International Women’s Week 2023

Part 1: The Godmothers of Heavy Metal

Screenshot, “I am the Storm,” youtube

(Note: This post contains material from earlier posts, as well as new material.)

This story starts long ago, but for practical purposes, it started in 1966. The Beatles toured Japan, blanketed in high security. Their management had been fielding death threats from reactionary groups threatened by the encroachment of Western culture on Japan. Later it was revealed that the boys had not been told about the threats so they wouldn’t be nervous going into their performances. They, therefore, wondered why they were being kept in a bubble the whole time.

But the tour itself was a major commercial success, and the Beatles were followed by several more Western rock bands, including Led Zeppelin (1971), Deep Purple (1972), Kiss (1977), the Runaways (1977), and AC/DC (1981), among others.

Japan took to hard rock and heavy metal with a passion. Today it is the second-largest market for recorded rock music and music of all kinds. More importantly, it is home to the world's largest community of professional rock musicians after the U.S.

Japanese rock diverged significantly from that in the U.S. and U.K., its countries of origin. Songwriters incorporated more classical elements (both Western and Eastern) in their compositions than songwriters in the West. With instruction on musical instruments compulsory in K-12 schools, Japan had a huge pool of skilled musicians to draw from, so its rock scene has tended to have a greater depth of technical skill and musicianship than in the West.

Another key divergence that occurred early on was that large numbers of aspiring rock musicians in Japan were girls. In the U.S., the refrain was “girls don’t play guitar” (unfortunately, it’s still that way). The catalyst for much of the interest on the part of Japanese girls was the American group the Runaways (see my recent post on them).

The Runaways had limited commercial success in the U.S., partly due to poor and even abusive management, but were greeted with something like Beatlemania in Japan. Five young Japanese women inspired by the Runaways went on to found one of the greatest hard rock/heavy metal groups of all time: Show-Ya.

Show-Ya started in 1981 (even before Metallica) and locked in their lineup in 1982. Since then, they have been recording and touring continuously with essentially that lineup (there was a two-year stint with another lead vocalist, and a short hiatus in the 1990s). They were inspired by the big-name western bands named above, but the door openers for them were the Runaways.

Show-Ya’s early work was mostly covers of the aforementioned bands and others, including KISS and AC/DC. Then , in the mid-1980s, they began releasing and performing their own material, and they never looked back.

Lineup:

Miki Nakamura (keyboards)

Miki “Sun-Go” Igarashi (guitars)

Keiko Terada (vocals)

Satomi Senba (bass)

Miki Tsunoda (drums)

Terada has a great rock voice, a sort of husky version of Pat Benatar, with hints of Tina Turner. Sun-Go is a bonafide guitar hero who can play heart-wrenching blues and yet go toe-to-toe with the great shredders of the 80s and 90s. The band modeled themselves most of all after Deep Purple. Not only is the influence unmistakable, but they bring it like the old masters.

I consider the fact that Show-Ya were not bigger in the U.S. an indictment of the U.S. music establishment, which repeatedly turned down opportunities to promote them here. Our industry gave us BTO, Foreigner, Bob Seger, and Kansas, but would not work with this “girl” band that could out-compose and play circles around all of those groups. Shame on us.

Here is 私は嵐 “Watashi Wa Arashi” (“I Am the Storm”) from a 2005 live concert. This was the biggest hit from Show-Ya’s 1989 album Outerlimits. It’s a love song but comes from a place of strength, not weakness. She is daring a man to stop being chickens*** and embrace her power!

For me, the song is magical in so many ways — the catchy verses and chorus, the wailing, overdriven guitar, the thundering bass, and that classic 80s Hammond organ underpinning it all.

As you watch these women rock, remember that in this video, they are all in their mid-40s. (Lyrics below)

A woman hides her true self

Behind a mask of glass

A man holds a rusty dream

Somewhere in his heart

Even if you hurt yourself because of love

Now you’ve got nothing to be afraid of

I want to return to the night of the distant storms

So we can awaken the flash of lightning inside us

I am the miracle

I’ll release this locked up night

I am the future

I am the storm.

*****

“Cry for Freedom” (2008)

Show-ya have been sponsoring an annual rock festival (NAONのYAON) just for Japanese female rock musicians and mentored many emerging bands. This is from their headlining appearance at the 2008 edition.

It is a classic power ballad with allusions to the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Don’t miss the exquisite, emotion-drenched solo by Sun-Go (lyrics below):

I was bound by invisible chains

A dark shadow approaches the city

Shout out and the sky is on fire

Words are always empty for her

In the rubble, stained with blood i searched for a dream

The answer is always in flames

A young soldier has nothing to fear

Even if I’m frightened by my own shadow

Let yourself be swept away by the speed of the times

the world keeps moving

Spread your wings to the free sky

The fingers that tremble

the birds that fly away shot down

But dreams never die

believe in tomorrow

Spread your wings to the sad sky

what do flying birds think

Spread your wings to the free sky

i searched for a dream

The answer is always in flames

*****

Sources:

I usually try to annotate my stories with source references, but I’ve been a fan of Show-Ya long enough that I don’t remember where I first learned the various details of their story.

Carolyn Stevens “The Beatles, Budokan, and Death Threats,” 2019 Monash University Press

For dates of Japan tours by Western bands, I check them on Discogs.