Ivan mentioned in another thread that he had been listening a lot to Japanese eleki lately which I have as well. Made me think I could share some cool eleki pics I had on my computer. If anyone have other eleki related pics, feel free to add them to the thread.

Takeshi Terauchi in action!

TT with his trademark black Mosrite together with the Blue Jeans

Yuzo Kayama performing with the Ventures

Also, a couple of days ago I was browsing eBay looking for records when I came across an auction with only a minute left. Unfortunately, when I finally had figured out that I very much wanted to bid on the record, the auction had ended. The record up for bids was a Japanese promo only compilation called "Ultra Punch Delux" (from 1966 I believe and probably very rare) with some really great eleki and early GS stuff on it. Although I already had some of the Takeshi Terauchi & the Bunnys tracks, some of the other were totally new to me. The seller had put together short sound samples from about 8-9 of the 12 included tracks into one soundfile which I managed to grab and save. First 3 songs are vocals (with great instro lead guitar) and the rest are all instros including the boss "Test Driver".

Featured artists: Takeshi Terauchi & the Bunnys, Minetaka Inoue & Sharp Five and the Sharp Hawks.

Ultra Punch Delux <<< Click to listen (Real Player)

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Yeah, I also think what he did with the Bunnys is the best although he sure did some great stuff earlier too.

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Warren, I'm impressed you recognized almost all the tracks! I only could pick out some of the Terry ones. Do you know of any CDs with early Sharp Five stuff? Also, what about the Sharp Hawks featured on the comp? I don't think I ever heard about them.

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Klas
Do you know of any CDs with early Sharp Five stuff? Also, what about the Sharp Hawks featured on the comp? I don't think I ever heard about them.

I've never heard of the Sharp Hawks either. For the Sharp Five, here's what I've found. (It's kind of long--sorry):

There's a ten-song all-instro self-titled release--of which a LP is on eBay right now for like $15. I bought a CD version online which ended up being a very expensive CD-R. The album's pretty good, though--"Haru No Umi" (which both opens and closes the album) is jaw-dropping--it starts as mellow traditional Japanese music an then builds to an all-out Eleki rager. That's far and away the best one (well, two I guess) on the album, but it has four or five other really good songs as well.

There's also two CDs that have two albums of theirs paired together. One is "Sidewinder"/"Ding Dong--The Beatles" and the other is "Paradise A Go-Go/Four Nice Guys." I have the latter one. It's got a bunch of filler, but there's also some interesting covers. ("Journey to the Stars," "Caravan," four different James Bond themes, etc.) It also has their first two singles as bonus tracks--including "Golden Guitar" and "Driving Blues."

The other one has a bunch of TV show theme covers and a full album's worth of Beatles songs. I don't know if they're vocal or instro, though.

I found another CD on eBay called "Japanese Classics." It has twenty or so songs (all instro) including great versions of "Aoi Hoshikuzu," "Ginza Lights" and "Sentimental Guitar," plus the instrumental version of "Tuiteoide." I've never seen it anywhere else, though.

If you want the tracklists, let me know and I'll post them.

-Warren

That was excessively violent and completely unnecessary. I loved it.

Here's some more pics:

Yuzo Kayama sitting in with Terry & the Blue Jeans. (Dig the hats.)

Terry & The Bunnys

Sharp Five lead guitarist Nobuhiro Mine

That was excessively violent and completely unnecessary. I loved it.

Man, I was just going off in another thread about the heavier stuff I get into, but I'll be damned if Terry & the Blue Jeans' "Kickstand" isn't one of the badassest tunes I've ever heard.

The Disasternauts

Warren, thanks for posting the tracklists! They will definitely be useful to me.

I was wrong when stating above that the "Kachinuki Eleki Gassen" comp contained 5-6 Sharp Five tracks. After running the Japanese tracklist through an online translator it turned out that the Sharp Five only had 2 of the included tracks (9 and 23). Also don't be fooled by the cover art which gives the impression that the comp will be about the later 60s Japanese GS sounds which it isn't. All tracks are mid 60s instros.

Kachinuki Eleki Gassen

1. Pipe line (??? and blue jeans inside temple)
2. Caravan (Nobuo Kamei and the ??????)
3. Diamond head (Qiao and knight six Ono,Lotus seeing Yoshio,Tadaaki Fujita,Tashiro Hisashi Masaru)
4. ??????? sky (Kayama male three and the ??????)
5. Crewel sea (the ??????)
6. ?????? No.1 (??? and blue jeans inside temple)
7. Twisted (the Lotus)
8. Memory of day of summer (the Giants)
9. ??where the Beatles come!??!??! (Inoue sect filial piety and sharp five)
10. Riding in a car ticket of tear (Qiao and knight six Ono, Lotus seeing Yoshio, Tadaaki Fujita, Tashiro Hisashi Masaru)
11. As for rust dance in me (the ??????????)
12. ???? of pathos (the ??????)
13. Search idling (Nobuo Kamei and ??????)
14. Bulldog twist (the Lotus)
15. Monkey Cray Gee (Kayama male three and the ??????)
16. Beat No.1 (????) (??? and blue jeans inside temple)
17. It is sad, it comes and asks (the ??????)
18. Paradise ? go & go (the ??????)
19. The walk ??? run (emergency turn) (??? and the blue jeans inside the temple)
20. Hot docking (the ??????)
21. Black sand beach (Kayama male three and the ??????)
22. 10 Homicide of turn town (Nobuo Kamei and ??????)
23. The Sidewinder (Inoue sect filial piety and sharp five)
24. Destiny (SYMPHONY No.5) (??? and blue jeans inside temple)

Question marks are Japanese characters that the translator couldn't handle. (??? and blue jeans inside temple) and (Kayama male three and the ??????) are of course Takeshi Terauchi and his Blue Jeans and Yuzo Kayama and the Launchers respectively. The translation for some of the covers turned out quite funny. For example "Hot Docking" is the Astronauts' "Hot Doggin" here done by the Spacemen.

As for Yuzo Kayama, I recently discovered an alternate 60s version of his great "Black Sand Beach" that I had never heard before. Check out a short sample of it (track 12) from the link below:

http://www.neowing.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=MUCD-1042

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Klas
Yuzo Kayama performing with the Ventures

Anyone know which record this is (the pic have the Liberty label logo so I assume it's a record)? Did Kayama actually record with the Ventures?

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CaptainSpringfield

Klas
Anyone know which record this is (the pic have the Liberty label logo so I assume it's a record)? Did Kayama actually record with the Ventures?

That pic almost looks like they're backing him on a TV show.

Yeah, it could very well be from a TV show but the Liberty logo also suggests something have been put on record. Is Ventures expert Marty Tippens on the new forums?

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CaptainSpringfield
That article brought up an interesting point. I had always thought "Yozora no Hoshi" was originally a vocal--did Yuzo actually record an instro version? Or rather, did he do it as an instro before the Ventures did?

I guess it wouldn't be that surprising--there's a really strange vocal version of "Running Donkey" on the self-titled album of his I have.

Interesting, I've only got the instros that are on the "All About Yuzo Kayama" and "Exciting Sounds Of Yuzo Kayama and the Launchers" albums. My impression was always that he didn't do many more instros than these ones in the 60s (there are a couple of songs on the all instro comp "Black Sand Beach" that I don't have).

Just listened to the vocal version of "Running Donkey" and I must say I prefer the instro version!

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