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FOREWORD It's my greatest pleasure to present this
Tak's special page on his birthday. Although this is just a short summary
of this book, I think
it should be sufficient to answer some curiosity about Tak and B'z. All
of this would not be possible if Takboss had not given such cool book
to me!! So thank you, Takboss *hugs*! Hope everyone will enjoy reading
this as much as I do! MA-CHAN, OTANJOUBI OMEDETTOU!!
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GUITAR KIDS RHAPSODY
10 years ago, going inside instruments shop after class
On the shelves, the catalogues were lined up
That girl's sad eyes
Even though they touched my heart
But at that time I could not put down the Strats
ONCE UPON A TIME, A TAK WAS BORN
It was March 27, 1961 in Fuchuu City, Osaka. As Tak himself was quoted,
"I was quite a big baby, 3,800 gram!", he was born to a pair of
music-lovers of parents. Dad used to play in university's music club, they
even did some nation-wide touring! Mom was a big classical-fan. "Mom
would do house chores while listening to Vivaldi." Growing up in such
family, nobody was surprised when Tak announced that he was to become a musician.
In kindergarten years, some teachers remembered Tak as a sporty, lively boy. "Even though sometimes he's a bit over-active, but if any of those little girls got stung by bees, Matsumoto-kun would be the first one to run and get medicated ointment from us. He also helped out when smaller kids were crossing the bridge."
As a primary/high school student, Tak wasn't an Ace in the class. The only 100% he got was the first and the last, but Tak was like: "Yattaaa~!" (=hurray). Old Mr and Mrs Matsumoto kept scheming ways so that their son would study more, "Maybe now that he's got 100%, he'd be encouraged to study." But against their hope, Tak was busy playing soccer, skate-boarding and thousand other things. But nevertheless he excelled in English and History class.
 Tak hugging his precious Les Paul Tak Burst, signed by Joe Perry (Aerosmith) |
WHEN I GROW UP, I WANNA BE... One episode in his primary school years: Mrs Matsumoto had Tak enrolled into electone class. By the end of the month, his tutor returned the school fee to Tak's parents, "He always skipped class. I give you your money back but would you please stop the lesson for him?" -_-;; THE AWAKENING Around high school time, he started to like The Beatles. And since Mom and Dad loved them too, Tak got "The Best of Beatles 1967 - 1970" as a birthday present from them. Those days saw young Takahiro-kun went home after school everyday to listen to the record as if bewitched. Sometime later, much to his own dismay, he started to grow interest in Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. Tak remembered the first time he listened to Deep Purple, "Wow, that is so noisy!" But he soon became addicted to that rock and roll noise. He could not get enough of it. |
Because Tak was always flying straight back home after school to listen to his numerous rock records, his classmates of those years could not really place him in their memories, "Really?! That guy was Matsumoto from B'z?! Not only some guy with same name? I remember him playing some guitar with some people. They performed during the Culture Day Festival, but I can't remember anything else beside that."
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TAK AND FIRST GUITAR With such instrument in his hands, Tak began his mad practising. Besides sleeping, eating and going to school, he did nothing but played guitar. It was a common knowledge that during that time, he could practise up to 10 hours per day. During exam time, Mom would come in several times a day to check on him, "Is he studying?". When Tak heard footsteps outside his door, he quickly dropped the guitar on bed. Tak recalled, " I think Mom knew though. There were some sounds. And Mom always knew anyway. For example, before when I seemed to be studying, I was actually reading manga or writing love letter." But wise Mrs Matsumoto understood her son's passion to music. She closed one eye and said, "Well, just study a bit, will you?" |
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WASURENAI, KOI GOKORO <3 <3 <3
During high school, Tak formed a band with some friends. He recalled
their playing as 'hidoi' (=terrible). "The vocalist can't even sing
properly!" But since she was pretty, they had gotten to be quite popular
that on some special occasions, many other schools asked them to come and perform.
But even such 'hidoi' band needed a manager. One of the school's magazine editor wrote a nice report on their lives and soon enough she became their manager. And it was to this manager that Tak began to feel doki-doki (=hearthrobbing). "She was a petite cute type of girl, kinda like Ishino Mako... I couldn't eat properly, I saw her in my dreams often. But for about 6 months, except usual conversation I didn't say anything else to her. In the band, other guys were way better than me and for her, managing the band was like having 5 boyfriends at one time."
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Not to say that Tak did not try to take it further, but she did not
give green nor red light. It became so unbearable for Tak that he decided
to quit the band. Of course he must tell her his decision. To his surprise,
she broke into tears. Later in the coffee shop... So they became a pair and Tak stayed in the band. However their sweet
love-story ended after short one year. |
AK'S PROPER MUSICAL EDUCATION
Tak knew to be a professional musician, he needed to know at least some
basic of music writing. After high school, he went to a music school called
MUSE. The school has comprehensive classes for vocal, guitar, bass, keybord,
drum, composer, arranger, mixer, etc. Here, Tak learned about concept and ideas
of music writing, but since MUSE was mainly jazz/classical school, Tak who was
preoccupied with Rockn' Roll was not too interested. His lecturer said, "Then
I shall tell you the principal of rock." He taught Tak to play some ballad.
