Favorite J-Pop Artists: Eriko Tamura!

 As you may recall I was first introduced to J-Pop singer Eriko Tamura a few months back when someone included a  very early performance of hers doing her single “Sukiyo”. I was entranced not only by her cute idol looks and style, but she had a really great voice that I fell in love with at first hear! Wanting to hear more, I purchased her “Golden Best” collection and was soon introduced to her entire singles output! 

I had fallen in love with Sukiyo for its cheerful, bubble-gummy pop sensibilities, but I was to note that for the most part, Eriko’s songs were more on the mature side (though of course entirely idolly) that leaned more towards R&B and ‘regular” Top 40 pop-rock.

No matter, because within a week’s worth of playing, I had fallen for all of her songs, especially tracks like “Reversible” and “Domino”. etc! It was then that I began venturing into her catalog of music, and thanks to some blessed niche 80’s J-pop sites, was able to grab MP3’s of some of her albums.

I must say that I was immediately captivated by Eriko’s album output. Each one was sooo good with tons of terrific songs that I soon found myself planning my entire days off around listening to them!!!

Some of the albums became BIG favorites of mine and I got to the stage of Eriko fandom that I wanted to own the physical CDs of them as well! Through online shop Surugu-ya I was able to get ahold of two Eriko CDs, including Ima no Watashi De… as well as my still hands-down favorite album from her, “Shoujo De Irareta”, but knew I would soon be wanting more!

Well, as of this past month, my love for Eriko’s music has reached an all-time high, and with  her songs constantly on play, decided to celebrate by purchasing ALL the remaining CDs I’d been missing in her catalog, May be Dream, Myself, Behind The Heart, Taiyo No Vacance, Der Traum and Sure!

 ...to make a COMPLETE collection of all Eriko’s 8 original studio album releases!!!

MAN, I cannot stress enough how much I’m loving these albums, and as I listen, I am constantly baffled why Eriko wasn’t more popular as an artist! She had the voice, the looks, and a HELLA lot of wonderful, catchy and groovy songs in her catalog!

Favorite J-Pop Artists: Shizuka Kudoh

 
As less of newer music seems to interest me, I’ve found myself going backwards, digging back into the 80’s and early 90’s J-pop of yesteryear. I originally got into J-pop in mid-1995 and though I did get into the older music then, there was still SO MUCH MORE to discover!

 Right now my favorite J-pop artist must be Shizuka Kudoh, a singer I’ve always liked but now am getting into 100%, doing my best to acquire all of her music and listening to at least one of her albums every day!

I first fell in love with Shizuka with her song “Kuchibiru Kara Biyaku” after seeing a clip of her singing it on the classic “Hey Hey Hey Music Champ”. What a cool freaking song!!! I ordered a copy of the single immediately!, and when I got it I loved not only the single’s A side but the beautiful and sweet B side “Serenade”.I was interested enough with her enough to pick up her (then) latest single “Blue Velvet” and it was through an appearance of Utaban promoting this song where they showed clips of her singing her debut singles like “Mugon Iroppoi” and Fu-Ji-Tsu” and I had to get those, too!

The first Kohaku I ever saw was the 1995 Year show, but through local Japan Video rental shops and old copies my friend had recorded, I was able to see show from 1994, 1993 , 1992 and even earlier! And it was on the 1993 Kohaku that I first saw her wonderful performance of “Doukoku” which would go on to become yet another HUGE fave of mine! 

Next my friend Dan-O burned me a copy of his Twin-Best Shizuka Kudoh Collection “SHE~ Best of Best”...This was back when burning a CD for your friends was an art and he even printed pictures on the CDs as you can see here…what a pal!

 I was grateful for the discs and wasted no time throwing it onto my latest ‘cruising mix tape”, and  there was ONE SONG that stood out for me. I always knew Shizuka’s music was a bit on the more rock style (though she had a lot of ballads) than her counterparts like Miho Nakayama and Kyoko Koizumi, but there was one track on side one of SHE Best of Best that simply ROCKED the HOUSE! Such a masterpiece of a song: pounding drums, blaring horns and a dense bass track growling underneath, this was one song that begged to be BLASTED on FULL VOLUME! 

Sadly, the track was written in a  kanji i couldn’t read, and without the immediate help of the internet (ah we were so innocent back then!) I just called it ‘That Rockin’ Song”, and it became my reason to pop in the disc!

