ENKA

xp 見えない,カナダで :(

Dylann, you got me intrigued... are there any good books/websites with more info on kodama yoshio and that whole scene?

someone should write an english-language biography of kodama yoshio. i don't have one to recommend until then. but he's mentioned in every book on the japanese underworld, every book with yakuza in the title. there's one called ruffians, yakuza, nationalists. it's limited. but he pops up. what a character! a sick man. tied to manchurian heroin, shared a prison cell with sasakawa the speedboat gambling kingpin and financier for global anti-communism and kishi, the cia's man in japan, linked to the unification church (very relevant given events this past summer), and the lockheed scandal, which saw a nationalist porno actor fly a plane into his house.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRLLJPfLpw4

this is recent, too. i won't explain what exactly is going on here, since i'm not quite sure (an nhk benefit connected to a sumo tournament at ryogoku, i gather). but it begins with a duet with a sumo wrestler, kiriyama oyakata (i think that's what i heard the reading of the name as). but this is ichikawa yukino. and if you watch long enough, she will sing a beautifully overwrought rendition of "ishikari ruran juroku banchi." if only to prove that this is not a forgotten relic, this still aired on primetime.

Thanks Dylan, that sounds like a crazy story! I will hunt around...

The only exposure I have is via the red and blue new years broadcasts. Also im sure there is sampled enka vaporwave

i recently started trying to watch p1r4t3 5tr34m5 of japanese tv stations as part of my immersion practice and really enjoyed a program similar to the video of sakamoto-san. i made a mental note to seek out more music that sounded like that, so thanks for doing the legwork!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK9u_5KP8XE

filmed last year. this is more ichikawa yukino, singing a recent composition of dusty heroic enka, based on the heroics of highwayman kunisada chuji, or the later dramatization of his give-to-the-poor heroics and eventual execution, or even the catalogue of traditional songs and enka numbers about him. speaking as a dilettante, this kind of number—regressing into premodern heroism—is popular in the genre at present, overrepresented along with nostalgic evocations of rural japan—and setting aside, i would argue, the grand weeper, the tears in my sake cup, the doomed romance, which are more social songs... as if the genre is losing touch with reality. but what a performance! i wish i knew the term for that tempo break or time change midway through (here, again, i struggle with not having any musicological language) (this on the lyrics "semete katami no...")

Yesss thank you d