Tokyo's Coolest Sound

On Sunday May 8 was a show of Sally Soul Stew, the band of bassist Sally Kubota (Les 5-4-3-2-1, The Phantom Gift), held at Shinjuku rock venue Red Cloth. Sally Soul Stew isn't quite an active band, it only comes up every once a year or so when the members get together and decide to do a show. At this day it doesn't have so much to do with the album under the same name that was released in 2007, which mainly consisted of Les 5-4-3-2-1 covers.

First on stage was opening act Keme, a singer-songwriter who is more often seen playing crazy guitar solos wearing a short GS dress as Kinoco Hotel's Isabelle-Keme Kamogawa.

Keme, DJ Jimmy Mashiko

However she's also a solo artist, and this time she played backed by a band of 4 guys (guitar, bass, keyboard and drums). It was good to see her rocking an acoustic guitar and singing in her precise voice, leaving all solos to her guitarist. She also played harmonica for one song of her set that totaled 8 songs.

Set list (partial): boku wa dame na ningen / eien no tabi / higurashi naiteiru / nan no tame ni

The garage door-like curtain came down for Sally Soul Stew to set up while DJ Jimmy Mashiko (blog) warmed up the audience. He's the one who illustrated the sleeve of the band's latest 7", "anata ni maketa no", cover of a song from 1970 with an original for B-side. The band had this time a few different members than when I had seen their first show in 2007, with Nakayama Tsutomu (Hammond organ), Nakamori Yasuhiro (guitar, from Hicksville), Shirane Kenichi (drums, from GREAT3), and vocalists Mashiro Megumi (Hicksville) and Lemon (Wack Wack Rhythm Band).

Sally Soul Stew

The show was almost entirely covers from the 60's and 70's, I think the only exception being the B-side mentioned earlier. The band was really great, especially with the two girls' soul vocals, and Sally's smooth bass lines that ran arpeggios almost non-stop for the whole show. I also always love watching Nakayama-san playing the organ, with his technique of applying live effects with a Kaoss pad.

Here's what I could manage of the set list (click the links to hear the originals on YouTube).

Set list (partial): hidariashi no otoko (Inst., cover of Uchida Yuya & The Flowers) / Golden Cup (original) / Boy and Girl (cover of Wada Akiko) / I Can't Keep From Crying (cover of The Blues Project) / Bye Bye Adam (cover of Wada Akiko) / anata dake de ii (cover of Sawada Kenji) / hitori no kanashimi (cover of Zoo Nee Voo) / anata ni maketa no (cover of Koyama Rumi) / sekai wa boku no ryote ni (cover of The Tempters) / Encore: What'd I Say (cover of Larger sizes and more photos at Flickr

Keme "boku wa dame na ningen"