I read a young Journaler's post about Japanese rock, which prompted me to write this post. I'd like to talk about Fujifabric, a band from the 2000s. Shimura, the former frontman, passed away at the age of 29 in late 2009. Although the band was active until recently, Fujifabric without Shimura is unthinkable to me.
My son and I used to go to a lot of concerts and festivals in the late 2000s, and we saw this band twice. Shimura had a unique ability to write songs that were both catchy and experimental, but he wasn't a great singer. His voice was thin and sometimes pitchy, and he always seemed to be singing with a lot of effort. However, his voice had an unforgettable resonance and nuance. Following his death, several prominent senior singers covered his songs. They were all excellent, but not as intriguing as the originals, in my opinion.
Anyway, my son, who was still in elementary school, was really into them and would scour YouTube for their songs. One day, I heard him saying to himself, "Okay, this song is called Enteritis". I was surprised. Enteritis? Really? I stopped doing the dishes and went to his room. What I actually saw was the word for heat shimmer. In Japanese, enteritis is "腸炎 (chōen)", and heat shimmer is "陽炎 (kagerō)". I had never noticed before, but they actually do have very similar kanji. (— the only difference is one radical in the first character).
Here's the live version of Heat Shimmer, one of their most beautiful songs.
Oh my😂 Nice laugh aside, I've seen the news of somewhere. It always saddens me to see people passing at such a young age.🙏🏻
@Lariza Yeah, I said we saw them twice, but we were going to see them for the third time at the year-end festival in 2009. It took place only a few days after he died. After 15 years, I can now write about both funny and sad memories in one post. RIP Shimura🙏
As a wise friend of mine just said, there's a fine line between tragedy and hilarity. But it makes for great posts!
@CocoPop So true! I'm pleased to have your compliment on this post. After recording the guitar strings post, I may ask you to record this one.
It'll be my pleasure as always.
thanks for the recommendation Akiko-san! I've also really gotten in to my Japanese rock recently. do you know the band fishmans? they're from the 90s, they might be a similar vibe and sadly it seems that the lead singer also passed away. this is my favourite of their songs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuK8_zT7Xtg :)
@miagrace314 Yeah, Fishmans is also an important artist in the Japanese music scene, but I almost exclusively listened to UK and US music in the 90s, so I didn't know much about them in their peak era. I regret that I didn't see them live. My favorite is Long Season - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwWv-T4rM0k