under some goofy nickname (like etchi hochono)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 04:31 pm (UTC)im just missing some togawa jun
(i work at a bar around the corner from her dad's cabaret. my yakuza boss told me stories of her doing crazy stuff)
and my favorite hosono video. check him reading the synth's manual while playing or something. i dont think hes too proud of his videogame work cos everytime i find any of it in a record store its under some goofy nickname (like etchi hochono)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 04:45 pm (UTC)Nice to see the Togawa Jun video, but your favourite Hosono video is actually included in my original post, so you can't fairly describe it as "missing"!
Well, at least you haven't lost your charmingly short attention span!