Momoko Yoshino & Sei Yoshino Interview Part 1

About music

Sei Yoshino: “Ever since my band days, I’d always wanted to sing our hearts out as a two-person guitar act in the style of The Everly Brothers.”

To commemorate the remastered reissue of “Momo-Sei / umareta” after 10 years, we conducted an in-depth interview with the formidable duo of two extraordinary melody makers who made their way through the Heisei era! They answered with remarkable care all the questions we had been curious about since their earlier careers. We divided it into Part One, “About Music,” and Part Two, “Momoko Yoshino’s books and the duo’s island life.” It is packed with material that musicians will surely find useful as songwriting references, that fans will find enlightening, and that offers plenty of fascinating glimpses into their current island life. We believe this is a permanent archive that people across genres will enjoy.

(Interviewer: Kodama, representative of Time Bomb Records)

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Table of contents

 

　What prompted you to start

　—You both have impressive histories. When did you start working together, and how did it come about?

Momoko Yoshino (hereafter M): It’ll take a while if I tell the whole story, even though it’s not particularly important. Is that okay?

　—Please keep it brief (laughs).

M: I’ll try. Um, the songwriting team came about because of Twitter. When I was 29, I abruptly quit composing and performing altogether, and went on living my life having completely forgotten the songs I’d written. A long time later, I suddenly started using Twitter, and casually tweeted a few things along the lines of, “Maybe I’ll write a little about the songs I made before.” Then Sei’s account, which mentioned those things, suddenly appeared in my timeline.

Sei Yoshino (hereafter S): I think it was someone’s retweet, but a tweet by Momoko Yoshino happened to appear in my timeline. I followed it and read through her posts, thinking, “This person says some really interesting things.” I thought, “So this is what goes on in the mind of someone who writes songs,” and although we hadn’t really talked, I followed her on my own.

M: His tweet said something along those lines. Of course, I had known of “Sei from the Playmates” since my active days, but I was surprised because it had never occurred to me that he recognized me as someone who wrote songs. That made me a little curious about what Sei was doing, so I searched for his videos on YouTube and watched several live performances from the 2000s onward. His singing and playing were both really good, and I began to wonder whether I’d had a completely mistaken impression of “Sei from the Playmates.” I hadn’t understood that until then. I knew of him, but I suppose I’d never actually encountered him.

S: I’d bought Momoko’s CDs and listened to them a lot, and I recognized her simply as a musician.

M: I still find that a little hard to believe. I wonder if he’s embellishing the story. Anyway, what I wanted to do during my active years but couldn’t was “harmonize wholeheartedly with someone who sings with the same intensity as me” and “co-write with someone who composes as seriously as I do.” Basically, I wanted a John and Paul. At some point I had given up, thinking, “I guess that’s probably impossible for me.” But then I heard Sei singing in a video and thought, “Wait, could this be that person?” So I contacted him directly and said, “I’d like to sing together sometime.”

S: Ever since my band days, I’d always wanted to sing our hearts out as a two-person guitar act in the style of The Everly Brothers. It was only that I’d never had anyone to do it with, so I couldn’t. So I was happy when she contacted me.

M: He replied immediately with something like, “Yes, absolutely, I’d love to~,” but after I sent him a demo tape that was basically a collection of humming, he suddenly stopped contacting me for about three months.

S: (Laughs)

M: I thought, “Maybe the demo didn’t click with him; well, I suppose it can’t be helped,” and left it at that. If it didn’t click with him, forcing ourselves to form a duo would be no fun anyway. Then, just when I’d forgotten about it, he contacted me: “Sorry for the delayed reply~ The demo tape was wonderful~” Three months later! That’s beyond merely being late.

S: Heh-heh.

M: I understand now that he’s simply someone who is extremely bad at replying. But at the time I thought he was being selfish, and that I had to make sure he didn’t lead me around by the nose. After we arranged to meet, he became relatively easy to get in touch with, and once we actually talked about various things and tried singing “Ready, set!” in Inokashira Park along with Sei’s acoustic guitar, we ended up deciding to work together.

　—Did the two of you often perform live together? In regional areas too?

S: It wasn’t quite what you’d call live performances, but we did occasionally play in front of people.

M: We did sing at friends’ houses and at events held at a kindergarten where an acquaintance worked, but when we had just formed the duo, it felt like we were constantly holding songwriting and harmony-singing sessions.

　About the releases

　—Before “umareta,” you released several demo CD-Rs of guitar-and-vocal performances under solo and duo names (six selected tracks are included as bonus tracks on this reissue CD). What prompted those releases?

S: I don’t remember anything at all about how we made it, but I think we probably made it as merchandise for some occasion when we were going to perform.

M: I don’t remember either. We were both writing new songs one after another, and I’d had such a long break that I was simply happy to be able to write songs and sing them again. I suppose we were recording them as a record of that time? Maybe we recorded them because we wanted to listen to them at home.

S: For people of our generation, one of the first things you did after forming a band was make a demo tape. You would have acquaintances listen to it or sell it at live venues, so I imagine Momo-Sei in the 2010s made a demo CD-R with that same sensibility.

　—Based on those demo songs, you multi-tracked electric guitar, bass, and percussion parts yourselves, and released the album “umareta” (on CD and digitally). What led to that, and how did you feel about it?

M: I think it was just a matter of the album becoming an extension of recording things, but how was it exactly? It was so long ago that I’ve forgotten.

S: I really don’t remember at all why we released it. But this is repeating what I just said: for people of our generation, one of the things you did after making a demo tape was make an album, so I guess we simply followed that pattern (laughs).

M: I’m not sure whether you could call it a state of mind, but especially toward the end of my active years, I felt I was getting by on muscle memory, or with superficial technique. Once I quit everything, it all reset, and I was truly like someone who had just been born again, so I was completely absorbed in both playing and singing. I think I did my best at the time, but listening with my ears now, the trying-to-impress feel is painfully obvious, and it makes me squirm a little.

S: Listening now, I think it’s an extremely understated album, but I’m grateful that so many people listened to it.

M: They certainly are understated.

S: Yes. It’s hard to explain exactly where, but they feel understated.

M: It’s not that they’re bad because they’re understated. Come to think of it, I remember thinking at the time, “Maybe Sei-san is in a mode where he makes songs like these ink-wash paintings.”