Fast forward to early this year and I come across an 80’s-themed J-pop forum featuring those classic artists and albums of the late 80’s early 90s…and saw they had an album up by Shizuka called “Trinity”.

I’d picked up a few of Shizuka’s earlier CDs from Book Off and Nippon Shoten over the years, such as "Shizuka", "Mysterious","Harvest", and "Karelia", but I’d never heard this album before. I downloaded it right away, and when I loaded it up and played it in my car the following evening, I was hit with one of the most gripping and interesting albums I’d heard in a awhile: full of catchy New-wave infused hits, Sentimental “Big band” pop tracks, smoky ballads as well as a few hard-rockers...INCLUDING that rockin’ song from SHE Best of Best!

Now with the internet at my disposal I did some googling and FINALLY found out the song was called “Kiri No Kanata E" (Beyond The Mist)! and it was this cherry on top that drove Trinity to become my favorite album to listen to so far this year!

With Trinity completely winning me over, I had to hear more, and I began collecting whatever albums I could find of hers that I'd missed out on, Rosette, Mind Universe, Expose, etc, and with each new album I acquired, the more BLOWN AWAY I was by this woman as each CD became a new favorite to listen to! Right now I am trying to get all her Live Concerts but the one I was MOST trying to acquire was her 1992 “Koe wo Kikasete” Concert Tour as this is the one where she performed Kiri No Kanata E LIVE! 

So far I've only been able to get digital rips of the concerts (which some kind soul uploaded onto a forum), but  it will definitely suffice to satiate my Shizuka hunger!!!! And o0f course the first one I checked out was Koe Wa Kikasete and gotta say- this was one totally KICK-BUTT concert! Oh MAN, Shizuka was as FIERCE and SULTRY as I expected her to be and it was a THRILL to see so many of my (new) favorite songs from her being done live for the first time! So many faves but of course the BIG performance for me was getting to see her belt out Kiri No Kanata E...so, sooooo AWESOME!

This seems to be the ONLY clip of Shizuka doing this song. Going onto Youtube I was hoping to see more, but all I could find was this (actually pretty great) video of a Japanese fan belting it out in a Karaoke room. Even in this clip you can feel the energy of the song, and in the video’s description, the girl writes: “Because this was an album-only song, probably only Shizuka fans would know it? ^^…My favorite Shizuka song!”

Indeed, this song wasn’t a single, and in fact, the liner notes of She Best Of Best CD says that the reason the song was included in the Twin Best Collection in the first place was because Shizuka herself loved it so much and always regretted that it wasn’t released as a proper single.  Even SHIZUKA knows how awesome this song is! Speaking of which, Book Off once again came to my rescue when I visited it one evening and found they had a perfect copy of SHE Best of Best for sale! I grabbed that one up right away and now finally own a copy of my very own in my meager (but still growing) Shizuka Kudoh Collection!

For the moment, I am still enjoying discovering the wonder of her album back-catalogue. There are still so much more I need to get- they are all so damn GOOD! For someone whom I once only casually liked, Shizuka Kudoh has moved into my Top Ten FAVE Jpop artists of all time!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Favorite J-Pop Artists: Matsutoya Yumi

Another one of my favorite Japanese artists is the incredible Yumi Matsutoya, who needs no introduction from me! Known affectionately by her fans as “Yuming”, Yumi Matsutoya has been highly prolific in the Japanese music scene since her debut in 1972 -  well over 3 decades - and continues to be so even today! I’m more of a later fan, discovering Yuming’s music only around the mid 90’s, and this introduction came through (of all things) the Japanese Dramas I was watching at the time!

Rondo

  The first song I remember hearing from her was the theme song for the 1995 Matsumoto Akiko / Hosaka Naoki drama The Bride-To Be , featuring her song “Rondo”. I remember thinking it was a happy tune, very flamenco in style. But it was the theme song for the next show I watched, a serious drama called “Watashi No Unmei”, starring  Azuma Mikihisa as a young man  struggling with cancer, that caught my attention. The song for this drama was quite unlike the prior one. It was powerful and stunning, with HAUNTING vocals that I would later come to recognize as her “trademark”. The song was called “Inochi No Hana”, and this song really struck a chord with me…The chanting voices and the spiralling sitars throughout the song REALLY mesmerised the listener. Perfect for the show.

