Mick Karn

No surprises today. Three songs from Japan bassist Mick Karn.

First a couple of random Mick Karn memories:

1. I saw Japan on their final tour and as you can imagine there was not a lot of movement on-stage. However, every so often Mick would suddenly glide across the stage at great speed with tiny footsteps. It’s hard to describe but it’s an image that stays with you. Incidentally, I attended this gig with my sister, my girlfriend and two of her friends, some of whom only wanted to swoon at “the world’s most beautiful man” (apparently that was David Sylvian, not me). In fact, exactly the audience the band were keen to get away from.

2. I remember Mick Karn sitting next to the great Dave Gilmour on Pop Quiz and either Mick is tiny or Dave is huge (probably a bit of both).

Sensitive is actually one of my top 5 lost classics from the eighties. We all knew he could play bass a bit (and his fretless bass is well up in the mix here) but could he sing? On the evidence of this single he had quite a sweet voice perfectly suited to the song.


Create and Melt is from his one-off collaboration with Bowie impersonator Pete Murphy. The Waking Hour by Dali’s Car had a striking cover that looked great as an LP but its effect is inevitably diminished on CD.

By 1987 David Sylvian was guest vocalist on Bouy. I remember being very pleased about this at the time because it was always rumoured that David and Mick had the most difficult relationship in the band.

Mick Karn - Sensitive

Dali's Car - Create and Melt

Mick Karn featuring David Sylvian - Bouy

By Mick Karn here.

David's New Career

If you read my last two posts you probably guessed where I was going.

David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamoto – Forbidden Colours
Or as it says on the sleeve: “The vocal version of the theme from the film Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence.” Brilliant!

David Sylvian – Silver Moon
My favourite track from the 1986 Gone To Earth album. The line-up for this track is pretty impressive:

David Sylvian – vocals, keyboards, guitar
Steve Jansen – drums
Ian Maidman – bass
Bill Nelson – guitars
Robert Fripp – solo guitar, frippertronics
B.J. Cole – pedal steel guitar
Mel Collins – soprano sax

I lost track of David Sylvian’s solo career after this but he has released several critically acclaimed albums available here.

Ryuichi Sakamoto also has a large back catalogue available here.

Japan – the effeminate futurists

I had quite a long piece prepared about how listening to Japan now didn’t match my expectations but when I started citing examples it ended up almost sounding like an anti-Japan diatribe. This was not my intention at all and since I decided this blog would never be negative I decided to ditch it. Suffice to say I don’t find some of their moodier and more pretentious material so tolerable these days. Of course, this isn’t particularly surprising because obviously we grow and change but for a while in the eighties my favourite band was Japan, so there’s a slight sense of loss.

On the positive side, there’s still plenty to enjoy from their back catalogue. This being a (mostly) vinyl based blog I’ve chosen a couple of songs from 12-inch singles that, as far as I know, are not currently available on CD.

In Vogue is from a 12-inch EP called Live in Japan. This looks like a Japanese import but the record says it was made in Germany. The full track list is:
Side A
1. Deviation
2. Obscure Alternatives
Side B
1. In Vogue (mp3)
2. Sometimes I Feel So Low

Japan - The Art Of Parties(extended version)mp3

The next few posts will feature various Japan related solo projects. You may see some connections with yesterday’s post.

Band's Eye View

Today I’m featuring legendary Japanese band Yellow Magic Orchestra (Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi).

Technopolis is originally from their 1979 album Solid State Survivor. Connection is from drummer Yukihiro Takahashi’s third solo album Neuromantic.

These samples are taken from Band’s Eye View, a 1982 sampler from weekly music paper Sounds featuring six tracks from the Japanese artists who just happened to be signed to CBS/Epic in the UK.

The full track list is:

Side One
1. Yellow Magic Orchestra – Technopolis
2. Sandii & The Sunsetz – Zoot Kook
3. Ippu Do – Listen To Me

Side Two
1. Sandii & TheSunsetz – Heat Scale
2. Yukihiro Takahashi – Connection
3. Susan – Nuit De Saint-Germain

The OTHER Clint Eastwood...

Just time for a quick update this afternoon.

Flicking through the latest edition of Mojo at my local newsagent this morning* I noticed that Stop That Train by Clint Eastwood & General Saint has been re-issued. In the 80’s the title track was a favourite at one of our local night clubs. It’s been out of print for some time so I had intended to feature it as a relatively rare track on a future blog. Instead, consider this a slightly scratchy sampler for the re-issue.

Clint Eastwood & General Saint - Stop That Train (Buy)

*I gave up automatically buying it when it went over the £4 mark. Hint to Mojo: ditch the “free” CD and drop the price.

TV21

TV21 were a short lived Edinburgh band named after an old comic that featured comic strips of Gerry Anderson shows. I’ve always considered their final single, All Join Hands, to be a bit of a lost gem. It seems however that the band don’t agree with me. In an interview from 1991 (which you can read here) singer Norman Rodger describes it merely as OK and blames record company interference, while the interviewer describes it as ghastly. Both seem to agree it was not a fitting swansong especially compared to their previous output. I can’t comment on that because this was the only TV21 song I had heard until I discovered their myspace site today. The songs featured there certainly don’t sound like the same band.

My conclusion is if you hear All Join Hands with no pre-conceptions it’s a fine product of its era. Judge for yourself.

The line-up for this single is:
Neil E Baldwin - bass guitar/backing vocals
David B Hampton - piano/backing vocals
Alistair T Palmer - acoustic guitar/backing vocals
Alasdair J Paterson - drums/percussion/backing vocals
Norman W Rodger - acoustic guitar/lead & backing vocals

Drum machine rhythms - N Rodger/A Palmer/A Paterson
Sequencer - Michael Howlett

The Cannizaro Strings
Charlotte Buchanan – violin
Judith Herbert - Cello

TV21 - All Join Hands(mp3)

Bethnal

Back in the mid 70’s Bethnal played in the small west country town I grew up in. I didn’t actually see them (I was too young for pubs) but I heard good things so I took a gamble on this record a couple of years later. It’s a good example of late 70’s new wave. I could probably do without the “Someday you’re gonna need me…” spoken part but it doesn’t ruin the song and I suppose it adds period charm.

The band, from the Bethnal Green area of London (but you guessed that) made two albums, Dangerous Times and Crash Landing, but never made it big. It seems to me that there with so many punk and new wave bands around in the late 70’s some good ones were bound to slip through the net and not get the success they deserved. From what I’ve heard Bethnal could be one of them. The up side is that there are still a lot of records like this to be discovered.


mp3: Bethnal - Don't Do It (1978)

As far as I know their stuff is not available on CD so I guess you should try Ebay.