S: It was fine that way at the time, but when I listen with my ears as they are now, in 2024—or as a 53-year-old—there are many songs I feel I’d like to sing and perform again. I understand that they would have turned out that way given how we felt then, but they feel a little different from how I feel now.

M: Maybe we were both more worn out then than we are now. (Laughs)

　—The credits say the recording was made with a 4-track cassette multitrack recorder, as shown in the jacket illustration. What a nostalgic piece of equipment. Was it home-recorded?

S: That’s right. We recorded it on the cassette multitrack recorder depicted on the jacket.

M: I learned this after we formed the songwriters’ team, but we had in common that we had both been cassette multitrack home-recording fanatics since we were young. Naturally, we both had cassette multitrack recorders at home, and we could both operate them without thinking. My parents’ house had a soundproof room my father had built so he could play instruments such as the saxophone, so we recorded the louder parts, like the drums, for “umareta” there. That makes calling it home recording feel a little inaccurate, though...

S: Well, isn’t home recording fine? (Laughs)

M: Is home recording okay, anyway? (Laughs)

　—Why did you choose to release it independently as a DIY project rather than through an existing label? Didn’t you receive lots of offers?

M: When I abruptly quit composing and performing, I had a heartfelt wish to be forgotten so completely that no one would ever start another thread about me on 2channel. I had more or less achieved that, so nobody contacted me at all.

S: Nobody contacted me in particular either.

　—The self-produced CD sold out immediately, and its “distribution,” which was early for the time, was apparently also a topic of discussion. What kind of response did it receive?

M: I’m not sure, but I also feel that there wasn’t quite that much response.

S: At the time of the release, I didn’t think there had been much response either, but looking back now, ten years later, I feel that a lot of people bought it and downloaded it.

M: It’s true—selling 300 or 350 CDs within a few months is unimaginable now.

S: Back then, I think we were still carrying around the mindset of an era when our recordings were selling like hotcakes.

M: In the ’90s, the numbers had grown to several thousand or tens of thousands, so perhaps our sensibilities had remained distorted.

　About the Reissue


　—Did it feel strange to be suddenly told that someone wanted to reissue a work from ten years ago? Were you thinking, “Now?” (Laughs)

S: It felt very strange, but I was happy.

M: I was certainly surprised, thinking, “Wait, now?” But yes, I was very happy too. Actually, I’d like to ask you something as well: Kodama-san, why did you decide to reissue an album from ten years ago? Rather than the sequence of events, I’d like to know what happened inside you—what affected you and led you to do it.

　—Hon-chan (The Bunnies), who had gone to Sei’s Kobe show, bought it at the merch table and I mistook it for a new release. (Laughs) I listened to it nervously and immediately loved the first song, “Grapefruit.” Later I looked into it and discovered that it was actually a self-produced work from ten years earlier. (Laughs) And I even found out that I had communicated directly with Sei and sold it at my own store. (Laughs)

S: We hadn’t remembered that either.

　—My forgetfulness is probably just part of getting older, so there’s nothing I can do about it. (Laughs) I’ve always had the feeling that even old music is a new release when you hear it for the first time—a kind of “learning from the past to create the future” attitude: what’s good is good.

M: Ah, I feel the same way. Whenever you encounter it, it feels like a new release at that moment.

　—I think this after running a record store for many years: There are an enormous number of songs in the world, and I’ll die without hearing more than 80 percent of the songs that have probably been released. I want to encounter as many great songs as I can before then. Even now, I enjoy music from 80 years ago with excitement in my everyday life, so ten years ago feels like just recently to me. (Laughs) I kept playing it throughout drives on family trips, and my wife and daughter liked it too and sang along. (Laughs) It’s cool and never gets old, even after listening to the whole thing repeatedly. If something this good is buried, I thought lots of people should definitely hear it, and that’s why I wanted to reissue it.

M: I’m glad if it has become something that transcends time and space. I’m conscious of making things like that, but I can’t tell myself whether I’ve actually succeeded. Our role is to make the songs and sing them; after that, I think the most natural thing is for someone who hears them and thinks, “More people should hear this,” to put them on a record and spread the word. That might happen ten years later, or it might happen a hundred years later.

　—I imagine there were many people like me who couldn’t get it or listen to it at the time. Was there a reason you didn’t repress it?

S: As I said earlier, I think the content of this album is rather understated, so if I’d had the energy to reissue it, I would have preferred to use that energy to make something more in tune with how I feel now.

M: Also, quite simply, nobody asked for it. We had about 100 extra records, so we could have quickly added more copies if we reprinted the jackets, but no one in particular asked us to, so we didn’t reissue it.

　—“Grapefruit,” the opening track on “umareta.” I love its super-simple, melodic, cool rock ’n’ roll feel. I never get tired of it, no matter how many times I listen to it. Could you tell us the chord progression? (Laughs) I think you often played it live starting in the Playmates period, so why did you leave it unreleased?

S: The chords are simple, so I recommend figuring them out by ear. (Laughs) I think it was probably a song we played around the time the Playmates formed, but we switched to English lyrics soon afterward... “Grapefruit” had Japanese lyrics, so at some point it stopped being performed.

M: Did you ever think about adding English lyrics to it?

S: I didn’t have that in mind. In terms of the musical style, in the early ’90s I was very influenced by Alex Chilton and Big Star, and I feel “Grapefruit” is a song where that influence comes through very explicitly. After that, though, the Playmates became much more strongly oriented toward ’50s and ’60s rock ’n’ roll, so in that sense too, the song was easily discarded.

　—To ensure this song remains in the history of R&R, I’m also having it released on the 7-inch I personally like. I can’t help imagining it being listened to as a single, but what’s your own feeling about it? (Laughs)

S: Hmm, yes. To be honest, it's one of the songs on “umareta” that I'd like to re-record. (Laughs)

M: You end up saying things pretty honestly, don't you? (Laughs)

S: But I think it's a good song.

M: Not long after we formed the team, Hijiri recorded himself singing this song while playing guitar at home and sent it to me by email. When I heard it, I also thought it was such a straightforward, good song.

　About songwriting


　—All the songs besides “Grapefruit” sound timeless, as if they'll still be immortal 100 years from now. After listening to them repeatedly, I realized, “Oh, these are the kind of songs, like the Beatles, that you can keep listening to forever.” Have you also used the Beatles' songwriting methods as a reference? Are you a John person? Paul person? George person?

