| Alan Merrill |
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| Joined: 22 Feb 2004 |
| Posts: 2132 |
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Some time around the end of 1971
I started to get very tired of being a teen star.
I had recorded a mellow solo album titled "Alone
In Tokyo" which although successful, was very far
from my true musical leanings.
The album was entirely in the Japanese language,
and was aimed at a young demographic.
The teen market, mainly made for young females.
I was being marketed to residual fans of The Monkees,
Herman's Hermits and The Beatles, then teen-scream bands.
After late night Tokyo jams, a fast friendship, and then
talking about and nearly forming a band with Paul Kossoff
of the band Free (with my friend, bassist Tetsu Yamauchi)
I decided it was more fun to play with great
musicians than to hear girls scream at me on stage.
The band Free had broken up after a tour of Australia
with Kossoff coming back to Tokyo to hang out a bit.
The nightly drinking team was Kossoff, Tetsu,
and yours truly. We played acoustic guitars, drank
beer with sake and talked about the uncertain future
we all faced in our careers at that point.
So after a couple of years of being a teen idol
in Japan, I decided to completely change course
and change my business affiliations.
I wanted to reinvent myself as a more serious artist.
A bold move looking back.
At the time I was a young arrogant kid,
and didn't understand how the music busines
game worked.
I'm not sure I ever did, really.
I offered the new project to my label Atlantic, explaining that
an album with Paul Kossoff and Tetsu Yamauchi on it would
have value, since Kossoff has a deep and serious fan base,
and Tetsu and I were just starting to bond with Kossoff musically.
My A&R man at Atlantic dismissed the concept quickly,
relegating me to the teen music market.
My answer?
I left the label. Jumped ship.
I was signed to the label through my production company
and so when I rifted with my management, the Atlantic
records contract was null and void as well.
This sort of musical stubborness and standing my ground
against the corporatocracy would plague my career again
and again, but this was the first time it had serious consequences
for me.
I looked for a label to record an album of my original songs.
Through my friends Monsieur Kamayatsu and Miki Curtis
I got a deal with a new label distributed by Denon-Columbia.
So, in 1971 I recorded an album of my own compositions
for Alfa/Denon-Columbia, titled "Merrill 1."
Kossoff and Tetsu had left Japan by then, so I played
most of the instruments myself, except drums, which
were played by Tetsu's former bandmate Yuji Harada
of the band Samurai.
The solo album wasn't too bad. Well produced by my
friend and one of my main mentors, Miki Curtis.
But an Englsih language domestic LP release has little
commerical value in Japan, I would soon find out.
It sold quite well, but not nearly as much as "Alone In Tokyo,"
a Japanese language album, tailor made for the local market.
By that time I was living on my own in Tokyo,
in my own small apartment in Azabu,
My mother and step-father had relocated
from Tokyo to Chicago back in the States.
I was taking lots of session work to keep
the rent and bills paid. Bass, piano, or guitar.
I took on all the work I could get.
I played with a wide variety of artists, both live and
on their records; Monsieur Kamayatsu, Garo, Yuya Uchida,
Yamashita Keijiro, Hirao Masaaki, Miki Curtis, Narita Ken,
Too Much, Gypsy Blood and more.
There was also a band that I was playing with live
called Godzilla. A trio.
I named the band Godzilla as a Japanese answer to T.Rex.
I thought it was quite commercial, and a good marketing idea.
Godzilla vs T.Rex. I was writing lots of glam rock material.
It was a conceptually sound idea.
Godzilla the band was Haruo Chikada - keyboards,
Jun Kanazawa -drums,
and I played guitar and sang lead vocals.
Haruo played a Fender Rhodes bass keyboard with his left hand,
and vamped chords and played fills with his right hand,
much like Ray Manzarek of The Doors. It worked.
We played a few weeks at a popular club in the mountain
resort town of Karuizawa, and started to sound tight,
throwing some of my original songs in with covers.
They had previously been in a band called Emotion
(photo - The band Emotion: Haruo Chikada top right
and Jun Kanazawa bottom right- Photo: Heibon Punch)
http://www.the-aleecat.com/WhowhoJp5.jpg
and the duo supported my live solo shows with
help from Tetsu Yamauchi or Tom Kuhata (Rock Pilots)
on bass.
One of the oddest gigs of my career was playing
as opening act with the band Godzilla, for the film
"Melody Fair" all over Japan.
Support act for a feature film.
Not quite over my teen stardom, we would get on stage
before the film, and the girls would scream and scream.
Then the film came on, and they would still scream, for
actors Mark Lester and Jack Wild on screen
It was all very strange.
When we got back to Tokyo, we formed an alliance with
guitarist Hiroshi Kato, also known as Yellow Gypsy.
He proposed a project to us that King records had asked
him to produce. We agreed.
It was to be an instrumental psych-surf-glam project.
So we went into the studio and cut two albums over a
month or so.
This is a review of the project:
Godzilla and Yellow Gypsy were a 1971-1972
studio recording band composed of guitarist
Hiroshi Kato (Yellow Gypsy), and the three piece band
Godzilla, who were drummer Jun Kanazawa,
keyboard player Haruo Chikada, and Alan Merrill on bass guitar.
The band did an LP series called "Dai Go-Go Party" for King Records Japan.
First album "Dai Go-Go Party" (Volume One) King Records / SKM-1247/8 / 1972.12.10
Second album "Dai Go-Go Party (Volume Two) King records / SKM-1258/9 / 1973.7.5
It seems the albums are going for a fortune now on vinyl,
and I belive it's been re-issued on CD, but I have yet to see
a copy.
An example of Godzilla and Yellow Gypsy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlgYVYABQms
We did have photos taken of us, but I can't find any.
The album covers have drawings on them.
A comfortable distance from the teen market!
The Godzilla and Yellow Gypsy
"Dai Go-Go Party"album covers-
Then I got an offer from Hiroshi Oguchi, who's band PYG
had just split up, and we started to form Vodka Collins
slowly and cautiously.
I still did sessions, sometimes with Godzilla and other players
for extra cash.
Then we recorded a single, "Sands Of Time"bw"Automatic Pilot"
as Vodka Collins -
- after that the band took off very quickly, and my session days,
at least in Japan, were ending due to the very busy schedule
of my new band.
I simply no longer had the time.
Of course in 1974 I would tumble back into the teen market
with The Arrows in England, but that's another story for another time!
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