Hinotama Boy [Original recording remastered] [Import]

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Hinotama Boy,Keiichi Suzuki,Moonriders,Wea,World Music

Average customer rating:

Actually... the title is "Fireball" Boy

The Moonriders' solid debut

Hinotama Boy
Keiichi Suzuki , and Moonriders
Manufacturer: Wea
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00005S0EJ
Release Date: 2001-12-12

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Customer Reviews:

Actually... the title is "Fireball" Boy.......2004-12-30

Wow, an English review. There are not many outside of Japan (and actually, not many here within) who are familiar with this group. I have no doubt personally, that they are the most incredible group Japan has ever produced, and one of the greatest rock bands in the history of the world. Pretty high praise, but their catalogue defies imagination. From 1976 to their final (so far) LP in 2001, they have covered nearly every genre and subgenre of rock, often with startingly fresh results. They never had the single producing power that Japan demands from its idol darlings (and SMAP), but they crafted albums that are more consistent and re-playable than nearly any other group of the late 20th century... oh, and they released two dozen of them! Starting from Hinotama Boy (Hi no Tama literally means "Fire's Ball" which is a meteor, or a shooting star), indeed rising from the ashes of Hachimitsu Pie (Beatles comparisons are valid, HP is Japanese for "Honey Pie", though the group was more folk. If possible check out their few albums, and their incredible folk-rocker "Hei no Ue de"), their sound was constantly evolving, and due to the volume of their work, never seemed too far reaching, rather incremental steps on a long and winding road. Their unfinished demos alone could fill a library (tantalizing hints on the fan-club exclusive out-of-print 3 CD set Damn! Moonriders... got my copy for 1man yen, and that was a steal!). This first album is utterly fantastic, but not if you try to appreciate it without knowing all their other work. Most of their 70s material gets better with multiple listens, and though I was shocked at the lack of experimentation on this first one (I must have been expecting... what, well I am not sure), it has become a fantastic listen, a genre of music the Japanese seem to want to bury these days. The "big three" from Hachimitsu Pie were Haruomi Hosono, Suzuki and Morio Agata. Agata has had a pretty successful solo career (and headed the wholly original Space Pop group Virgin VS, all of their work is sadly out of print), Hosono was one of the members of Happy End and founded YMO with R. Sakamoto (the most popular Japanese group of the 1980s), but Suzuki is not given the respect he deserves. All the members of the group take turns composing, so the variety of styles, musical specialties, and the resulting tracks, vary greatly. The Moon Riders produced concept albums, rock albums, new wave, rap, reggae, orchestral (ala George Harrison), and cover tracks.

I would say their most glaring weak spot is actually Keiichi Suzuki's limited vocal talent. He tends to croon when the notes get out of his range lending a strangely "Kermit" quality to his songs (most noticeable on Aozora no Marie, which I think, would have otherwise been their biggest hit, and managed to scoop The Cure with regards to both sound and the lamentations of a rainy dreamy days of the week song dedicated to a beauty). If you ever get to Japan and try Karaoke, with minimal practice one can do these tracks pitch perfect. A real shame too, because with a vocalist of superior prowess, some of these tracks might have hit it really big (actually, their biggest hit, Sweet Bitter Candy was *not* sung by Suzuki...). Their live albums are something fantastic too, I just hope I can hit a performance next time I am in Tokyo.

Best albums to get: Aozora Hyakkei, Modern Music, Christ Who's Gonna Die First, and the live Worst of the Moonriders. Give you an idea of the Riders "era" to go into, my personal favorite is 1976~1982

The Moonriders' solid debut.......2004-12-17

As a group, the Moonriders haven't as yet made a dent in the burgeoning, American cultural trend towards Japanophilia. Despite existing as a stable unit for over 25 years and releasing a number of excellent albums, they've managed to develop a mere cult following at home and are almost totally unknown abroad (this despite having some high-profile admirers, amoung them Andy Partridge of XTC). While some of the groups' innumerable side-projects have made a dent in the American consciousness--Keiichi Suzuki's scores for the Mother/Earthbound series of Nintendo games and his excellent work on Zatoichi/Tokyo Godfathers have gained some recognition, while Ryomei Shirai proteges The Pillows have become J-pop import darlings--their extensive, rewarding back catalogue remains essentially unknown, and largely unavailable outside of Japan.

This is a shame, because the Moonriders are a fantastic band, one which compares favorably with any Western equivalent. The 1970s were a period in which Japanese rock/pop finally began to gain a voice of its own, separating from the pre-fab, good-but-awfully-derivative mould of 1960s "Group Sounds" to form something refreshingly independant. The Moonriders--leader Keiichi Suzuki, bassist brother Hirobumi Suzuki, drummer Tetsuro Kashibuchi, violinist Masahiro Takekawa, lead guitarist Ryomei Shirai, and keyboardist Tohru Okada--formed from the ashes of a group called "Honey Pie," which had ties to the seminal "Happy End," recently of the Lost in Translation soundtrack (this is if I have my history right...unsurprisingly, it's somewhat difficult to pick these things out of Japanese language pages at times).

"Hinotama (Cannonball) Boy" was released in 1976, and sounds distinctly of-the-era. In fact, given the band's later embrace of technopop, sampling, and gazetry, this album is almost off-puttingly organic; none of the instruments are sampled, and while there're some synthesizer trickery going on, it never grabs center stage. In fact, if I had to levy one criticism against the album, it would be that it's almost *too* normal; in other words, this isn't Roxy Music's out-of-the-gate "we're here, we're different, let's rock" template the band is following.

Hinotama Boy is a solid, mid-70s rock album, featuring some excellent songwriting and playing; some of these tracks ("Yoidore Dance Music") would later become concert staples. Better yet, this CD is an excellent reissue of the album, largely fixing some of the egregious clipping errors of the earlier, stock disc (the out-take bonus tracks are a particular delight). Neophytes would be advised to start later on in the catalogue, as the band began to experiment with world music and especially technopop; to that end, Istanbul Mambo, Camera Egal Stylo, Modern Music, and the actually-available-in-the-states-Amateur Academy might be better starting points.

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