So the story goes that once upon a time in the late70’s/early 80’s, there was a California punk band by the name of THE LOST, but when it came time to ink a deal, they’d found that there was in fact already some OTHER band recording with that very name!
On the spot to come up with a new moniker, they simply flipped the letters in their name and became TSOL. They even subsequently had fans come up with what the letters supposedly stood for, and the one they ultimately went with was TRUE SOUNDS OF LIBERTY.
Now, that may be nothing but hyperbole and Musical Urban Legend, but it’s a helluva story anyway, and it’s a tale I always think about when I try to imagine just what the HECK drove j-pop singers Aki, Chika and Eri to name their act the highly unusual (and even slightly derogatory-sounding) DEEPS. At a glance, It’s obvious that their name is SPEED reversed, and one wonders if they had the same situation as those California Punk Rockers oh so long ago…
“Hey, We’re SPEED!”
“Er, there’s already a group from Okinawa with that name.”
“Um, I mean, we’re DEEPS!”
HAHAHAHA, OK, that’s probably not how it went down. But still…one does wonder!
I mean, looking up the term “Deeps” online, and you find that Deeps means something like Mother of Life or something in Hebrew, but, Hmmm, I’m really not sure if that was what they were going for. In any case….
So anyway, the year was 1998, and the girl pop trio called DEEPS had just hit the scene, and by mid-year, my friend Golden was becoming a BIG fan of their work. One day we were talking about j-pop in general, and he asked me if I’d heard of DEEPS before. I said that I taped a Music Station performance by them simply on the principle that they were three super-cute girls, but hadn’t really paid to much attention to the song.
“You should really check this group out!” he gushed. “One of the girls, she sounds just like…Mikiyo!” Ehhh? I laughed, “You mean Mikiyo Ohno from CoCo?” Well, that was EXACTLY who he meant, and so I promised to find that VHS tape and watch that Music Station performance again, this time PAYING ATTENTION to the song!
So that evening, I got out the tape, and as soon as the song started and the first girl began singing, I STARTED CRACKING UP! Oh My GOSH, that girl DID sound JUST LIKE Mikiyo!!! I sat through that entire performance waiting for that girl to sing, and naturally, by the time that performance ended, I just LOVED THE SONG!!!
The song was called “Happiness”, but in true japanesey style, the girls sang it more like Hap’nes than ha-PI-ness, but I think that kind of added to the charm of the song. With the chorus catchphrase of “Ne, Darling?”, I just LOVED the way the song concluded, with the girls singing: Ne, Darling! My Darling! Haaaaaaaaaa……..P’Nesssss!!! Then right into the sliding electric guitar chords to a perfect pop ending- this song rocked!
The next day at work I saw Golden, and remarked, “Dude, You were RIGHT! That Girl sounds JUST LIKE Mikiyo!!!” He promised to make me a collection of their Videos in the future, and it was from there that I was later introduced to some other favorite songs from them, including Maybe Love, Love Is Real, and another BIG fave of mine, BRAND NEW HEAVEN, the latter of which sounded decidedly SPEED flavoured!
Later I was to reflect that my introduction to DEEPS showed less about how great they were, but how much me and my friend LOVED CoCo! I mean, there aren’t probably too many people out there who hear a new song and think, “Hey! CoCo!!!” , much less the rather obscure knowledge of exactly how Ohno Mikiyo sings!! So I chalk up my love of Deeps as a continuing extension of my love of those original Pony Canyon princesses CoCo!!