Make Believe Mailer 42: Matsumoto Extra
Five Releases From The Drummer And Lyricists Career
I talked with Takashi Matsumoto for The Japan Times. He’s one of the most important figures in Japanese music history — the drummer for Happy End, he also played a big part in shaping their lyrical approach, which showed the Japanese language could be used to deliver rock music (controversial at the time!). That alone would be enough for the disc guides, but then Matsumoto went and became one of the most prolific lyricists in the country, writing the words to…I mean, when you have to organize the “works” section on Wikipedia like this, you know you are dealing with something intimidating.
Go read the story! Heck, even make the free Japan Times account to see it! Or find someone who has one already and mooch off them, I don’t get paid for how many times people read it, so go nuts.
One of the most intimidating parts of doing an interview like this is maximizing the hour you are given to talk with the artist (and this one was a tight hour, with another engagement set for like literally ten minutes after we talked), despite wanting to ask about so much. Matsumoto’s career is so windy and full of interesting detours that, in an ideal world, I could talk to him for several hours about every BIBI song he contributed to. For now, can’t do it though! But there’s so much you could dig into.
So, I thought this week, it would be fun to highlight five releases Matsumoto was part of that don’t fit neatly into his general career narrative, but are revealing / interesting all the same.
Itsutsu No Akai Fuusen — “Endan” (1972)
Matsumoto mentioned this song…as a kind of “oh, right” remembrance after talking about his work with the band Tulip and the singer Agnes Chan…as being the earliest example of him writing lyrics for another artist, at least after Happy End. While very early in his lyricist career and nowhere near the commercial peaks he’d reach in just a few years, “Endan” by folk-rock band Itsutsu No Akai Fuusen offers a great summary of his approach to words. He creates miniature stories playing out in daily scenes, using observations of everyday Japanese life to offer depth and provide emotional complexity.
“Endan” at first feels like a stream-of-conscious report on walking down a typical shopping arcade, observing an older woman selling sweets. As the song carries on, turns out our protagonist is getting married, and this is really the last few hours of their old life, coupled with a subtle but melancholy acceptance of aging (dude really focuses on the 80-year-old lady selling dango). Matsumoto relies on small details to drive the odd feeling this fleeting moment carries, and it pairs perfectly with the band’s reception-worthy guitar melody.
Itsutsu No Akai Fuusen…also really worth your time! A good example of the folk-rock sound proliferating at the time Happy End emerged, with some wonkier slow-burns along the way. Also, pretty solid fashion.
Peek-A-Boo — “Yellow Submarine Shisyu” (1976)
“In the 1960s, I was still a student. During that time, I encountered the Beatles … I learned artistic expression through them,” Matsumoto told me, and here he makes his love for the Fab Four clear by zooming in on how those raised on their music sold out on their utopian ‘60s visions in the ‘70s. Translated as “Yellow Submarine Embroidery,” this song from duo Peek-A-Boo contemplates the failure of youthful revolution, as captured by our protagonist spotting a once radical fellow with a yellow submarine stitched on their pants…lying on the phone? I think that’s just a general metaphor for the Flower Generation wilting, but this song both strays away from Matsumoto’s usual slice-of-life style in favor of something personal…and also weaves in cynicism for generational failure, a painful pang at realizing those dreams of a better world were just illusions. But hey, nothing millennials like me can get out of this song in 2022!
Godiego — “Coming Together In Kathmandu” (1980)
Harry’s House drove home the point that Haruomi Hosono has become the revered figure of 20th century Japanese music outside of the country. That has been in motion for quite some time — being part of Yellow Magic Orchestra will do that — and it was further underlined domestically as publications shared “best of the 2010s” lists that revolved around artists drawing directly from and albums taking cues from styles that he facilitated. Harry Styles namedropping him everywhere during promotion for his latest album marked the moment love for Hosono abroad crystallized — never mind that the former One Direction member’s latest, named after Hosono’s debut album Hosono House, sounds nothing like Hosono House (a release way closer to Happy End, funny enough), the moment this factoid flowed into the world, everyone started talking about Hosono and “city pop” and YouTube recommendations in relation to Harry’s House. That’s what a force Hosono has become — simply mentioning his name adds weight to a totally unrelated project.
So Hosono is, arguably, one of the most important figures in Japanese music history, including in how Japanese pop flowed globally. But I wonder…what if Godiego is more important?
