My last post talked about how being attracted to mixtapes and samples at 13 years old found me 27 years later making mashups and posting them online. Mixtapes aren't the only legacy of my formative music years though.
Back in the day when the popular money was being spent on Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran and Wham! (who'd have thought George Michael would end up being a gay cottaging icon with a more than passing resemblance to 24's Tony Almeida?!), my hard earned pocket money was going on The Teardrop Explodes, Aztec Camera and a failed art-rock band from Lewisham.
Japan started out life as close to being a Roxy Music tribute band as you can get without actually calling yourself Proxy Music or Virginia Again or something. In what would be seen as an attempt at career suicide these days, their first two singles were a cover of a Barbera Streisand song from Funny Girl ("Don't Rain On My Parade") followed by the controversially titled "Adolescent Sex" (also the name of their debut album). Funny how Simon Bates and DLT didn't feel the urge to play that single...bet Peely did though.
However, I don't think it was the music that initally attracted me to Japan.....it was the summer of 1982 and "I Second That Emotion" (another cover) had just been re-released for thousandth time, this time finally managing to trouble the top 40 (in fact reaching as high as number 9). The video was played on Top Of The Pops and I'm sure it was the sight of David Sylvian, the beautifully made up, foppishly dressed singer with the blond "joey" haircut to die for that drew me in (that and the fact that the song was the soundtrack to a particularly successful friend's 14th birthday party....if only I knew then that she liked dressing up as Boy George....but that's for another post on another day).
After that summer, I caught up on Japan's back catalogue (which seemed a bewildering array of permanently re-released singles, albums, and E.P's as the myriad record companies who had previously discarded the band milked their belated popularity) and found myself repeatedly playing both "Assemblage" (a "greatest hits" from their Hansa years) and "Tin Drum", the closest a Japan album ever got to being "mainstream" (do they have a quota for speech marks on Blogger?!).
What left a lasting impression on me as I listened to these albums was the Japanese and Chinese imagery created by songs such as "Life In Tokyo", "Cantonese Boy" and "Visions Of China", and with it came, apropos of nothing, a desire to visit those countries which remained into adult life. Japan became my number one dream destination once I discovered Ryuichi Sakamoto through his collaboration with Sylvian and realised that Japan was "cool".
My first attempt to get to the Land Of The Rising Sun (don't think this phrase is copyright Eric Burdon??) was by attempting to enrol on the J.E.T programme while at university. J.E.T sent British under-graduates out to Japanese cities to work for a year as English teaching assistants in schools. Sadly, I wasn't successful...perhaps my being a Computer Science student with no English or teaching qualification went against me? I prefer to think my application got lost in the post. Incidentally, I can't pass by my university years without mentioning my great friend and university house-mate who turned out to be an even bigger Japan fan than me (although, as a bass player, his fixation was on Mick Karn, not David Sylvian). I don't know if he's ever been to Japan, but I'd like to think he's been drawn by the siren's call too.
I finally managed to visit Tokyo, my number one destination, in 1998 and found it everything I'd hoped it would be. Everything imagined in the songs, everything alluded to in films like Blade Runner (a film with imagery inspired as much in the blast furnaces of Redcar as the treets of Tokyo) was there in neon-lit splendour. Highlight of the trip was undoubtably visiting Akihabara; the electrical district. Imagine a branch of Richer Sounds, but housed in a shop the size of Binns (if you're not from Middlesbrough.....imagine your local House Of Fraser instead). Now imagine that EVERYTHING electrical can be purchased there; from the largest t.v to a replacement button for an original 1970's Space Invaders arcade cabinet. Incredible.
At the time of my visit, mobile phones were just taking off in Tokyo (but barely available outside of The City in Britain) and so vast swathes of display space were taken up with this new-fangled technology. Of course, being Japan, they weren't content to simply offer two or three conservatively specced models to introduce the idea gently to the public....there were hundreds, along with cases, phone charms and skins; a fashion that took years to reach the UK.
I am well aware that going to Tokyo and then saying you;ve "seen Japan" is the same as thinking a week in London has exposed you to everything England has to offer. I would love to return and venture outside of the capital, I've even been looking at getting some skiing in there. One day maybe?
The final part of my quest, obviously, is to visit China. The China of my youth no longer exists, taking with it my desire to visit Peking (now Beijing, of course). Shanghai has replaced Tokyo as my "must see" destination, although Beijing has put itself firmly back on my map after hosting a near faultless 2008 Olympic Games, particularly the mind-blowing, jaw-dropping opening and closing ceremonies (I fear for London's 2012 riposte).
When I do finally get to visit China, I will go with a newly instilled desire to visit some of the more rural areas after reading Jung Chang's wonderful biography of Mao Tse-tung (Mao: The Unknown Story). Chang's book is the first truly "independant" biography of Mao and explodes some of the myths about the man and his regime. Be warned though, at over 700 pages, it's not light reading and there are so many characters that play an integral part in Mao's story that you'll often find yourself flicking back to remind yourself who is who. I also suspect that, released from the shackles of any Sino-censorship, Chang has swung the pendulum slightly too far in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, a stunning, educational read.
Finally, just for the hell of it.....a link to my favourite Japan song.
Got this as an e-mail from the Mick Karn fan mentioned above!
ReplyDelete"Yeah that takes me back.
Although I now see that whole new romantic phase as a little embarrassing. I look back at the Ska era, Madness and The Specials, and The Jam and the Clash with much more affection and much more frequently. I am going to see the Specials in May and Madness in July.
I have to admit I really do not like Japan any more. It's all a bit OTT, self indulgent and electronic. My brother (who, as you know, is a couple of years younger than me) is still really into David Sylvian and Japan. In fact he got to know Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri quite well when they formed a band (cant remember their name, it might have been Rain Tree Crow) together post Japan. He bumped into them after a gig and got drunk in the bar, then ended up going to a few gigs and meeting them afterwards. But the music was too avant garde by then for my tastes.
Strange how your tastes change electronic music actually really grates on me now. Give me a classic four piece singer, bass, drums and guitar throw in a bit of brass and I all ears. I think it is a backlash to playing in a band with Reevo for all those years and him always having his keyboard way too loud. I am a bit mutt and geoff in one ear now, what ! and I swear it is his fault, no it has nothing to do with turning 40.
Having said that Mick Karn is still an awesome bass player with one of the most unique styles I ever seen or heard. I might just have to get his Dalis Car album out, Waking Hour, with Pete Murphy ex Bauhaus and have a listen. No sod it, I need to buy the fretless bass I never got round to buying back in the day and finally learn how to play like he did, without the awful dancing he used to do.
Note that Bauhaus actually produced a cover of Ziggy Stardust that was actually better than the original. Now Bowie is the exception that breaks the "I don't like electronic music any more" rule I still think he his is incredible. In fact off the top of my head Ziggy Stardust and the spiders form Mars is still probably the best album ever written.
And on that contentious point I'll sign off and get back to work.
Ooooh top 80's band Echo and the Bunnymen still awesome and I still listen to them. With the possible exeption of Madness they are the best live band (The Wonderstuff were also a contender) I have ever seen."