M: There aren't any songs of ours that fit neatly onto the track of changing trends in the first place... Neither mine nor Hijiri's. I've never thought about trying to make a song like the Beatles, but there isn't another band I listened to so obsessively, so I may have been imprinted with the idea that playing songs as a band is supposed to be like that.

S: This applies to songwriting, playing, and singing, too, but rather than using the Beatles as a model, I've long more often looked to the rock 'n' roll that came before the Beatles—the music the Beatles' members probably went crazy for when they were children. Even now, I still more often draw on music from before the Beatles.

M: It wasn't that I wanted to make Beatles-like songs; I was more interested in the roots that led them to make music that way... Like, what kind of city did they grow up in, what did they eat, and how did they grow up to become this way?

S: Oh, and I'm a George person. (Laughs)

M: Hehe. When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with John. By the time I turned 30, I had completely put that behind me and was just living my life. Then one day, a childhood friend contacted me and said, “The John Lennon Museum is closing, so why don't you go, Momo?” I made the long trip to Saitama Shintoshin. When I suddenly placed my hand on John's handprint near the entrance, I thought, “That's right! I was obsessed with the Beatles!” and suddenly came to my senses. Memories of making music and everything came rushing back, and that's where I am now.

　—I’ve loved your songs since long ago because the way phrases and melodic lines from great songs that sound somehow familiar are mixed into each of your songs is so wonderfully satisfying. What's the secret to your songwriting? (Laughs) Do you think mathematically, like “combine this and that,” or does what's seeped into your body just come out naturally?

M: I don't think I've ever made a song by using someone else's song as material and thinking, “I'll combine this and this...” I do refer to rhythms. I think rhythm is a shared resource. By the 1990s, it was impossible in the first place to make “a completely new song uninfluenced by anything or anyone,” so I think there were times when something ended up resembling something else, and I approach that as simply the way things are from the start. I don't imitate, but there's no helping it if something sounds similar.

S: If you're writing rock 'n' roll, I think nothing new can really be born anymore. When I write songs, “the stuff that's seeped into my body on its own just oozes out,” so that's OK.

M: What do you mean, “OK”? Are you getting bored already?

S: (Laughs)

M: My songs are always based on something that has crossed my mind. It isn't necessarily music, either... Hmm, but even if I think about how songs come into being, I can't figure it out.

　—You seem to have explored things like the “canon progression” and chords incredibly deeply. Did you perhaps study classical music?

S: I like listening to classical music, but I'm not very interested in composition methods or forms. Still, there are many classical composers I like, so I think I've been influenced by them somehow. Ravel, for example.

M: When I was around kindergarten age, I learned the electone a little, and that's where I acquired the concepts of chords, bass, and rhythm. Using a seventh chord to lead into the next development is something I still do out of habit from back then. An electone is basically a one-person band: melody with the right hand, chords with the left, bass with the feet, and a rhythm box. Rather than starting with classical music, my entry point as a performer was suddenly popular music. Starting from practical application, so to speak.

S: The basis of my songwriting is... Well, I started playing guitar in the mid-1980s, and back then Himeji had far less information than it does now about how to play instruments or how to write songs. There was really no other way to learn except to copy by ear every song that stuck with me, whether I liked it or not. I would leave the TV on and copy by ear, one after another, the phrases in songs played in commercials. If it was a popular song at the time, it might be in something like the Young Songbook supplements that came with Myojo. I couldn't read sheet music, but I had learned at least to recognize chord names, so I loved looking at those and playing and singing through songs on guitar one after another. I think things like the idea that a certain melody goes with a certain chord, and chord progressions, just sank in naturally through that. I guess that's what lies at the basis of my songwriting... I played anything that was popular and that I heard: enka, Western pop like Duran Duran, and classical music, jazz, and easy listening playing over the cable music system at my family's clothing store. I just wanted to play guitar, so anything was fine.

M: When I was around kindergarten age, my parents bought me a four-LP box set of theme songs from 1970s TV anime, and I loved it so much that I kept listening to it even as an adult. I think most of the people who composed those songs probably had some grounding in classical music, so I may have been indirectly influenced by that. I just thought of this now, though.

　Regarding genres and such


　—During your previous activities, I imagine you had many fans who liked what is commonly called power pop or guitar pop. Did you perform with those genres or scenes in mind? What I felt was that, basically, the two of you seemed to be developing simple rock 'n' roll unconsciously, almost instinctively.

S: When we were playing Playmates, I may have been somewhat conscious of genres like guitar pop and power pop, but the music I liked was rock 'n' roll from the 1950s and '60s, so the balance was probably about 1:9. Though, when we made our first album, I was still unsure, so maybe it was closer to 2:8... Perhaps punk and power pop and that sort of vibe still accounted for about 20 percent. This is about my mindset, not the sound itself, just to be clear.

M: My band activity began when I joined, as a backing vocalist, a band of complete strangers who had advertised in a magazine’s band-recruitment section, “Want to start an anorak band.” When we started playing live with that band, I don’t think there was really enough of a genre or scene in Tokyo to call it that—around 1992, maybe. Everything was still pretty mixed together. So, I suppose you could call it the “anorak movement.” I was a latecomer and don’t know the details very well, but discovering bands like The Pastels, The Shop Assistants, and Talulah Gosh definitely became my entry point into performing. Still, I wasn’t as conscious of them as you might think in terms of songwriting or playing, and afterward I hardly ever thought of myself as a member of the “guitar-pop village,” haha. I always intended to play simple, rough rock ’n’ roll—or rather, that was all I wanted to do and all I was capable of.

S: I don’t think I’ve ever played in a band with the conscious intention of doing power pop or guitar pop either.

M: I don’t think I’ve ever performed with the audience in mind in the first place.

S: I’ve never consciously thought about the audience either, but at the time we often played at a live house called Mushroom in Himeji, and we wanted to play in Osaka too... For example, I wanted to play Bears as well, and I had a slight strategy that playing something a little more punk-like would probably make it easier to get booked at places like that. So there is, in fact, a reason the Playmates’ first album turned out that way, haha.

M: Did you take the booking person’s reaction into account?

S: Actually, I did take a Playmates demo tape to Bears, but we never got a message asking us to come in for an audition or anything like that.

M: They simply ignored us.

S: But after that, Bears started letting us perform there regularly, so it was totally fine, haha.

M: I probably have never asked a live house to let me perform through its booking system, so in terms of band activity, I may be a little unusual too.

