why the horn section in [i]liberty[/i]?

the dirty secret about the [i]boku wa kakera[/i] remake they didn't want you to know!

and sawao's first american record.

THE TRUTH IS IN HERE.

first page draft of [url=http://pirouzu.net/stuff/quip1_s.JPG]a quip magazine[/url] (volume 37) interview. sometime after the release of 'turn back'.

[i]interview by fumie asakura and keiichi ishikawa [/i]

[b]what are the pillows up to these days? [/b]
shinichirou satou (s): right now our leader is running around everywhere campaigning.
sawao yamanaka (y): yeah.
yoshiaki manabe (m): next, we've got to get started on a new album.
[b]how are things individually? [/b]
s: i've been on vacation for about a week. today was the first time i practiced again, so i'm tired (laughs).
[b]how about you, manabe? [/b]
m: i'm currently remodeling my home studio, i'm replacing the system and such, so everything is is a mess. because i'm putting in new things in preparation for the new album, i've got a soldering iron now so i can do some electrical work.
y: he'll start by replacing the wallpaper.
m: what's that supposed to mean? (laughs)
s: he'll use egg cartons. [1]
y: for the soundproofing? oooold!
[b]what about you, sawao? [/b]
y: my custom-made kuniyoshi utagawa souvenir jacket [2] is almost done... though, when it's finished, i won't really be able to wear it since it's hot, but i think i'll wear it anyway until it's too hot.
[b]how much is a custom-made jacket, anyway?[/b]
y: this one was around 25,000 yen [3]. for embroidery, 25,000 yen is really cheap. if i were to buy just a regular souvenir jacket, 20,000 yen would be expensive. so this is a big bargain.

[b]how did you come up with the concept for your self-cover compilation, 'turn back'? [/b]
y: there was no concept, it was just something our director talked to me about. he specifically came to my house and said something like, 'sawao, i don't think you'll like this idea, but i'd like to do a self-cover and a tribute album for your 15th anniversary. what do you think?' and right away i said, 'yeah! i'll do it!' in about five seconds, i knew i wanted to do this song and that song. but the director, who'd come expecting he'd have to persuade me, was like, 'huh?!' it was like he'd lost his rhythm. he'd said the same thing to me when it was our 10th anniversary, and at that time, i'd said 'no way, what a pain', and that was the end of that (laughs). so this time was different.
[b]so which were the songs you thought of that you actually recorded?[/b]
y: four songs immediately came to mind. [i]liberty[/i], [i]our halley's comet[/i], [i]tiny boat[/i], and [i]you and me and mr. moon[/i]. i thought, 'awesome! i wanna do this right away!'
[b]did you also discuss it as a group?[/b]
y: not really. basically, i don't feel comfortable discussing with the other two. mostly i'll decide something, and then do my best to appeal to them- that's the kind of band we are. and then i think, is it okay if i don't? but, even though he never said 'i want to do [i]WANT TO SLEEP FOR[/i]', manabe said, 'is there enough rock on here? balance-wise, is there enough considering our current feel?' and i left out the bossanova song i was thinking of adding and put in that instead.
[b]what do you two think? [/b]
m: as an individual, while i did think about which songs would be interesting to record with our current sound, isn't it much more important, as a player and as a musician, to have improved since the original recordings? i'm proud of my past works, and as a project this has been interesting and fun.
s: it was fun to give it a try. before we played the songs, i thought, how am i supposed to redo something i've done before? i didn't like the idea of not rearranging the songs at all. but unexpectedly i'd forgotten the songs anyway. making something we did a long time ago into new songs was fun.

