This is part three of the 懐かしいバンド (natsukashii bando) trilogy. I conclude my reminiscing with a look at my personal favourite J-rock/J-pop band, Do As Infinity.

A famous phrase included on all of Do As Infinity‘s (DAI) CD releases is “Do As Infinity are Van Tomiko, Owatari Ryo, Nagao Dai and all supporters.” This pays homage to the way the band kicked off their amazing career, by playing live in the streets of Shibuya (Tokyo). From these humble beginnings to their decision to disband in ’05 DAI have always remained a versatile, down-to-earth rock group with pop sensabilities which is sometimes affectionately know as being ‘genreless.’

The band originally began with Dai Nagao. Dai began playing with an amatuer band that split up sometime in or before ’98. Following this Dai sent demos to more than fifty major record companies. He was, amazingly, picked up by AVEX Records, one of the largest records companies in Japan. Almost immediately he was given the job of composing for major pop divas like hitomi and 浜崎あゆみ (Ayumi Hamasaki). Given the success of the songs produced for those artists Dai was secured under the label and began looking to create his own band.

How exactly Ryo Owatari (Ryo) and Ban Tomiko (Van) came to audition at all, let alone be chosen for the band, are fantastic stories in their own right that are probably outside the scope of this post. Anyway, both of them were recognized as diamonds in the rough. Together the band released it’s first single, Tangerine Dream on 29 September ’99, officially marking the their debut as Do As Infinity (when abbreviated it forms ‘D.A.I‘, an obvious reference to Dai).

Throughout the rest of the year DAI played pretty much daily live in the streets of Shibuya, at in-store concerts and many other places across Japan. This time was spent getting Van used to singing (she was originally going to be a model) and trialing some of the songs. Their 100th concert was given free at Shibuya AX as a tribute to all of the people who had supported them along the way.

DAI began the new millenium much as they left the old, by performing live at different venues. It was in March of this year that their success story truly began to be realised: they released their first album, BREAK OF DAWN, which debuted at number three in the Oricon Charts. From this point onwards DAI continued to release an outstanding number of high-ranking singles (twenty in total) and albums (six altogether, as well as seven compilation albums and eight live DVDs).

With the release of their fifth single (a Christmas-themed song called We are.) in November of ’00 Dai decided that he would no longer appear in either the band’s promotional compaings nor in the CD booklets. He saw his role as primarily as a composer, and he was finding it hard to both compose great music and also keep up the public appearances. He still appeared in concerts from time to time though.

Perhaps the song that most people remember DAI for is 深い森 (fukai mori, released Nov ’01) which was used as the second ending theme song for the mega-popular animé InuYasha.

DAI‘s twentieth single, TAO, was released in ’05 and featured lyrics about friends parting ways. Shortly after this it was announced that the group would officially disband on 29 September ’05, exactly six years since the release of Tangerine Dream (their first single).

From performing in front of commuters in Tokyo to being one of Japan’s most successful bands ever, DAI have something special about them. To paraphrase what one other fan has said of them: “DAI‘s albums have a fresh, soft and melodic opus. They are powerful records with excellent songs; various melodies that are easy to listen to. Tomiko Van’s voice is delightful, warm and clear. Her low-keyed voice can sound very deeply, which is a part of her originality. Van’s haunting harmonies are very typical of her singing style and dramatically stand out beside any other contemporary rock music productions. Ryo does some background singing in a many songs, and even if his participation is discrete, it does bring a masculine, indispensable touch. DAI’s music is cheerful and has some pop flavour but never gets corny. The guitar riffs are well-elaborated and some of Ryo’s solos are simply memorable.

Since their disbanding Van has launched a solo career, Ryo has worked with a few different artists but is mostly concentrating his new band (Missile Innovation) and Dai has, of course, been composing for various artists, primarily Amasia Landcape and others on the TRUE SONG MUSIC label.

DAI is my favourite band, period. Check them out. Now.

Welcome to part two in the  懐かしいバンド (natsukashii bando) trilogy where I introduce you to some famous and popular Japanese pop groups that have disbanded in recent years.

As an avid J-pop enthusiast it is not without a tear or two that I look back on the year of 2005. As I previously posted, this was the year of day after tomorrow‘s hiatus (August). Even more so saddening however was the disbanding of the four-piece pop group ZONE on April Fool’s Day.

Since ZONE‘s first major debut single, GOOD DAYS, in February ’01 they had captivated the hearts of both Japanese and international fans. Originally the band was scouted as a singing/dancing group of eight members in ’99 by Studio Runtime in Sapporo. I have viewed their original audition act and (to be blunt) they really sucked, haha. They soon seemed to get their act together by halving the number of members and changing their image somewhat. All four of the girls learnt to play instruments to complement their other abilities. The final four girls were Takayo, Miyu, Mizuho and Maiko.

