プリンセス・プリンセス and 森高千里

   Besides being two of my favorite J-pop bands,Princess Princess and Chisato Moritaka had a pretty close relationship going on at the time.I would frequently see pictures of Princess Princess concerts where Chisato came onstage to perform a song or just to say hello the audience, and Chisato was one of the guests (along with Arisa Mizuki and Hiroko Moriguchi) who helped send off Princess Princess on their final Music Fair appearance.

   Recently browsing through the various Princess Princess clips uploaded on Youtube, I came across two performances featuring Chisato Moritaka and Princess Princess signing together onstage, one featuring Chisato singing "Diamonds" with the girls, and this incredible performance of the group backing up Chisato on her KOKON TOZAI song "Teriyaki Burger"... I just love this clip, because besides the fact that Puri Puri's skills and singing really beef up the song,I love watching the SHEER JOY they're all having performing, especially Kaori!

This terrific performance is from the 1991 NHK Xmas Pop & Rock Special. Sugoi!

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Ribbon / Circus Parade

Ribbon’s ZOKU HARLEM NIGHT JOINT 1992 concert is without a doubt the live event that all Ribbon Concerts before and after must compare- the performances are absolutely ROCKING- the girls are in top form: pretty and enthusiastically singing their hearts out, and having a terrific live band playing behind them just made the songs come alive!! And special mention MUST be made for the girls’ outfits in the last set, which started out as a neon patchwork oversized suit, but slowly peeled down to a micro-short dress!

The “suite” in which this costume dress-down occurred filled up most of Side Two of the Zoku disc, and ended up closing the concert, as well. This awesome run of songs included songs that would go on to become my all-time favorites from ribbon! And while most of this set consisted of then-current songs like Deep Breath and Sensational Wind, the set also introduced me in a BIG WAY to a couple of their older songs that would go on to become big faves, including a then-little-known song called “Circus Parade”, a happy and bubbly song with choreography composed of happily skipping and sashaying around the stage, and when combined with the costume reveal of the girls in these pretty gypsy printed skirts, I was all in!

Later, as I began to collect all of the ribbon albums I could get my hands on, I was concerned to realize that “Circus Parade” wasn’t on any of their CDs as I frantically checked and re-checked the listings on the backs of the albums. It was only with the advent of the Internet that I was to find that Circus Parade was only available as a B-side for ribbon’s second single Sobani Iru Ne!

Well, At least I knew what to look for! I’d been trying to get my hands on all of ribbon’s singles anyway, but somehow it wasn’t until I found out about OTOKICHI PREMIUM did I finally get those elusive singles I was missing, including Circus Parade!

Upon hearing the real track for the first time, I was surprised at how much the song actually sounded like a “circus” song, as they featured keyboards emulating carnival calliope merry-go-round music, an effect that had been absent from that initial live performance. It was soo cool to hear the song in its original state, but listening to it made me want to run back and watch the live performance again!

Favorite J-pop Singles: Kudoh Shizuka / Kuchibiru Kara Biyaku

Back in my early days of J-pop love, most of my exposure to all those other groups out there came from Japanese shows like Music Fair and Popjam, but by far the most informative and rockin’ one had to be HEY HEY HEY Music Champ!  Hosted by DOWNTOWN, this show was one that really catered to the classic artists, and what they would do is have a certain so-called “Music Champ” come onto the show each episode, and have the artist sing a medley of two or three classic hits, sit down for an interview, and then sing their latest song they were promoting.

  This was an awesome formula, and it was cool to be introduced to all these artists I either didn’t know or only knew a little of, and every once in a while, they would have these Hey Hey Hey SPECIALS, where they would showcase past guests and show snippets of them being interviewed as well as an edited clip of the most popular of the songs they’d performed.

I was watching this one particular special  primarily for Princess Princess’ appearance (the clip they showed was them doing “Diamonds, of course), but it was this clip of exotic Kudoh Shizuka singing an insanely catchy tune called “Kuchibiru Kara Biyaku” that really piqued my interest!