[b]what did you place emphasis on in the new recordings? [/b]
y: we didn't really put that kind of preparation into the recordings. we didn't go at it with any strong sense of readiness. for the secret track on penalty life, [i]boku wa kakera[/i], we really just did it twice in the studio and then decided which one we liked better. for recording live in a studio (????), individually it was good for us. a secret track recorded for fun is better than how we spent a lot of time and passion recording things 15 years ago. so, i think that means we've grown rather well as a band. yeah. so when you ask, after finishing that, what about doing a self-cover? the only reason was because we just wanted to do it. it's just adults playing around in their spare time. if you think that you have to make big preparations to be able to record, you're mistaken. we've been doing this for 15 years, even without preparation we can lay out some good guitar and drums. (laughs) so we play around. we recorded at three times the usual tempo, and usually i only sing one song per day, but this time we did three in a day. [i]boku wa kakera[/i] is four minutes long, so we were done in four minutes. but it's not that we thought we wanted to prolong that by making a new album, either. we just did it to try it. we just began it with the intent of enjoying ourselves. i'm better now than i was 15 years ago, to have sung it once and have it turn out okay.
[b]so you can record once and it turns out fine. [/b]
y: yeah. it's just good for the pillows to have a balance. in the old days the emotions were kind of flat. i'm not saying i want to change it, i just want to make new songs. naturally, we don't change the things that were good. there's no needless hang-ups.
[b]manabe, you said you thought it sounded fun, when you first heard of this plan for a self-cover album, but how did it actually turn out when you recorded?[/b]
m: when we recorded.... at first, i thought the melodies were too scattered, and that having so many genres would make it a rather disconnected work, but as it turned out it wasn't like that. when listened to it at the end, when it was mastered, i then felt like what we did, just having fun and giving ourselves some leeway, was something we could be proud of as a band. that we could do this just in our spare time is pretty darn good.
[b]shinichirou, what do you think? [/b]
s: i agree. i thought we really needed to change something about the things we recorded in the past. but when we actually recorded it, it wasn't like that. i think it became a self-cover where i just went and did it with my usual mindset.
[b]what does the title, 'turn back' signify?[/b]
y: if you translate it into japanese, it means 'to go back', or 'turn back'. but i didn't think of it as a totally straight and sharp thing (??), it's a self-cover. but just after we were done, i remembered something funny. the first american record i bought was by toto. actually, i really don't like them now! (laughs) but i recorded their songs off the radio to cassette tape when i was in middle school. i really liked their song [i]goodbye elenore[/i], and i would listen to it over and over but i didn't have the lyrics card, so i was singing in katakana english. i figured i should buy the album. i asked my older friend, otaru, who was in high school- who sings [i]goodbye elenore[/i]? i memorized the letters- 'toto'.
m: ahh, so there's a second.
y: that album was called 'turn back' (laughs). i never had any thought of translating it into japanese at the time so it didn't make an impression.
m: if you've bought boston's 'don't look back', that would have been the title.
all: (laughter)
y: indeed. but 'don't look back' isn't right (laughs), it'd have to be 'look back'. that'd be a funny subtitle. 'turn back' but 'don't look back' (laughs).
s: i love america!
all: (laughter)
y: well, since the first american record i bought was 'turn back', it's like a work that looks back needs it (??). it's like it doesn't. hmm, it doesn't. (laughs)
[b]from what period does your previously unreleased track, [i]liberty[/i], come from? [/b]
y: we played it live in 1995. i was thinking i wanted to make it a single, but i didn't get agreement from the staff at that time, so it's out now (laughs). it was around the same time we were about to release [i]tiny boat[/i]. [i]tiny boat[/i] was released in january 1996, but it was not at a point where it was a musical factor so we postponed its release- it was really recorded in 1995. at the same time, i wanted to make [i]liberty[/i] a single along with a song called [i]future[/i], but that wasn't released either. it's from that time period. i thought the lyrics were really good and i've always wanted to release it. i had trouble because the songs were refused; i thought, 'what are we gonna put on the album?' i gradually felt shut in by the other unfamiliar new songs. regrettably, i eventually gave up on the songs. but now here's my chance! i thought. yes! and this time we can just play around, and not worry about the sound. so i put in a horn section, something untypical of our sound from any time period. yeah.

[1] satou is joking around- it seems to be a common myth that using egg cartons on the walls is a cheapass way of soundproofing a recording studio. however, they can improve the acoustics.
[2] kuniyoshi utagawa was a 19th century japanese artist. a [url=http://www.venusvintage.com/images/jackets/japanese%20souvenir/IMAGE002.JPG]souvenir jacket[/url] ([i]sukajan[/i]) is typically a bomber/flight jacket or imitation with embroidery on the back, popularized by american soldiers wanting a memento from their travels abroad.
[3] 25,000 yen is approximately $230 USD.

Thanks terra.