Their first single was followed by another excellent song, 大爆発NO.1 (Dai Bakuhatsu No.1). Their biggest claim to fame is without a doubt their third single: secret base ～君がくれたもの～ (secret base ~kimi ga kureta mono). A heartfelt song about leaving an old friend, it has won the hearts of those both young and old in Japan. In fact, it was such a hit that it helped ZONE to win the Japan Gold Disk New Artist of the Year of 2002. After this ZONE produced a further twelve singles. They were pretty much all excellent songs in their own right and recieved many accollades. ZONE‘s album line-up is also quite strong. From ’02 onwards they released the albums Z, O, N, ASTRO Girlz & Boyz (for the ’03 airing of Astro Boy), E ～Complete A side Singles～ and ura E~Complete B side Melodies~.

In ’03 Takayo left the band in order to further some personal goals and was replaced by Tomoka, the final member to be cut by the band before they made it big (allegedly because she was too tall!). Only two years later in February ZONE announced their disbanding (which occurred on the 1st of April). They left in their prime. Mizuho originally voiced the idea and the other weren’t happy with the idea of continuing on as a three-piece so they happily left the group, excited at the prospects of their future life. Miyu, for example, was only just graduating high school and wanted to go to University. Many of the members are now in bands of their own or have released some solo work.

ZONE chose to end their glorious career with a Spring tour, the last concert of which occurred at Nippon Budokan on 1 April ’05. The DVD of this concert (ZONE FINAL in 日本武道館 2005/04/01 ～心を込めてありがとう～) was released later that year and is an essential piece to any J-pop lover’s collection. Their last song, an emotional rendition of secret base ～君がくれたもの～, farewells ZONE to a well-deserved place in J-music history.

Btw, ZONE was the first group to pioneer the new genre of ‘bandol’ (band + idol).

Click here to view some images of ZONE.

If you want to practice your Japanese, you can read the farewell letters of all four ZONE band members in Japanese here (including their reasons for seperating) and then view a translation to see how you went.

This is my first post in a trilogy about some 懐かしいバンド (natsukashii bando) of mine.*

day after tomorrow 

day after tomorrow (‘dat‘) are a three-piece band under the Avex label. They formed in summer 2000 when Misono (younger sister of Koda Kumi), the vocalist, was chosen in an Avex audition. She is joined by guitarist maa-kun and keyboardist dai-chan. A lot of their music is written by their sound producer, Mitsuru Igarashi, a former Every Little Thing member. Two years after their inception dat debuted with the song ‘faraway’. This is a graceful, synth pop-based song that shows clear throwbacks to Mitsuru’s Every Little Thing influences. Much of dat’s music is similar to this style. In the Summer of 02 they performed in the first ever Avex A-Nation Summer Festa Event and displayed that they were now a cohesive band ready to take on the industry. Their first album, elements, was released in March of the following year. Dat demonstrated that there were now a force to be reckoned with.

Over the next few years Dat continued to release singles and albums at a steady pace. Many of their singles perfomed well on the Oricon charts and were tied with CMs (commercials). In August 05 they released a ‘best of’ and then promptly announced (much to their fan’s dismay) that they were going on hiatus. This is more than likely due to dai-chan (the guitarist) dating SAYAKA (a famous J-pop artist, daughter of another famous pop diva Matsuda Seiko). It is rumoured that he wanted to write some songs for her and help develop her career. Also, because of the differences of their ages (Kitano was 30 at the time, Sayako was 18) there was a bit of a media scandal which no doubt accelerate the disbanding of dat.

Dat’s elements album was one of the first J-pop albums that I ever purchased legitimately and still to this day remains one of my favourites. For this reason dat is one of my ‘natsukashii bando‘. If you are intersted in listening to some dat music then I recommend that you check out ‘Grow’, ‘そして僕にできる’, ‘Funny DAYs’, ‘Faraway’, ‘Futurity’ and my personal favourite ‘Starry Heavens’ (the theme for the Japanese version of the popular Tales of Symphonia RPG).

Dat, we remember you. 

*What does “natsukashii bando” mean? Natsukashii is an adjective that is used when you have a feeling of nostalgia. For example, when you eat an ice cream that you haven’t eaten since when you were a child and it reminds you of a fond summer that you spent at the beach, that is natsukashii. I don’t think that there is a direct equivilant phrase in English. Natsukashii is very useful so I suggest that you memorize it and try it out with your friends. Bando is simply ‘band’ with a thick, crippling Japanese accent. So natsukashii bando literally means something to the effect of ”fondly remembered band(s)”. Just remember that there is something like an actual genre of ‘natsukashii’ music in Japan which is quite different to the bands that I’ll be referring to. That kind of natsukashii music is from Japan in the 70s/80s and is generally what middle-aged people listen to.