Watashi No Unmei

The song that finally pushed me over into fan status of all things Yumi Matsutoya was one that I heard only by chance. It was an older song from one of her earlier albums, and although I was to learn it was one of her more popular tunes, the first time I heard it was at a Karaoke Club! Some gal was beltin’ the song out, and I was blown away by it. It was catchy and WAY ROCKING! I asked who the artist WAS, and I was pretty amazed when they told me it was Yumi Matsutoya! MAN, this was the first time I had ANY IDEA that Yuming could rock out like that! 

     When I thought about it,  it was really pretty impressive that one artist wrote such diffferent sounding songs. I mean, with 'Rondo', I thought she wrote ,you know, FESTIVE songs. then when 'Inochi No Hana' came around, I was amazed she wrote this moody song…and now, with this new rocking song, I just KNEW I had to explore more about her! I quickly asked someone what the name of the song was, but all he could help me with was , “All I remember is that the single had a painted cover, like a romance novel”.

   Later that week, me and a friend made our way down to a store that rented out j-pop CDs and CD singles. There was a bin up in the front selling older CDs that were too old to rent anymore, and were selling them for cheap. The great thing about this is that they had quite a bit of out-of-print stuff in there. I remember getting an old Eri Hiramatsu single as well as an Ishida Hikari single there, and I was hoping they’d have the Yuming one. It couldn’t hurt to look! Searching through the “Ma” section of CD Singles, I immediately struck gold and pulled out this:

EUREKA! This HAD to be the song I heard…and no wonder no one could remember the title. It was long and full of Kanji! The song was called “Manatsu No Yo No Yume, roughly translated into : “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream”.

    When I got home, I put in the disc and cranked up the volume…and was once again floored! MAN this song was just AWESOME! I loved it so much I inevitably had to purchase the entire album that it was from, an eclectic album called U-Miz. I also ordered a Laserdisc Concert of Yuming’s called Into The Dancing Sun, because I wanted to see her perform "Manatsu No Yoru No Yume" live. This concert was mostly composed of songs from her two albums U-Miz and The Dancing Sun.

U-Miz Album

Into The Dancing Sun Concert

  When U-Miz turned out to be as great as I hoped it would, I knew that I’d be purchasing The Dancing Sun, too! Not to mention picking up Kathmandu, with the songs that first got my attention: Rondo and Inochi No Hana. Every time I would buy an album, I wanted to see the songs live, so I would get the concert, then I would learn older songs via the concert, and get more CDS...Before I knew it, I had quite a few Yuming CDs in my possession!

 Over the years I've managed to get much of Yumi's back catalog, from her very Carole-King-ish beginnings as Yumi Arai down through to her very latest albums! I must admit a bit of a sentimental attachment towards her 90's work, from album LOVE WARS through to WAVE OF THE ZUVUYA, because these are the ones that came out during and around my "golden age" of J-pop discovery, but truth be told, I love 'em ALL!

 The following is what I've got in MY Yuming collection!

Yumi Matsutoya Albums

Hikoki-Gumo

MISSLIM

COBALT HOUR

Yuming BRAND 

Benisuzume 

OLIVE

Kanashi Hodotenki

Toki no nai HOTEL

Sakuban Oaishimasho

PEARL PIERCE

REINCARNATION

VOYAGER

NO SIDE

DA・DI・DA 

VISUALIVE DA・DI・DA 
ALARM à la mode 

Diamond Dust 

Delight Slight Light KISS

LOVE WARS

The Gates Of Heaven

DAWN PURPLE

Tears And Reasons

THE DANCING SUN

U-miz

KATHMANDU

Cowgirl Dreamin’

Wave of the Zuvuya

Frozen Roses

Acacia

Wings of Winter, Shades of Summer

VIVA!6X7 

A GIRL IN SUMMER

And I Will Dream Again

Road Show

Seasons Colours
FACES

Yumi Matsutoya Singles:
Ningyohime no Yume
Hello My Friend
Haru Yo Koi
Manatsu No Yo No Yume
Rondo
Sunny Day Holiday

Yumi Matsutoya Concerts:
Wings Of Light: Gates Of Heaven Tour
Surf and Snow in Zushi Marina 2002 Tour
The Lat Wednesday 2006 Tour~ Here Comes The Big Wave
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Favorite J-Pop Artists: Yamaguchi Momoe

For the longest time, the only recordings I had of Yamaguchi Momoe were ones that were included on compilations. Between four Golden J-pop Records collections and two Hit Parade Melodies collections, I had seven songs in total at the time, a fairly sub-par amount for an artist who was one of the most prolific singers of the late seventies!

