Super Hero (live) by NiNa: the greatest supergroup no one ever heard of Kate Pierson of the B-52's and an international all-star lineup tear it up in Japan. Tonight I listened to this CD for the first time in about a month, which is (I swear) the longest I've gone without playing it in the past five years since I discovered it. NiNa formed in 1999, did one album that was very successful in Japan (several top 20 hits, sold-out concerts, two songs were used for anime theme songs), but made no impact outside of Japan & the group never followed up with another album. The lineup is:
Kate Pierson (
B-52's) vocals,
Yuki Isoya (Japanese New-New-Wave band
Judy and Mary) vocals,
Masahide Sakuma ('80s Japanese New Wave band
The Plastics), guitar & arrangments,
Mick Karn (British New Romanic pioneers
Japan) bass,
Stephen Wolf (all-star session ace) drums, T
akemi Shima (
The Plastics) visual agent provocateur (+ guitar & occasional other instruments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-ouPxu886QKate has been an out lesbian for many years, and this song contains some decidedly homoerotic imagery ("diving for pearls, shining out liquid fire, a volcano of laughter and desire"). This clip is from a Japanese TV special aired while the band was touring in 2000; the unnamed young guitar player (w/out glasses) & keyboard player were added for touring. The CD is out of print, but not too hard to find on eBay. Love it, love it, love it.
Edit: Two things I forgot to mention: 1) another of the videos on youtube for "Route 246" shows their popularity, as near the end of the song, when Yuki hold her mic out toward the audience & the camera angle switches to a crowd shot, you can see everyone in the audience knows the words and is singing along; 2) Yuki is not at all my usual type, even for Asians, but when she is onscreen I am so hypnotized that I'm a little worried she has stolen my soul & is just waiting for the proper moment to call me to do her bidding. Heck, even if she didn't steal my soul, I'd have a hard time not doing her bidding.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2013, 11:46:06 AM by alistair.blankley »
but when I'm bad, I'm oh, so bad... alistair.blankley@myscreenandfap.com