I guess some of our suspicions about Sawao were kinda true. In the old days, they tried to do as much as they could to make their work perfect, while now, they only worry about having a good time. It sounds innocent, but I feel it's kind of depressing. They do have fun and produce fun music, but if they spend no time trying to instill passion in their music, then the music will become passionless and won't live up to its potential.

thanks for the cool interview.

Cool interview, thanks for it. Also, I can clarify the (????)'s after "recording live in the studio." Recording live in the studio refers to recording all of the instruments at the same time, instead of doing them track by track.

[quote="TuffGhost"]Cool interview, thanks for it. Also, I can clarify the (????)'s after "recording live in the studio." Recording live in the studio refers to recording all of the instruments at the same time, instead of doing them track by track.[/quote]

the question marks are just translation problems. he uses some weird word/contraction there that i haven't been able to figure out and don't want to forget about. i tried to get the gist of it regardless, instead of just putting 'recording in the studio live because gobblygobbly that was really good for us.'

but you make a good point. i hadn't noticed that distinction.

Very cool. Thanks a bunch.

Why does Sato suddenly say "I love America!" in the last part of the conversation? I guess I don't get it.

Sato is that much cooler.

Thanks for another great translation, terra. This was a really insightful interview.

[quote="BlazingSage"]Why does Sato suddenly say "I love America!" in the last part of the conversation? I guess I don't get it.[/quote]
Because they're talking about the first American album that Sawao bought.

Yeah, it doesn't make a ton of sense, but it's good humour.

awesome terra!

but it kind of worries me, what kelp said. i felt that good dreams, though good, was more empty of feeling than previous works. i hope they put more feeling into nonfiction.

[quote="Marekenshin"]awesome terra!

but it kind of worries me, what kelp said. i felt that good dreams, though good, was more empty of feeling than previous works. i hope they put more feeling into nonfiction.[/quote]

i can certainly see why it would be concerning, but i got out of it that sawao seems to be saying the opposite. "in the old days the emotions were kind of flat." as if because they put so much heart into making things technically good, they lacked real heart. so now they're going off the other end. i'm interpreting old days here as pre-1995.

and i really can't agree that good dreams was more empty of feeling.

[quote="overAmped"]
[quote="BlazingSage"]Why does Sato suddenly say "I love America!" in the last part of the conversation? I guess I don't get it.[/quote]
Because they're talking about the first American album that Sawao bought.[/quote]

and he's making fun of the (american) album titles, i suppose.

yeah, pre-1995, i can see that.

but by "empty of feeling" i meant that on the album, there are no songs like swanky street or hybrid rainbow or kizuato no sasayaki... that i just fell in love with. i do like new year's eve and good dreams, but right now i don't like them near as much as i do some of the other stuff. i wouldn't say good dreams is void of feeling, you're right, that was a bad way to put it, but it's just...so different from their more serious work.

yeah, i was quite off when i said that. cause good dreams IS full of feeling, it's just a very different feeling than, say...smile.

My friend was disappointed with the lack of feeling in good dreams. i was too. Sawao still has the energy and emotion in it, but there's lack of caring about making the album really shine that is very apparent in the last 2 albums. Perhaps it's a kind of "we can add an effect over it" kind of attitude.

[quote="Marekenshin"]yeah, pre-1995, i can see that.

but by "empty of feeling" i meant that on the album, there are no songs like swanky street or hybrid rainbow or kizuato no sasayaki... that i just fell in love with. i do like new year's eve and good dreams, but right now i don't like them near as much as i do some of the other stuff. i wouldn't say good dreams is void of feeling, you're right, that was a bad way to put it, but it's just...so different from their more serious work.

yeah, i was quite off when i said that. cause good dreams IS full of feeling, it's just a very different feeling than, say...smile.[/quote]

*shrug* opinion. 'kizuato' bores me. i think 'sono mirai wa ima' is beautiful, as well as 'good dreams' (the song). songs that you fall in love with are going to be few and far between, anyway... my personal top ten hasn't changed much in two years.

i suppose some of the songs on good dreams were more low-key than usual, but i feel that the first three tracks hold up pretty well.

sawao does come off as being arrogant... somewhat expected, though. on the other hand, it's apparent that the turn back and synchronized rockers projects were not born out of pure ego and greed. that, i appreciate.