  My two favorite songs from Momoe were Aoi Kaijitsu and Playback, Part 2, and my initial 70’s j-pop collection purchases were bought with those songs in mind. Along the way I also acquired the songs Hitonatsu No Keiken, Imitation Gold, Natsu Hiraku Seishun, Pearl Color Ni Yurete and Cosmos, and over time these songs became just as beloved as my first favorites…It would be only a matter of time before I wanted to hear more!

 Browsing around the web, I was fascinated to find that there were files and files of vintage Momoe Yamaguchi performances just waiting to be viewed, and I dove headfirst into the smorgasboard. Of course, the first songs I looked for were my faves as listed above, (yep, lots of Playback part 2 and Hitonatsu No Keiken) but before you knew it, I was immersed in a whole new world of unknown songs- and EVERY ONE OF THEM WAS JUST INCREDIBLE! Listening to Momoe on CD is one thing, but being able to watch her go through the motions with that cool, serene disposition just made it all the better!  I made up my mind that I had to get my hands on a real Momoe Yamaguchi anthology, to catch up on the sweet songs I’d been missing!

 Doing a bit of research online, I found quite a few excellent Momoe Yamaguchi collections (including an impressive “every album and single she’s ever done” collection called “Premium Momoe” going for- eek!- 37,800 Yen!), and came across a recent release called GOLDEN☆BEST/PLAYBACK MOMOE part2…

This is really a terrific anthology-  originally released as a three-album anthology on vinyl a few years after Momoe retired, it collects all of Momoe’s singles as well as two bonus songs onto two CD discs. CD Japan was selling this collection for the great price of $27.50, but I couldn’t wait and shelled out $40.00 at good old reliable Shirokiya so I could have it and listen to it immediately!

 I popped in the first disc and absentmindedly drove around, taking in the good sounds- enjoying the ones I knew, and getting blown away / enraptured by the songs that were new to me! This collection is an incredible piece of work- listening to Momoe’s songs from her very first single Toshigoro in 1973  all the way through to her last single Ichie in 1980, you really hear her growing and maturing with each track as it plays! From cheery pop tunes to smouldering ballads, and all the fun tunes and kick-ass rockers in between! (and yes, I’m thinking Rock N Roll Widow as I type that!) Golden Best also includes a couple of extra singles, one of which, Atata e no Komoriuta, was released a few years after her retirement. An A++ Investment!

Since then, I've become a major lover of all thing Momoe, even down to getting that aforementioned  awesome, awesome MOMOE PREMIUM BOX SET shipped over from Japan, and what with it being already out of print, you can BET that cost me a pretty penny, but when I found out it contained ALL of Momoe's various Album releases...I just HADDA have it! (And for more on THAT, see below...)

Favorite J-Pop Artists: Princess Princess

How did I first get introduced to all things Puri-Puri? Let's See...

The first song I ever knew from Princess Princess was “Dakara Honey”- The J-pop buyer for  the record store I worked at had thrown it onto a compilation cassette ( I guess to fill up space) from a Drama Theme song CD he had,( Dakara being the theme song for “Double Kitchen”which actually had an episode featuring Puri-Puri…but I digress) and the quirky enka-style vocalist certainly caught my ear… At the time I had a mental picture of the group being two old ladies (hence the double princess) singing novelty songs for a living!

    A few months later I was at my friend  Daniel's house, where I flipped through the latest issue of his KOKIKU magazine. In that issue, there was an article reporting that the Rock Group Princess Princess was calling it a day. The article featured the cover of “The Last Princess” and that was the first time I saw them. In fact, I wasn’t sure it was the SAME group, seeing as THESE gals looked cool, and I didn’t think they’d have sung a novelty song like “Dakara Honey”.I remember reading it and going "whoa!" to Daniel, and also talking to the J-Pop Buyer at work the next day about the article.

Farewell Concert

 Princess Princess was set to start promoting their last CD and final tour, so in the coming weeks, Puri2 was to appear on numerous shows, promoting their latest single and saying their farewells.

   Back then I didn’t have access to NGN, so weekends were to hang out at Daniel’s House (J-pop Central ) to watch “Pop Jam” and “Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ”, cheering on then-newcomer Namie Amuro or booing the very flamboyant Sharan Q. It was on Pop Jam that I first got to see Princess Princess moving and breathing.