It went so well that he said, "SUGOI (=excellent)! You can quit
the school now! You'll be just fine in the real music world."
So Tak left the school half-baked. But the basic training he had certainly had a big influence on the rest of his life.
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THE PATH TRAVELED He was 20 yrs old when his band's demo tape was heard by a Being co. staff who asked him, "Not the whole band though, how about becoming a session guitarist?" This was Tak's first step to becoming a professional musician. Tak's first job as sesssion guitarist was a live performance for TV program hosted by Akimoto Naomi. He recalled, "It was a really good first job. But afterwards, there're jobs you wouldn't call glamourous." He was playing as backing for live recording on TV programs. After one year, the first studio recording job came. He was to play guitar as a support member. But soon Tak became frustated because he could not play according to his wish. He was not performing his own songs. He was not supposed to improvise or approach the song with skill as guitarist. But as he was becoming so frustated that he decided to forget the job, the heavy metal boom arrived in Japan. Tak was like, "YAY! Heavy metal is OK. I'd like to play heavy metal!" So he kept his job as session guitarist. And finally a big job came, he became a supporting guitarist for Mari Hamada, Japanese queen of rock. |
THE TETSUYA KOMURO CONNECTION
After sometime, Tak was introduced to TMNetwork by chance. One of TMN guitarist
could not make it to the concert, the other guitarist available who also supported
Mari Hamada got Tak on board. That's how Tak came to know Tetsuya Komuro.
Tak recalled, "When I finished one tour with TMN, I thought it was fun,
but TMN songs don't have that much guitar in them, right? So I thought, this
isn't the job for me." And he quit. But Tetsuya Komuro personally called
him at home and asked him to be in the next tour. From this friendship, Tak
got to learn from Tetsuya how to write compose music and stuffs. They became
good friends.
The turning point that made Tak decide to form his own band was when he was staring at the back of TMN members in one live concert. He suddenly thought, "No, no more playing guitar at the back... No more playing other people songs!" He quit the band but kept in touch. When later B'z was formed, Tetsuya Komuro and the rest of TMN members came to watch the concert, to evaluate the vocal. Tetsuya told Tak later, "It was really great! The vocal is fine!" So Tak had more confidence with himself and Koshi on board.
To B'z fans nowadays, TMN's LD/VHS in which Tak appeared once in a while has
become a rare treasure.
TMN -> ...WHAT HAPPENED HERE?... -> B'z
Tak recorded an album with the one-album-band "Urusakute gomen ne!"
(=I'm sorry that it's noisy! ^^;;). And of course, he had his first ever
solo-album "Thousand Waves" recorded. Next was what Tak himself said
as "an encounter of destiny" with Koshi Inaba.
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A B'z LIFE |
UME TEKI NA DEAI (= AN ENCOUNTER OF ...... yeah,
you got it!)
After going to many talents' shows and hearing countless demo tapes, a certain
Koshi Inaba's demo tape was place into Tak's hand and when he heard Koshi's
voice, Tak was electrified. He said to Being co. staff, "This voice! This
voice will go along with my guitar just fine!" Next, all he cared about
was, "How does this guy look?" When Tak was playing in his high school
band, he had realized the bitter truth: a good-looking band would sell more.
No matter how bad they played then, the girls would go, KAWAIII (=cute)
!!! So when Koshi Inaba's photo was sent to him, Tak took one look and said,
"He'll do!"
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After their first-ever meeting, Tak told the studio's boss, "In real person, he met my expectation on voice and looks. Let's try live session." Two days later, they met up again. Inside a small studio, Koshi sang The Beatles' "Oh! Darling" and "Let It Be". Even though the amplifier was broken right after two songs, Tak said, "That's enough." He immediately got Koshi Inaba on board. And B'z was formed. NOTE: At that time, Tak was also looking for drummer and bassist, but he did not find anyone who made him feel the way Koshi's demo tape did, the way it electrified him. (* If he had found some people then, we'd be looking at 4-peopled B'z today!!) |
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WE'RE BREAKING THROUGH THE WALL
In Japanese music industry, there's an old myth of the number 3. If the sales
of a certain band was still not picking up after their 3rd album, they would
not have a bright future. More often than not, they must disband because no
producer would support them. That was how Tak set his goal on B'z, "We'll
be a sold-out band within 3 albums!" After two years and two albums, seeing
how "B'z" and "Off The Lock" each only sold around 300,000
copies (Tak's first solo album "Thousand Waves" sold more!), he changed
his strategy. "This will be our final bet!"