　Back to songwriting


　—I heard that both of you list “songwriting” as a hobby, which is unusual even for musicians, haha. Do melody lines and chord progressions always suddenly appear to you?
　
M: Hmm, I’m not really sure. I don’t often sit down and say, “I’m going to write a song!” Sometimes a core “feeling” passes through my mind. If I have time, I try developing it using that as a clue; if it grows, I follow it, and if it shrivels up, I forget it.

S: I often drive for work, and I also frequently think of little phrases while taking care of the chickens. I record them on a voice recorder, then, when I feel like it, use the melody as a starting point and develop it on guitar. That’s often my pattern. But this is only one example.

M: What did you do when you were young?

S: In the rock ’n’ roll bands I played in as a teenager, before the Playmates, I had a clear idea of the kind of songs I wanted to play. I’d pick up a guitar and build them up just as I imagined them in my head. That was usually how it worked.

M: When you say “this kind of song,” do you mean an existing song by an existing band?

S: With the rock ’n’ roll and blues we listened to a lot back then, I’d listen to records or see bands live and then rebuild things based on thinking, “This is how I’d want to play it; this is how I’d want to sing it.” I can’t put it into words very well. Back then—and even now—I never think about originality or anything like that.

M: I may also have started from listening to someone else’s song and thinking, “I’d do it this way,” when I was young.

　—Sei posted on social media, “Practicing a song I started writing around the age of eighteen and left unfinished; it’s finally taking shape.” It’s strange enough to remember such an old song. Déjà vu? Haha. Did you time-slip?

M: This isn’t really “remembering,” is it?

S: I think that’s probably true for people who write songs, but it often happens that an unremarkable melody—not a particularly great melody or chord progression, but something I myself think is pretty commonplace—stays in my head for decades.

M: It’s not like remembering it; it feels more like it’s always somehow been following me around, right?

S: Exactly. Part of me wanted to put an end to this thing that had been following me around for so long, and this time we finally managed to do that properly, haha.

M: It was good, haha.

　—Nine of the album’s twelve tracks were written and composed separately by each of you, but how did you find the collaborative process on the other three tracks (“Infinite Rhythm,” “Blueprint,” and “Crazy Summer”)? Did you inspire each other?

M: “Infinite Rhythm” and “Blueprint” are Sei’s songs. He just told me to write the lyrics because he couldn’t be bothered, and I dashed them off, so “Crazy Summer” is the only genuinely co-written song among these. But I found it interesting. During the songwriting process, I’d never done anything like taking what Sei rolled toward a direction I hadn’t seen and then rolling it onward myself. Had you ever co-written with anyone before, Sei?

S: Hmm, I don’t think we ever really have, and Momoko and I haven’t done that much genuine co-writing either, so that’s something we need to work on going forward. If all you’re doing is turning what’s in your head into a song, it’s inevitably quicker to do it alone, so I tend to choose that approach. But I think that limits how much the song can expand, so I’d like to collaborate with Momoko more.

M: I wonder how Lennon-McCartney actually collaborated.

S: Sometimes even the people involved get their memories mixed up, which ends up causing arguments.

M: Then let’s be careful not to argue, haha.

　About the lyrics


　Regarding the aforementioned demo track and “Darkness,” a classic from the Playmates era that you perform on side B of the new 7-inch (a newly recorded 2024 version not included on an album), what led Momoko to rewrite the English lyrics? The lyrics originally seem to be inspired by gospel overall, but did you make them softly affirmative and more politically correct with “Morning Sun...” rather than “Blind Man...”?

M: Soon after Momo-Sei got started, this was the first request Sei made of me: "I want you to put new lyrics to this song." I didn't know the original lyrics. The Playmates' records didn't include lyrics—or rather, at that point I didn't own a single Playmates album—but I was told Sei didn't have the lyrics either. The request was for me to completely overwrite them, to rewrite them freely, so I wrote them from scratch, relying only on the sounds and melody.

　—I think some of the old demos also included songs with English lyrics. Why did you make "umareta" an album of songs with entirely Japanese lyrics?

S: It wasn't limited to "umareta"; I was gradually starting to think that maybe we should just sing in the language we normally use in conversation... I never had a particularly strong attachment to English in the first place. The Beatles, Elvis, B.B. King—anyone, really—sang in English, so I just thought that's how things were supposed to be.

M: The reason I performed in English during my first active period was simply that the sounds were easy to use—or rather, because the first band that really blew me away, The Beatles, performed in English. That was really all there was to it. I couldn't actually speak English, so I got tired of writing lyrics in junior-high-school English while constantly consulting a dictionary. And I can't say I had no mixed feelings about the fact that English had come to wield so much power around the world (laughs). So I suppose it was simply a matter of using the language I was used to.

S: So if, for example, we move to another planet in the future and the language we use in everyday life is no longer Japanese, I think we'll sing in a completely different language then, too.

　—I think both of you use very dreamy, distinctive expressions. Is songwriting a hobby, too?

M: Huh? You think it's dreamy?!

S: What's "dreamy," anyway?

M: Whether it's dreamy or not, songwriting isn't all that interesting. If anything, I do it because I have to. I only write because I can't sing without lyrics. Sometimes, when the sounds create the melody and everything fits just right, I think, "Oh, wow." When I was in Sunnychar, I was still barely in my teens, but I even made an original Japanese syllabary by shuffling the vowels and consonants and created something called "Sunnychar-language lyrics"... So I've always been like that (laughs).

　—Do you decide on a theme, such as everyday life, romance, or outer space, and then write? Do you write lyrics after composing, or before?

M: Usually, when the thing that will become the core of a song crosses my mind, it comes with a sound, too. So I look for words close to that sound and then build from there. I think the content is close to a sketch of what I've seen—at least in my case.

S: I'm also the type who writes the music first, so I struggle afterward to write lyrics and fit them to it, but I prioritize the sound and resonance of the words over their meaning. Even if the meaning becomes unclear in the end, it's fine as long as the words sit well with the music and rhythm.

　—Some songs have especially strong messages, don't they? This may be pure speculation, but what about "I Want to Be Absorbed," written by Momoko?

M: When we made "I Want to Be Absorbed," we had quite a few opportunities to perform live with younger bands. Watching those kids sing, as if it were perfectly natural, lyrics that were so green and embarrassing that I couldn't have sung them myself, I became curious: What would happen if we deliberately sang lyrics like that? So this is one of the rare lyrics I wrote with a little conscious intent. The form is like that, but the content is still nothing more than a sketch of what I saw.