     And what a sight it was. Pop Jam had created a montage of Puri Puri performances right from the beginning, and I remember thinking that the young bushy-haired Kaori might be Hawaiian! Looking at the classy ladies on stage, I came to the conclusion that the  girls in the montage wasn’t them, possibly girls they had managed? Of course later I was to find out that it in fact WAS them,in one of their many “looks” over the years.

    As Hiroko Moriguchi interviewed the girls, I thought there was NO WAY these were the same artists that did “Dakara Honey”,and felt foolish that I thought they WERE...But then Princess Princess got onstage to belt out “Fly Baby Fly”. The SECOND I heard Kaori’s voice, I KNEW they were the same band that did “Dakara”, and what’s more, I liked THIS song, too! What a revelation!

Princess Princess b

   When J-pop Buyer Dave found out I had more than a passing interest in Princess Princess, he made another Cassette tape for me, this time with the Puri2 single “KISS”. I was convinced. No longer would I ever think they were a novelty act. This lush piece of pop perfection with the soaring harmonies just killed me. It became my favorite song on the tape. At this stage they might have been a group I admired and liked a few singles, but it was an appearance on the show MUSIC FAIR that changed my whole outlook on Pri2.

   Like the other music shows around that time, Music Fair had prepared a special “farewell” episode just for Puri Puri. Guests included, along with Puri-Puri, Hiroko Moriguchi, Chisato Moritaka, and Arisa Mizuki. Together they sang "19 Growing Up","Diamonds", "M", "Sekai De Ichiban Atsui Natsu" and "Oh Yeah". Then Puri Puri did "Papa","Seven years After" and "Natsu No Owari".

     Needless to say, I was blown away, plain and simple. It was then that I realized that this group was extraordinary, and I hurried down to the Record store to pick up SINGLES 1987-1992…and thus began the Puri Puri obsession! I remember riding around Diamond Head with a friend, listening to the Singles Collection, and laughing upon hearing the REAL Puri-Puri versions, as all we knew about some of the songs were the ensemble-style versions they performed on MUSIC FAIR.

Moritaka Chisato Ramblings

Random Ramblings: :

1. My Favorite Album By Chisato:

 

Do The Best

This is the first album I ever purchased by Chisato! Featuring such faves as "Kibunsoukai", "Watarase Bashi", "Watashi Ga Obasanni Nattemo", "Natsu No Hi", "Watashi No Natsu", and my favorite Chisato song of all time, "Futari Wa Koibito"!

The Album Where Chisato Looks FINE:

Pepperland

This album is a decent release from Chisato, but more importantly,she looks just KILLER here!

Words cannot describe how fine I think she looks in these pictures.IMNSHO.

More pics from the CD booklet below:

DAMN!

@$@#$...DAMN!!

Mmmmm... Chisato.I think I've Made My Point.

Comments from Original Post:

yametekudasai wrote:

I've been DAMNED as well...

I had NO IDEA that this was the "Pepperland" Chisato. "Rock Alive" lives!

zdorama replied to yametekudasai’s comment: 

Yes, on the third day, Kamisama created a "girl". And it was Chisato. And he saw that it was fine.

Ribbon: The Final (Pony Canyon) Frontier

ribbon: Aiko Sato, Hiromi Nagasaku, Arimi Matsuno

My introduction to RIBBON began with my love for CoCo. I had purchased a laserdisc called “Otomejuku Matsuri” that featured a whole bunch of Pony Canyon idol artists together for one Big Concert. The roster included CoCo, Qlair, Nakajima Miyuki, Horikawa Sanae, Hanashima Yuki. and the Pony Canyon party girls RIBBON!

You first meet the stable of Pony Canyon idol Groups as they get off the tour bus, and right away Ribbon stands out from the rest of them. As each girl gets off, they say “Ohaiyo Gozaimasu!” to the camera, but then Hiromi Nagasaku gets off and cries “GOOOOOOOD MORNING!”Aiko Sato follows with “OhaiYO!”and then Arimi Matsuno comes out with a happy “HELLO!

As you watch the backstage footage of the girls introducing themselves, it is pretty much the same thing: In contrast to the sweet and proper CoCo, the gals in Ribbon seemed zany and talkative (very oshaberi) and even then you could tell that they were probably a pretty interesting group to get into!