On October 21, 1989, B'z released their first mini-album "Bad Communication". Its promotion including sending CDs to Tokyo's big and small discos and radio stations. "Not only the original version, we also specially recorded the English version. The ones we sent out is the shorter version." This strategy worked ! Mini album being an uncommon thing and more affordable, within 3 months that addictive tune "Bad Communication" sold 1.16 million copies! With this new-found fame, B'z third album "Break Through" sold more than 750,000 copies. There was nothing to stop B'z from flying high after that.
TWO CENTS ON KOSHI INABA
While vocal and looks could be evaluated by demo tape and photograph, when
Tak decided to form a band with Koshi Inaba, he could not have known anything
about the former family tutor's character, working attitude or superb talent
in lyrics writing. As Koshi himself said once on a Livegym stage, "Matsumoto-san
never said to me, let's form a band together, we just sorta went into studio
and started to record songs." Forming B'z with Koshi Inaba was Tak's
biggest bet in life. He was after all a highly-demanded session guitarist
with one solo album recorded, while Koshi was a singer noone ever heard of.
The green lad did not know a single thing about music business. But Tak won
the jackpot with this bet.
After the 1st album was out, B'z had to do many promotions before going into studio to record 2nd album. With limited budget, they went to many places and ran busy campaigns, constantly bowing heads low to people with connection, saying endless 'yoroshiku onegaishimasu'. Just shortly before 1st anniversary, Tak and Koshi had found high regards towards each other in terms of working attitude and character. As for Koshi's lyrics, in Tak's own words: "Until our 2nd album 'Off The Lock', he still had to present the lyrics and make corrections before I approved them. But around 3rd song of that album, I completely trusted him. And because of this, we could do recording in studio separately. Usually recording ended when I said OK, but by that time, everyone would have been fed up already. This way we could make things fresh for both of us. But even as he got many OKs from me already, he would still go crazy with the lyrics. |
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"Not only that his lyrics could be unusually sensitive, descriptive and
witty, but it's mainly the way the words ride along with the melody effortlessly,
they click together in an unbelievable harmony. When I first heard the phrase
'Taiyou No Komachi Angel' put into the melody, I didn't have second argument.
He completely got a free license to write anything he wanted."
Commenting about the true moment of when Tak felt that his and Koshi's work
was thoroughly blended together, "When we recorded 'In The Life', even
though I didn't write those lyrics, it felt as though I did!"
Not long after that, starting from the single 'NEGAI' in 1995, Koshi Inaba started to participate actively in the arrangement process and played numerous musical instruments. Their recording process returned to beginning method again around "Survive".
BYE BYE, B+U+M
In 1995, their 8th album "LOOSE" was released. On the livegyms that
followed, as Koshi stated to the fans, "B'z are going back to original
principle, that 'There are only two members in B'z', therefore B+U+M is to be
dissolved."
B+U+M who has been responsible in shaping up B'z sound since debut to their
7th album "The 7th Blues", consisted of Tak, Koshi, Masao Akashi,
Masayuki Nomura and Ryoichi Terashima. It could be said that B'z took another
huge gamble by changing their original voice. However this does not mean that
B+U+M dissolved with the other three members harbouring bad feelings.
Masao Akashi, being a famous producer, arranger and bassist, went to produce
the sound of a then-unknown band, Siam Shade who sold about 8 million copies
of records. To this day, he often appears in B'z solo recording on request as
guest star.
Masayuki Nomura, mixing all B'z songs before, he participated in both Tak and
Koshi's solo albums and many artists in Being company.
Ryoichi Terashima, responsible in voice direction, he played bass in many songs
of Koshi's solo album 'MAGMA'.
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B'z MASS-MEDIA POLICY They hardly do magazine/radio interviews either. How do fans get infos about Tak and Koshi then? B'z official fan-club a.k.a B'z Party has a tri-monthly fan club magazine called Be-with. Anything from articles, interviews, trip-report to journals of Tak and Koshi can be found in it. So it could be assumed that B'z are saving every bits for fan club's members. Another quote from Tak, "I'd talk about music at any length, but nothing on private life." Tak has had a bitter encounter with mass-media. In 1992, when he carelessly said that there was a wife of 5 years with whom he was currently separatedly with, and that he was seeing a 23 year old lady, the media pursued him mercilessly and awful headlines in newspaper horrified him. However when confronted by the reporters, Tak was very honest, "I met this woman during our album's campaign. She knows a lot about Western music, reads lots of books. When we talk, I felt that her conversation was intelligent. I have wonderful time with her." Soon after, Tak was divorced and in 1994, he announced to B'z fans that he married the lady. But after that, nothing could be dug out of his life anymore. The same goes for Koshi Inaba. |
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PARADE OF THE BEAUTIES
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