Sounding almost SKA-like in mood, this bouncy number (featuring an incredibly giggly Shizuka!) immediately caught my attention with its infectious CHOTTO MATTE YO NE! verses accented with  jazzy horns, and then that cooing chorus of “Iiyo, Iiyo…IIYO!” DAMN, this song was so damn catchy, I must have re-watched that clip a hundred times, and I immediately asked the j-pop buyer if he could get the single for me the following day!

The more I fell in love with this song, the more I cursed the fact that it was such a short, truncated clip, and I remember catching the bus into town to my japanese video rental store, hoping and praying that they’d have that original Hey Hey Hey episode that Shizuka appeared in for me to borrow! Well, that didn’t happen, but some good luck came my way when the j-pop buyer told me that he was indeed able to order the single for me, and it arrived in only a few weeks time!!!

A year or so later I got ahold of a copy of the 1990(!) Red And White Song Festival, and I was in for the THRILL OF MY LIFE when I finally got to see a sexy and sultry Shizuka performing Kuchibiru Kara Biyaku in its ENTIRETY!!!! Iiyo Iiyo iiyo!!!!

To this day Kuchibiru Kara Biyaku remains my favorite song from Mrs. Takuya Kimura!

PS: I might even add that the c/w song "Serenade" is one of Shizuka's most beautiful songs, as well!

Favorite J-pop Singles: Moriguchi Hiroko & Dual Dream / Let’s Go!

Back in the early days of j-pop, I would hang out at j-pop guru Dan's house, and we’d watch the latest japanese shows like Hey Hey Hey Music champ and Pop Jam on Fridays. Another fave for us to watch was a show called “Yume Ga Mori Mori”, which starred SMAP and Moriguchi Hiroko. The reason we loved watching it so much was that it was the one show airing that still featured CoCo as guests, often joining in their soccer games and other activities.

After awhile we really started loving the show, Hiroko Moriguchi and SMAP were so darn funny, and the skits I still have on VHS tapes stil crack me up! In my opinion this show did a lot in the way of showcasing the talents of SMAP with the various clips and "mock documentaries"...

Anyway, There was this one particular clip that really entertained us: Hiroko Moriguchi is attempting to sing her latest single “Let’s Go!” with Dual Dream, but she keeps flubbing her lines. At first she's laughing and joking about it, but after a while, she becomes more and more serious as she CANNOT GET THROUGH THE SONG WITHOUT MAKING A MISTAKE! For some reason, they get Nakai Masahiro and Kimura Takuya to come over and give her a “pep talk”, which actually more or less involved them kind of hanging around her.

Then after many, many takes, they try to knock out the song one more time, and much to Hiroko’s relief, she FINALLY GETS IT! She lets out a breath of exhaustion, she’s finally finished the song, and more than that, she’s done her job promoting it, because after hearing her sing (more or less) the single over and over, we’d all just fallen in love with the song, and had to go out and buy it!

Favorite J-Pop Singles: GLAY / Glorious

Another song given to me to learn for that j-pop band. Unlike the WANDS song that was learned but never played, we actually DID try this one out a few times, although the fact that I can’t remember a thing about it makes me think our performance wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be! Ahahahaa

I remember that back in the day, NGN would broadcast Hey Hey Hey during the evening, and play it once more in the morning telecast. I'd gone over to a friend's house and had woken him up. As he groggily got up, he turned on the TV and began making coffee. I was sitting on a stool, when the familiar droning guitar chords came bursting into the room, and I said, "HEY! I know this song...it's one of the ones that I was supposed to learn for that j-pop band!"
As the song went into it's chorus, I sang right along:

"Koi ni koi Kogare koininaku kokoro kaRAA ah itoshii Oh TEENAGE MEMORIES!!"

To which my friend started cracking up, saying, "Why, You DO know this song!" AHAHAHAHA!

Of course, this was only the beginning for Glay, who would later go on to take over Japan like Godzilla. 
A kick-butt song which featured an equally awesome c/w song called "Believe In Fate"!
Though I never got a chance to tape that fateful Hey Hey Hey episode, I WAS able to catch them performing it on the next week's POPJAM, and here it for your perusal!