Unfortunately for my first impressions of Ribbon, their actual performance started off on the wrong foot. Their Stage outfits...hmmm, welll, they were NOT to my liking, additionally, Arimi and Aiko had these weird curly permed hairstyles which didn't help!

But ONE THING that you COULDN'T DENY was that the SONG they were singing, “Taiyo No Yukue”, was TERRIFIC! Then right into the swinging “Wakatte Nai Ne”…These girls KICKED ASS! 

The songs were so good, and they gave off such real stage presence when they were on, that I dismissed the bad hair and costumes, and wanted to find out more about them! Now, these two songs were on a ribbon Greatest Hits package called "Delicious" and I tried to order it thru Tower Records. I was to discover, however, that it was sadly out of print!

With that sad setback, my interest in Ribbon could have ended there, but then my friend and co-worker Holly came with a consolation prize of sorts! She looked upon my new interest in ribbon with some bemusement, and told me she had an old ribbon CD which she offered to give me for FREE!  I gushed with GRATITUDE for THAT, and the next day she came in with what would be my very FIRST ribbon album, their SECOND Greatest Hits Collection called (what else) “More Delicious”! This was an AWESOME package, and I listened to it EACH and every day!

It didn't have any of the songs I had heard from the girls before, but it instead introduced me to a whole slew of NEW fave songs to love! Songs like “Be My Diamond”, “Do You Remember Me?” “Sensational Wind” “Deep Breath”, and the incredible “Taiyo Ni Hi wo Tsukete”...  I loved these songs MANIACALLY, and soon craved seeing them performed LIVE...

Back then there were these huge catalogs which listed all J-pops CD and Laserdisc releases, and looking through the ribbon info, found a concert where ribbon performed live all the new songs I'd just been introduced to! It was a Laserdisc called “Zoku Harlem Night” and thanks to HEAVEN, I was able to backorder and purchase a copy from Hakabundo that weekend!!!

I was on pins and needles waiting for that disc to come in, but when it DID, I wasted NO TIME checking it out, and it BLEW ME AWAY!!! Holy Toledo, this  concert was SO GOOD! And unlike my earlier Otomejuku Matsuri experience, the girls looked FANTASTIC here, pretty as HECK and OOH those outfits were sleek and SEXY to boot!

 And the songs. What can I say. They were just PERFECT! The live performances of the songs I wanted to see like “Sensational Wind” “Deep Breath”, and “Taiyo Ni Hi wo Tsukete”" were alll performed IMPECCABLY, and while watching and REWATCHING the concert, introduced me to a whole bunch of NEW favorite songs, tunes such as “Heart Dake Ga Universe”, “Wish”, “Circus Parade”, and “Ano Koni Yoroshiku”, a song which remains to this day my all-time favorite Ribbon track!

It seemed like everything I heard from these girls was solid gold, and I realized that I wanted, no, NEEDED, to get ALL of ribbon’s back-catalog!! But as I'd learned trying to get "Delicious", all of ribbon's catalog was mostly out of print! What to do!!!

But JUST THEN, as if FATE stepped in, the local Shirokiya just got a HUGE back catalog of old CDs and magazines (like, literally SHELVES of stuff!) and what do you know- thee were a BUNCH of ribbon CDs in there as well!

 I picked up Lucky Night (1st CD), Wonderful Deikou (2nd CD) Jessica (3rd CD), Knight (5th CD), Merry-Hurry (7th CD) and…drum roll…The Elusive DELICIOUS Greatest Hits CD!

I gotta tell you, the girl at the register had this baffled look on my face as I plunked the stack of CDs onto the counter!

This was the beginning of my RIBBON OBSESSION and I've never looked back!!!

At the height of my mania, I made a Ribbon cassette tape mix for a friend Sab because I just knew he’d like ‘em too! He was initially skeptical because he just hated the Otomejuku performance. But once he saw the Zoku Harlem Night performance, HE fell in love with them, TOO! And here was the key: it was because we were trying to complete our collections that we found out about the wonderful CD store Otokichi Premium, and it was through owner Masa that I was FINALLY ABLE to get all the CDs and Singles I was missing! Not to mention the Laserdisc collections! Through Otokichi Premium, I acquired:

CD Albums:

R753 (4th CD), and Hoshi No ki No Shita De (6th CD)

CD Singles:

Soba ni Iru ne, Taiyo no Yukue, Sore Wa Ii Wa Nai Yakusoku, Deep Breath, Taiyo ni Hi o Tsukete, "S"ENSATIONAL WIND", Do You Remember Me?,Be My Diamond!, Yoru Kenanteiranai and Hiromi Nagasaku’s “My Home Town”

And Laserdiscs:

Parade Parade (First Concert), Harlem Night , and Ribbon EXTRA!

Over time, I began to see them as the direct sister act to CoCo. Where CoCo was the flagship Pony Canyon Otomejuku idol group, Ribbon were the more edgy rock flavored group. The two groups began to become part of a bigger thing: The whole Otomejuku-Paradise-Go-Go Pony Canyon explosion that I will always remember as my first BIG foray into J-Pop!

Comments from original post:

yametekudasai wrote:

woooo.... more memories...

Some quick notes.

No, I am STILL NOT fond of the "Otomejuku Matsuri" songs. They MUST be popular with fans cause they always show up on compilations but they never endeared themselves to my personal sense. But boy how you NOT love how looney tunes they were in that concert.

However it WAS the "Zoku Harlem Night" concert that became the HOLY GRAIL for me. It had those great "KNIGHT" songs ("Mitsu no Negai", "Naitari Mou Suru") that may have never been done again in concert. The backing band "FOUR BOYS" sounded tight and got a back beat, you can't lose it. And the last set outfits, stripping layer after layer... I'm surprised there wasn't a meltdown in the audience when they revealed... well, I'm not sure I should be posting spoilers here! (No, I'm NOT going to discuss Aiko's solo.) Getting that laserdisc was like winning a major sports championship (I STILL have to make a proper DVD transfer, btw).

Hey did anyone ever get that "Hong Kong" laserdisc? Cause the last one I got was that offbeat nature video where they had more images of fuzzy sunsets than the girls themselves...

yametekudasai wrote:

I just rechecked our fave song lists (04 May 2003) and I REALLY hammered the "Otomejuku Matsuri" songs. I had "Wakattenai ne" at #71 (out of 84) and "Taiyou no Yukue" #76. Both of you had them comfortably in the upper tier.

Of course, I made up for it with the album tracks from "Wonderful de Ikou," especially "Shi-gatsu no Silhouette" which had perhaps the greatest deviation in terms of song ranking.

 MorningBerryz wrote:

zdorama thank you for sharing this with us. I wasn't aware that you were trying to get some of their releases back then until you officially introduced their music to me. I just remember you had gone to Shirokiya and found a whole bunch of their releases. I went down and saw that nothing was left! Doh! And yes Otokichi single handedly completed my Ribbon album & single collection. He even got me Nagasaku Hiromi's solo releases including an interesting first pressing which came in a flimsy cardboard case. lol. The Otomejuku Matsuri concert is something that you guys are much more familiar with than me. One thing is for sure it's a very very important concert. Just to know what this concert inspired. zdorama a very big thank you for turning me on to the awesome music of Ribbon. And of course for teaching me everything there is to know about CoCo. I don't think that I would be the fan I am today of CoCo if I hadn't met you. So thank you Holly too! :)

And those Ribbon lists! I'm glad that we did those back then. I just took my Ribbon folder out and I really don't think that I'd change anything about my list today. It still seems right. 

 "Mittsu no negai" and"Naitari mo suru" are songs that we both really love! Both of these songs are in my top 10. "Sayonara ga owaru made" always blows me away too whenever I listen to it. Heheh it's just me I see. But then again I've always been known to have different taste in songs from groups that we all love. Such great songwriting here. We all love "Anoko ni yoroshiku"!! The PV is so cute too!

Another thing to note about Ribbon is how well each member sings! I mean they all sound awesome! No weaker vocalist here. Nagasaku "Babyface" Hiromi will always be my favorite member! :)

zdorama wrote:

Saburo- i'm waiting for you to rip that Ribbon Concert! I would love to upload that perf of "Ano Koni Yoroshiku",as it is my favorite perforamcne of that song.

Morngingberryz-Yes, ribbon was exeptional in the fact that they had great singers. Hirochan and Arimi just belted out those songs!

yametekudasai wrote:

FWIW... I've already recorded the "Zoku" concert to DVD. I just have to chapter the whole thing and decide how fancy the menu should be.

This is, of course, one of a dozen video projects I should have finished a year or so ago. So much stuff, never enough time...