　—I was surprised by the enormous amount Momoko posts on X (formerly Twitter). Do words constantly gush out of you like a hot spring?

M: Twitter is like a warm-up when I'm writing, probably similar to an outfielder lightly tossing a ball around before taking the field for the next inning. It's an exercise where I quickly turn whatever I see or whatever crosses my mind into words on the spot. The character limit provides a moderate load, so it works the writing muscles (laughs). When I tweet a lot, I'm writing something; when my tweets stop, I've stepped away from my writing. It's easy to tell.

　—Are there any artists you like or people who have influenced you in writing Japanese lyrics?

M: No one in particular, but I like the lyrics written by Haru of The Peees.

S: I love Haru's lyrics and music too.

M: I think they use melody very skillfully. They sing what they've written themselves, their pronunciation is excellent, and it feels like they're performing rock and roll with words as well. It's wonderful.

　—I imagine what we feel changes with the historical context and our living circumstances, but are there any poems you'd like to sing in the world today?

S: For a moment, I thought, "As long as I can sing something that isn't a lie to myself, that's enough." But thinking about it more, inside a song, whether it's a lie or not doesn't really matter; maybe the content of a song can be anything after all.

M: I haven't really thought about it, so I don't know, but I'll probably keep sketching whatever I see, and if it fits the melody, I'd like to try singing anything, no matter who wrote it.

S: When I sing lyrics written by someone else, I end up changing them without meaning to... I can't perform them exactly as written. Maybe that's why I write my own lyrics or compose my own songs—to avoid that. I'm fairly good at capturing the feel of what other people do, but I like taking that feeling and exaggerating it to extremes, so I end up rearranging things more and more without meaning to...

M: I'm not good at making exact copies either, and when I cover someone else's song, I may be the type to keep changing the phrasing and melodic lines. I also like creating completely different lyrics to the same melody, whether it's a song I wrote myself or someone else's.

　—Momoko, do you use a different kind of expression, or a different part of your brain, when writing a book as a novelist and when writing lyrics for music?

M: I've never "written as a novelist," so I don't know, but songwriting is easier because it has more restrictions. Once you've filled the frame, you're done. With a novel, once it starts moving, you have to follow it without knowing when or how it will end, which is tough. That's also what makes it interesting, though.

　Talking about the first record I bought and the radio


　—I think music you listen to during your impressionable years stays lodged in your head forever. What did you listen to? Do you remember the first record you bought?

S: The first record I bought of my own accord was, if we're talking LPs, The Beatles' Rarities, a compilation album. As for the original albums, the man who lived upstairs in my apartment building lent me a box set of music tapes with all the original albums in it—something with a name like "The Beatles Collection"—so I dubbed them all and had copies. That's why I bought Rarities, which collected songs not included on the original albums. Oh, but actually, I'd bought a music tape before that! Toshiba had released a compilation called The Beatles' Greatest, from either Germany or the Netherlands.

M: I don't remember the first record I bought. I don't have many memories from when I was a child... Maybe the seven-inch single of the Ghostbusters theme song? Or the Checkers? But the only music I listened to so much that it became etched in my mind was the Beatles, which I bought after entering middle school. I listened to them an almost absurd amount. When I first heard them, I thought, “These people are my friends!”

　—When I was in elementary and middle school, there was a boom in listening to shortwave radio broadcasts (BCL), and I often enjoyed music programs from overseas and FEN (the radio service for U.S. forces stationed in Japan). How did radio influence you two?

S: Where should I even start...

M: If we got Hijiri talking about radio, it would probably take about two hours.

S: Even in the early years of elementary school, I was already adept at using the radio. I listened to foreign radio stations on shortwave, as well as Japanese-language broadcasts directed at Japan from overseas... Not just shortwave—I listened to everything I could find on AM and FM too.

M: You said you spread antennas all over your room to create better reception conditions, much to your older sister's annoyance. What made you get so deeply into it?

S: When I was about in second grade, my parents or someone bought me an Electronic Block set, and I liked building radios with it. Somewhere along the way, I became interested in radio. It wasn't so much the content of the broadcasts as the mechanism—not the structure of the machine, but the act of receiving radio waves. There were all kinds of radio waves flying around the world, sent by someone to someone else for some purpose, and I wanted to receive every one of them, one after another...

M: The act of it?

S: The act of it... Well, the act of it, I suppose, was what interested me. So at first, I really didn't care what was being broadcast. There was a station that did nothing but broadcast time signals continuously, and I loved that kind of thing too—like JJY in Japan.

M: You couldn't understand the content at all, even of foreign programs you listened to on shortwave radio. So among all those things where “the content didn't matter,” like time signals, there was music too?

S: Yes. I would think, “This vaguely gloomy, military-march-like music must be from a Russian station”—though it was the Soviet Union back then—and then, “That music that goes crash! yip-yip-yip-yip! might be from China,” and so on.

M: What, gongs?

S: There was one station that played what sounded like Chinese festival music continuously, and looking back, that was probably jamming—interference signals.

M: Well, that story could take a while too, so let's set it aside for now, haha. Before you even had preferences about what kind of music you liked, you were exposed to all kinds of music through the radio like that, weren't you, Hijiri?

S: Yes. But by the time I was in about third or fourth grade, if I listened to Radio Australia's Japanese-language broadcasts, for example, they would say, “This song is currently popular in Australia too—The Police's ‘De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da’!” And I'd think, “Oh, they're called the Police. I think I've heard them in a commercial or something in Japan.” Information just started coming in from everywhere.

M: So for things like Western music hit charts, was shortwave radio your only source of information?

S: It wasn't only shortwave radio, but yes, in Himeji in the early '80s, that was pretty much the case. A little later, around 1983 or 1984, music videos by artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna were at their peak, so information about Western music started coming in through television too. Before that, it was almost entirely radio, including both AM and FM.

M: So you encountered the Beatles through the radio too?

S: It all ties together in various ways, but the theme song for an animated series called The Beatles, which aired on Sun Television around 1981 or 1982, was “A Hard Day's Night” and “Can't Buy Me Love.” I don't remember, but maybe that's where I first heard them and was blown away. Then what really sealed the deal was that, right around then, my older sister happened to buy a Beatles music tape called Reel Music. I still don't know why she bought it, but the first song was, once again, “A Hard Day's Night.” That was when it really hit me. To show how hard it hit me, I made a dubbed tape with “A Hard Day's Night” playing from the beginning of Side A to the end of Side B of a 60-minute tape, haha.

M: Endless, haha.

S: I got more and more absorbed in them, and in 1982, around the time of the Beatles' 20th anniversary of their debut or something like that, TV started occasionally airing special programs about them. Then a TV show hosted by Shōfukutei Tsurube called Suddenly Gabacho! began, and its opening song was “A Hard Day's Night” too. It wasn't played on TV all that often, but I never missed it. I got curious and looked for broadcast information in FM magazines, and I found the Beatles everywhere. I went through a period of about six months to a year when I was interested in nothing but the Beatles, but while researching them, I found that FM magazines also carried the latest hit charts, for example. I gradually realized there was all kinds of other music out there, and before I knew it, I had started recording songs off the air.

M: There was something about the Beatles using the radio as a valuable source of information too, wasn't there?

S: I once read somewhere that Radio Luxembourg, a pirate station, blasted the latest rock 'n' roll songs from America and elsewhere that the BBC didn't play very much for young people in Britain, and that people got their information from broadcasts like that.

M: In the sense that the latest information didn't just keep pouring in, perhaps the circumstances of a boy in Liverpool and a boy in Himeji were similar. I feel like the importance of radio was very similar for both of us.

S: Ah, that's true. That might have something to do with it. Liverpool was a provincial town, too.

M: I never had that habit of listening to the radio. But one of the things that prompted me to try joining a band was Marsians Go Home, a radio program hosted by Flipper's Guitar. Actually, a friend lent me a tape he'd recorded, and I listened to it. Hearing the songs by Western indie pop bands from the '80s and '90s that were played on that show—their kind of jangly performances, or whatever you might call them—I thought, “I see. Maybe playing in a band could be a possibility for me, too.” Listening to the Beatles didn't make me want to do it, because there was no place for me to step in, right? You'd just leave it to those four, wouldn't you?

　What inspired you to start making music and playing in a band


　—Are there any artists or songs from that time that influenced you and that you still love?

Before I encountered the Beatles, I had no particular likes or dislikes when it came to songs, so I still remember everything I listened to back then. But as I said earlier, I awakened to music when I heard “A Hard Day's Night,” and it has been one of my favorite songs ever since.

M: I keep saying the same thing, but it was the Beatles, and the song was “Tell Me Why.” I've loved it unbearably ever since I first heard it. I love the whole thing, from the opening drumbeat to the very end. I also like that the people who made it seem to have rated it relatively poorly.

　—What got you started in music and band activities, and when? With guitar? Piano?

M: As I mentioned earlier, I joined a band after seeing a musicians-wanted ad in a magazine and applying. I think it was either Crossbeat or Remix, and I was nineteen at the time. I joined as the backing vocalist and tambourine player.

S: I started playing guitar in January 1985. I'd gone to a pawnshop so my parents would buy me a bicycle, but instead of buying a bicycle, they bought me a guitar. I was in my first year of middle school then. During middle school, I just got together in my room with a friend who had also acquired a guitar, and we played together. But after we went on to the same high school, we formed a band. I think our first live performance was at the school festival in June 1987. The songs were probably these five: Bryan Adams's “Summer of '69” and “The Only One,” Chuck Berry's “Johnny B. Goode,” Eddie Cochran's “Summertime Blues,” and Kiss's “Heaven's On Fire.”

　—When did you start composing and recording your own music? With a boombox or something?

S: When I was in middle school, I first recorded guitar onto a cassette using the karaoke machine we had at home, then played it through the playback deck while layering my own singing and other instruments through a microphone. I repeated that process over and over to make multitrack recordings. Since you could keep layering forever as long as you didn't mind the noise, I would spend about thirty minutes endlessly multitracking “Sakura Sakura,” incorporating improvisation and feedback. Then, a few years later, I watched a video of Woodstock and saw Jimi doing the same thing. (Laughs.) In his case, it was the American national anthem.

M: You know how sometimes you accidentally reach the point that people in the past had reached, by taking a completely different route? (Laughs.)

S: (Nods.)

M: I wrote my first song when I was about two or three years old. It was called “The Lion's Hair.” I can still sing it. As I mentioned earlier, after I learned the concepts of chords, bass, and rhythm from taking electone lessons around kindergarten through the early years of elementary school, I would improvise songs at home while playing the electone or piano by myself. I started recording when I was nineteen. At first, like Seiji, I used a boombox to ping-pong record. After someone I knew gave me a four-track MTR, I started recording like crazy with it and was amazed, thinking, “What a convenient machine!” ...Oh, I just thought of something. Seiji and I started multitrack recording at home as if it were the most natural thing in the world, without anyone teaching us. But I wonder whether people in general don't necessarily all end up doing things like that?

S: I wonder.

M: Karaoke was popular back then, and everyone would sing through a microphone while playing a cassette containing only the backing track. But Seiji and I tried to make those backing tracks ourselves.

S: Because figuring things out by ear was just normal for us. If you listen to a record, you can tell, “Oh, this is several people playing several instruments.” If you try to recreate that by yourself, you inevitably arrive at multitrack recording.

M: We had a karaoke machine at home, usually with several dozen tapes as a set, containing a broad selection of popular songs. But when the song you wanted to sing wasn't among them, some people would think, “Then I'll practice another song,” or “I'll look for and buy the tape that has that song,” while others would think, “All right, I'll make my own backing track.” It's the difference between those kinds of people.

S: We make things ourselves, right? Not even DIY - just naturally. That's what's normal.

M: So when we're just talking here, I start to assume it's normal, but maybe it actually isn't.

　What kinds of records do you listen to?


　—I heard from people around you that Kiyoshi bought tons of records in Kobe and Osaka, starting in his Himeji period. What genres in particular? Or was it genreless? I can imagine you listening to jazz too. Do you still own a huge collection?

S: Among the people of Himeji, I was probably one of the biggest buyers. If by my Himeji period you mean the early 1990s, then I think I bought English-language records from the 1950s through the 1970s - all kinds of genres, including jazz, classical, and easy listening. But the period when I was really buying records like crazy because I genuinely wanted to listen to them was a little earlier. For about two years, from 1985 to 1987, I played the guitar I'd just acquired every day like an idiot, and that period coincided with the transition from analog records to CDs. Suddenly, records were treated like bulky trash, and at used-record fairs held at Daiei, records by Jeff Beck, CCR, Johnny Winter, Peter Frampton, KISS, Cheap Trick, and others were being practically given away. I bought them up indiscriminately and copied guitar phrases like crazy. By the way, I have gotten rid of almost all my records and CDs now. (Laughs.)

　—Momoko, did you go on huge shopping sprees in Tokyo too?

M: Hmm, from my third year of high school until I was about twenty, I bought an excessive number of indie-pop band records, but after I started playing in a band, I stopped buying so many.

　—It seems like both of you absorb every kind of music imaginable. Are you aware of that? (Laughs.)

M: I don't think I consume music exclusively, or even primarily, to that extent.

S: Even though I love rock and roll, I might listen to music other than rock and roll more often. It sounds strange, but that's how it is.

　—Apparently you also love (jump) blues, rockabilly, and rocksteady, rather unexpectedly?

S: I'm not particularly knowledgeable about them, but I love them.

M: In terms of the sound of recordings, I like those from around the 1920s best.

S: I love that too.

M: By the time you get to the 1960s, it's already too hi-fi. (Laughs.)

S: When you hear different sounds coming from the left and right, you think, “How novel!” (Laughs.)

M: (Laughs.) I'm drawn to songs and bands that are difficult to categorize, but if I were forced to name my favorite genres, I might say jive, calypso, ska, and so on. That said, I don't like them in a collector's way. I don't have any particular desire to become an expert. I'm drawn to things like the sound quality, the roughness, and the tension of recording everything in one take.

S: If someone asked me what genre of music I like, I wonder what I’d say... Hmm... I might answer in terms of the era after all. I like the sound of recordings from around 1900, when recording began, through about the 1960s.

M: For me too, it’s the sound rather than the genre. Orchestral performances, film music, nagauta - anything is fine, as long as it has the sound quality of recordings from around the 1920s or earlier in the West. (laughs)

S: More than twenty years ago, I also bought and listened to a CD of the Oppekepe song from the 1900 Paris Exposition.

　About the bands we played in previously


　—Momoko, you worked under various names, but were you aiming for a different kind of expression with each one?

M: It wasn’t that we were aiming for anything in particular; the order was different. First, songs would come to me. Then, when I wrote a song that felt a little out of character for the members of the band I was currently playing in, rather than asking them to adapt to it, I’d play it with completely different people who happened to be nearby. That was all, but the number of projects just kept growing...

　—When did the Playmates start working in Tokyo? What prompted you to go there from Himeji?

S: I think it was 1995 when we were invited to play at an event organized by Ozaki of Samantha’s Favorite at Shelter in Shimokitazawa. That was our first live show in Tokyo. After that, we were invited to play there almost every month for about two years. It all started when I went to see NG3 play somewhere like Sun Hall in Osaka around ’93. I got a flyer then, and in those days flyers had phone numbers on them, so I called to ask about their next show. Arai-san himself answered, just like that. (laughs) Since we were in a band too, we ended up asking if we could send him a demo tape. We sent it, and he called back right away: “The demo tape was really good! I want to give it to people around me, so send me more.” Apparently one of the people Arai-san gave the tape to was Ozaki-san, who really liked it and started inviting us to play shows.

　—You were both in nearby scenes at the time, but did you influence each other musically? Are there any memorable stories?

M: I don’t think I was influenced by them, but hmm, I wonder? The Arai-kun mentioned earlier was in the band I was playing in at the time, and he produced the Playmates’ album, so he gave me a cassette tape of a sample? Demo? of their first album. I couldn’t forgive “Do It Again.” I thought, “That’s ‘Any Time At All’! Are you kidding me?!” Maybe I was jealous of Saint’s ability to not worry about things like that... I wonder what it was. Me in my twenties, I suppose. (laughs)

S: It was the producer who deliberately made that sound quality and arrangement resemble “Any Time At All.” (laughs)

M: ...Ahh!! (laughs)

S: We had fun doing it too. We were complete and utter beginners when it came to recording, so they came up with all sorts of interesting ideas and really looked after us.

M: Since we were on the same label as the Playmates, I got a four-track promotional CD from their second album through someone I knew and listened to it many times. “Darkness” was on it too. I remember thinking, “They write good songs.” But then I thought, “These are the people who can casually do something inspired by ‘Any Time At All’! I’ll never forgive them!!” Looking back, that seems infinitely trivial, and now all I can think is, “Just listen to it honestly and have fun~”... Anyway, I listen to it happily every day now, so it’s all good. (laughs)

S: I don’t think I was influenced by her or anything, but as I said earlier, I did buy Momoko’s CDs and listen to them regularly. I also bought the first split CD released by Under Flower and taped it onto a cassette; it was the perfect accompaniment to my drives back then, and I still love it. Even later, when we played shows together, I always watched her live set - unlike Momoko.

M: I can’t stand crowds or cigarette smoke, so I couldn’t stay in live houses for very long in the first place. The Playmates weren’t the only ones I didn’t see. (laughs)

　On the idea of a “scene”


　—What are your impressions of the ’90s indie bubble period, when you were right in the middle of it? It was a time before mobile phones and the internet, but I feel it was also a period when an extraordinary number of highly individual artists emerged.

M: I feel like I was barely aware that I was in the middle of it all. It felt very much like someone else’s business. CDs and records would sell whenever we released them, and our shows were always packed, so it was pretty easy for amateurs to keep working... But I think having things easy is poisonous. I’m not saying you have to struggle, but when things are easy, you stop trying to come up with ideas. You get dull. I was in the worst possible pattern: gradually getting dull while remaining detached from it all.

S: By the time the Playmates’ album came out, nearly ten years had already passed, counting the years I’d spent in my previous band.

M: You were already a veteran by then, weren’t you? (laughs)

S: Right. Until then, it was normal for us not to draw an audience anywhere outside Himeji, so just getting a Tokyo label to release our music or being able to play live in Tokyo felt like things had gotten completely out of hand. Before long, people even started coming specifically to see the Playmates, and it became something I could hardly believe. I’d never heard of a Himeji band becoming popular outside Himeji, and after ten years of absolutely nothing like that happening, it suddenly all started happening... For me, it had gone far beyond my own capacity, so by that point I didn’t know what to do anymore. The ’90s just came to an end while I was still not knowing what to do.

M: Hearing that makes me think that, once again, I really didn’t realize I was in the middle of the bubble. Not long after I started playing in a band, we suddenly entered what I suppose was the bubble period? Since that was the only period I knew, I had nothing to compare it with.

S: I’d been in bands since around ’87, so I was there during the height of the band boom. If we’re talking about excitement, I remember that period being more intense in some ways.

M: You mean the band boom felt more like the bubble?

S: I’m not really sure what “the bubble” refers to, but the frenzy in the audience at places like Himeji Forus Hall during the band boom - the bizarre level of excitement - was clearly different from what I experienced at Shelter, Jam, Fandango, and places like that in the ’90s.

　—Are there any live shows or events you used to go to often in Tokyo?

M: From high school through a few years after graduation, I used to go to DJ events held by the staff of a record shop called Warsaw in Kichijoji, but after that I stopped going to live shows and events. I don't like crowds, and once I started playing in a band, I quickly became reluctant because strangers and people I barely knew would come up and talk to me. I've always been a homebody.

S: I didn't go to many live shows or events either.

　About the present


　—How has your approach to music and involvement in the scene changed from your active period in the '90s to the present?

M: We've continued to want to keep our distance from anything resembling a “scene” ever since then, but now our activities are completely continuous with our everyday lives, so I think we're able to work in a much healthier way. Being away from it has made me realize that the smells, systems, and locations of live houses and rehearsal studios really weren't suited to me. Things are best now.

S: I don't even want to bother going into rehearsal studios anymore, so I think it's worked out well that we've been able to do everything, including recording, at home.

　—Come to think of it, I hear you're planning to make your first new album in 10 years. It sounds like you've accumulated quite a few songs?

S: We've already finished recording more than half of it.

M: We decided to put 16 songs on the new album, eight by me and eight by Sei, but we still have roughly another album's worth of songs that won't fit, and I'm itching to record all of those as quickly as possible too.

S: New songs come together even while we're recording.

M: To be honest, the album from 10 years ago is already over and done with, so right now I'm only thinking about the second one. Sorry, even though this is an interview about the reissue of the first album. (Laughs)

　—Are most of the songs you made after moving to the island? Was this your eighth year?

M: I entered my ninth year in August. About half my songs were written toward the end of my life in Tokyo, and the other half after I moved to the island. What about Sei's?

S: I feel the same way.

　—How do the songs you wrote when you were in Tokyo differ from those you wrote in your completely changed new life on the island? Has your way of expressing yourself, including in the lyrics, changed? Is there anything you want to value in your creative expression?

S: I can't tell what has changed myself, but I think anything is fine as long as both the lyrics and music fit my current mood.

M: I feel I've become more decisive since moving, more so than before. I've learned to throw things away, give things up, and let things go. My songs have also become rougher in line, with more spaces in them.

　—Are you recording this album at your home on the island? Is it nearly finished?

M: Yes, I work on it at home. I've already recorded 11 of the 16 songs, so I think I'll finish recording during the summer.

　Equipment I use regularly


　—By the way, could you tell us about the equipment you use regularly (guitar and amp)? Is it vintage?

M: I've been playing a GUILD guitar ever since I was in my twenties. Is it called a semi-acoustic? When I looked inside the sound hole just now for this, it said “m-65,” so that's probably the model number. (Laughs) I fell in love with it at first sight at a used-instrument shop in Ochanomizu around 2000 and bought it on the spot for 90,000 yen in cash. It sounds good and cute even when played as is, so I record it by miking the natural sound without connecting it to an amp. I also have a Premire snare drum. I've forgotten where I bought it, but I think it's a current model. When I moved to the island, I had to part with my drum kit with great reluctance, but I also owned this snare separately and used it for gigs with the band I played drums in. I brought this one to the island instead of selling it, and I'm happy that it's now proving extremely useful. I originally thought you could create a rhythm with just a snare, and recently I've established quite a few ways of using it.

S: I don't use electric guitar much on “umareta,” but the electric guitar I use most these days is a Japan-made GRETSCH TENNESSEE ROSE, probably made around 1990. I've used it ever since The Playmates' second album. My guitar amp is a Fender USA Pro Junior, probably from around the mid-1990s. My acoustic guitar is a Larrivee D-03.

　Regarding the live performance


　—I saw you perform for the first time at that cozy bookstore on the outskirts of Himeji, on a weekday afternoon in May, and was moved by how your cozy energy and atmosphere matched the venue. Is there anything you value in your live performances?

M: Singing as if I'm speaking, I suppose. But once I start talking between songs, I don't know how to wrap it up, and it ends up dragging on, so before the show I tell myself not to talk about anything except singing as much as possible. But I never manage that very well. (Laughs)

S: Recently, I've been wanting to make the most of each setting as it is. For the recent live show at Amakawa Bunko, I wanted to make the most of the setting of that used-bookstore next to the rice paddies. It wasn't about turning a used bookstore into a live venue; it was about performing live in that space of the used bookstore.

　—You will also be performing live in Osaka (King Cobra, November 2024). Do you have any thoughts or aspirations?

M: I want to present, without holding anything back, the way songs collide with the same intensity. I'd like to do it without getting too worked up. (Laughs)

S: Naturally... um, er, well, what should I say... Anyway, it's Osaka for the first time in a while! But I won't get carried away by that; I'll just do my best in a normal way. (Laughs)

　—If you have a message for listeners regarding the reissue of “umareta,” please share it.

S: Um... around 2014, we were singing songs like these. (Laughs)

M: Hehe.

S: What else should I say... I can't think of anything.

M: Um, how should I put it? It may be completely different from “contemporary songs,” from the singing style on down, but if you ask what era these songs belong to, I don't really know that either. I think it's probably an album that people can listen to in all sorts of ways. It's strange, interesting, and wonderful that something the songwriting team, newly formed 10 years ago, was doing secretly in the suburbs of Tokyo is moving again like this now. I think that when something crosses your mind, you should give it some kind of shape right then and there. Please listen if you feel like it.

　—Thank you for talking at such length.

M: Thank you, likewise.

S: Thank you very much.

 

Editor's afterword

　Sei has been a fan of The Playmates since their debut (including appearing at our Fugazi Okayama show and elsewhere), while Momoko's shop carried a large number of works from her various previous projects, and I was also an avid listener. So to me, the two of them are truly a dream duo. It is an honor to be able to release their work nearly 30 years after those days, and I hope as many people as possible will enjoy the rock'n'roll work of these two.

   You can purchase the works by the two of them and Momoko Yoshino's books here.