Godiego is a rock band that formed in the mid ‘70s, dipping between psych-rock and pure cheese. Matsumoto talked with me a lot about choosing to sing in Japanese even if it meant any slim hopes at international attention would evaporate. Godiego, though, complicate this. If you are a huge fucking nerd…or are Australian…you know them as the band behind the theme song to the 1970s Japanese export Monkey. Yet they’re also responsible for “The Galaxy Express 999” from the anime of the same name and the soundtrack to 1977’s House, a film that has become a critical darling worldwide in the years since. They also were the first Japanese musical artist to ever play in the People’s Republic Of China which, depending on your vantage point of 21st geopolitics, is arguably the most important accomplishment in their career.
That historic concert included a performance of the song “Coming Together In Kathmandu,” also sometimes just known as “Kathmandu.” That’s the only Godiego song Matsumoto ever wrote lyrics for, but it’s an important one, both for how it figured into their accomplishments and how it is one of their bigger songs (somewhat inexplicably used as a tie-up song for…cold medicine?
Performing inside a giant pill…pretty tight
It’s a moment of intersection between Japan’s most prolific lyricist and a band with a sneaky global-minded catalog, but one not at all discussed that much despite a growing interest in older Japanese music. I’m not saying Liam Payne should pivot to Godiego on his next solo effort (he should, actually), but it’s a reminder of how far Japanese acts have actually gone, and who was involved in helping make that happen.
Emi Akiyama — “Jiangshi!!!”
Hosono and Matsumoto crossed paths plenty in the years after Happy End dissolved — Matsumoto contributed lyrics for YMO, among a bunch of other projects Hosono also found himself involved with. Yet none remind of the “that’s business” element of the music industry like the two coming together to pen a song riffing on mythical Chinese zombies for a supernatural drama produced in Taiwan.
“Jiangshi!!!” served as a song for the show Lai Lai! Jiangshi, a program that sounds like it has a pretty interesting history — based on a Taiwanese movie from a few years earlier, Japanese broadcaster TBS invested to have a series produced in the country of origin, and looking at clips I’m not sure how good an investment it was. Nevertheless, they called on actor Emi Akiyama — at this point best known for appearances on a variety show called Momoco Club and one other single — to provide a song. Enter half of the most influential Japanese rock band ever to create something sorta similar to “The Monster Mash” if you really think about it (dance like a zombie, basically).
I include this song because it cuts against a lot of legend, not just with Matsumoto but the idea of “discovered'“ Japanese artists in general. It is a total goofball song, for one, though it absolutely has its charm (distorted synths, and a vague feeling of this being “Ghostbusters” stuck under a magnifying glass on a summer day). But it also serves as tie-up music for a forgotten TV show, and is a novelty at that. And whereas most of the artists Matsumoto worked with are defining acts of the ‘70s and ‘80s, Akiyama just kind of fizzled out after that. Even legends have weird…albeit endearing…moments in their history.
Akihabara Electric Circus — TV (1989)
Sometime, the most celebrated artists just wanted to get together and cover the “Bewitched” theme song on synthesizer.
Akihabara Electric Circus was a supergroup featuring Logic System / the fourth member of Yellow Magic Orchestra Hideki Matsutake, composer Jun Irie and Matsumoto, largely in a production role. They’re best known for their version of the Super Mario Bros. 3 soundtrack, which took the 8-bit original and transformed it into an otaku fever dream of plastic funk. But give me TV, a release existing in the Hard-Off “new arrivals” bin of history and easily the funniest album Matsumoto is associated with.
The trio cover television theme songs. That’s it. They do it via the technology of the moment, which is a lot of gloopy synth notes and rhythm machines, but they also bring in guest vocalists to do “Batman” and also…offer little spoken word additions? Most of the numbers here are medleys, with Akihabara Electric Circus creating little dioramas of broadcast history (the police drama set! time for goofy families-that-are-bands sitcoms!) that sound wild when stretched out. I did not know what the hell Combat was, but they take the theme to that and turn it into the silliest basic training party-starter ever, and that’s before a big dumb guitar version of the Star Spangled Banner comes in over the sounds of gunfire and record scratches. If you like Boogie Idol, this is an essential.
Bonus fun element — so like, all of these shows popular in Japan? Is this also a kind of compact history of Western televisions presence in the country? People were really watching The Virginian out in the Kanagawa suburbs?
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies