Revisited/Fresh Look at "Live in Japan"

[Mark-T]

Hi Everyone,

For reasons we all know, today is a good day to help people discover how much they really do like the music of Karen and Richard.
In that vein of hope- and in celebration their music, my Revisited/Fresh Look at Live in Japan is up on my blog now.
Enjoy!

Mark

 

[GDB2LV]

Hi Mark. Could you post a link to your blog please. I’m sure many would love to read your thoughts and insightful words, but don’t know how to get there.
Thank you.

 

[John Adam]

Hi Mark. Could you post a link to your blog please. I’m sure many would love to read your thoughts and insightful words, but don’t know how to get there.
Thank you.

I was just there! Here you go.

http://www.insightsandsounds.blogspot.com

 

[John Adam]

Hi Everyone,

For reasons we all know, today is a good day to help people discover how much they really do like the music of Karen and Richard.
In that vein of hope- and in celebration their music, my Revisited/Fresh Look at Live in Japan is up on my blog now.
Enjoy!

Mark

Loved it. Your storytelling of events during the times of these releases and findings is also very poignant Mark. Makes me feel like I was a part of that time rather than an afterthought! And the Hawaii trip, Wow. But I did make it by the time I was 20 years old. But I never found any musical treasures like the one you found! I found this paragraph to be dead on with my thoughts too:

"It is ironic that the very first live Carpenters album was recorded and released in a country other than their homeland where Karen and Richard first became well known. The in concert collection Live in Japan also occupies a very interesting space in their career as well as in the story of how the duo's music impacted my life. It is a snapshot in time not easily forgotten. As exciting as it was to find this two disc collection, truth be told, it is one of their albums I listen to the least. Maybe the very least." -Mark

 

[ChrisCarpenterCollecter]

Hi Everyone,

For reasons we all know, today is a good day to help people discover how much they really do like the music of Karen and Richard.
In that vein of hope- and in celebration their music, my Revisited/Fresh Look at Live in Japan is up on my blog now.
Enjoy!

Mark

I loved reading it!
Thank you very much!

 

[Harry]

My first Hawaiian trip wasn't until sometime in the 1990s, but I recall also visiting the Ala Moana Mall on Oahu. And we visited a record store there, too. They also sold videos, and at the time I was big into LaserDiscs, and in their sale rack I found a title I wanted - and had to figure out how to get it home. Would it fit in a suitcase? Answer: it did - just. We layered it in between our clothes for both the rest of the trips around the islands, and the much longer trip home to Philly. The movie? It was DOG DAY AFTERNOON, an inspired look at 1970's New York through a bank robbery. Factoid: I just recently upgraded that old LaserDisc with a Blu-ray of the movie. And no, I had no Carpenters purchase there.

However, there was a bit of musical karma going on at that mall. The evening prior, we'd done the touristy thing of going to see Don Ho at his dinner theater, and we had our picture taken with him afterwards. So who should we run into at Ala Moana Mall's music store? Don Ho and his daughter. They were shopping for a guitar for her.

LIVE IN JAPAN, I managed to buy in downtown Philly at one of the big record stores there. I remember the excitement of bringing it home to listen to after work that day - and wondering just why the compilers would include that buzzing sound check on the record! And the irony there is that it survives on CD!

 

[GDB2LV]

I’ve written about my first experience with this album awhile back. I was visiting family in the North Bay Area of California and I somehow read or heard that the album was going to be played on a San Francisco FM station on an early Sunday Evening. We were invited to a bbq at my Uncle’s coworker home in the small town of Forestville. When we got there, I asked the friends if they had a FM radio, and they said sure. I planted myself right next to it for the next hour and a half to hear the broadcast. The signal was poor, 65 miles away in the redwoods, but still exciting to experience. My favorite group getting a whole 90 minutes on the radio. When I got home, I sent a letter to the fan club inquiring how to get this for myself. They sent a list of Japan only recordings. Gem, Gold Prize, 12 Best Pops, Max20, a few others, and Live In Japan. They were on A&M King Records there. They were all very expensive! Still, I sent a check, as instructed, and about 6 weeks later it arrived. I was in heaven, the fall of 1975. I listened to it quite a bit, but didn’t care for the Pete Henderson vocals on the medley. When I saw them here and one of the times in Lake Tahoe 76’ or 77’, he came out to sing those cuts again. Anyway it had become a record I own, but never listen to anymore. The laser disc recording was the last time I heard it, back in the 90’s. Thank you Mark. Great story and review of your experience with it, and what a great trip!

 

[TimeWarp]

Hi Everyone,

For reasons we all know, today is a good day to help people discover how much they really do like the music of Karen and Richard.
In that vein of hope- and in celebration their music, my Revisited/Fresh Look at Live in Japan is up on my blog now.
Enjoy!

Mark

Thanks for sharing, Mark. Would love to hear about your experience seeing them live and meeting them backstage.

 

[Mark-T]

Thanks for all the stories and feedback! I so with Karen and Richard had received there same level of respect in their home country as they did in Japan! I was there in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka in 1979. Every record shop I saw in these cities had a significant number of Carpenters discs available. Due to limited space and not finding anything I "had" to have, (including the ones mentioned above), I foolishly bought nothing. How I regret it now!

@TimeWarp, I know I have at one time posted that on my blog, but I can't remember where.
You could try to find something titled "The Night I Met Karen Carpenter" - I think- or look at the Live at the Palladium album review as it was the same show I saw and met them in Las Vegas at the Riviera.

Gosh, thanks again everyone for reading and talking with me!

 

[Martin Medrano]

Man this was really a treat to read. I enjoyed every second i read it. My favorite part was when you mentioned that you were on a trip and had to wait 2 weeks to get home to listen to the album.

 

[TimeWarp]

Thanks for all the stories and feedback! I so with Karen and Richard had received there same level of respect in their home country as they did in Japan! I was there in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka in 1979. Every record shop I saw in these cities had a significant number of Carpenters discs available. Due to limited space and not finding anything I "had" to have, (including the ones mentioned above), I foolishly bought nothing. How I regret it now!

@TimeWarp, I know I have at one time posted that on my blog, but I can't remember where.
You could try to find something titled "The Night I Met Karen Carpenter" - I think- or look at the Live at the Palladium album review as it was the same show I saw and met them in Las Vegas at the Riviera.

Gosh, thanks again everyone for reading and talking with me!

I found it! Just needed to Google that title and it was the first result that popped up. Thank you! By the way I LOVE the Live in Japan album.

 

[Harry]

I should mention that the show they did on LIVE IN JAPAN is the exact same show I'd seen them perform at the Valley Forge Music Fair in suburban Philly as part of the same tour. It was like getting a cleaned-up recording of the show I recorded with a portable cassette recorder. We even recorded the Skiles & Henderson part as well. I wonder that tape has gotten to...

 

[Mark-T]

I should mention that the show they did on LIVE IN JAPAN is the exact same show I'd seen them perform at the Valley Forge Music Fair in suburban Philly as part of the same tour. It was like getting a cleaned-up recording of the show I recorded with a portable cassette recorder. We even recorded the Skiles & Henderson part as well. I wonder that tape has gotten to...

That’s interesting. Does this make you enjoy the live Japan better than the live Palladium. My experience seeing them live makes me prefer the latter over the former.

 

[Harry]

I think I'd say that's true. But like some others have said, it's still not anything I listen to at all, especially given my disdain for live recordings anyway. Still, I'm happy to have it - and the video of the Budokan show - as representatives of that concert tour.

 

[GDB2LV]

The Tahoe shows had Skiles&Henderson too. Winters 76 and 77. Pretty much the same show there as well. The oldies medley, Karen with her very large boobs, the guys all wanting to hug her....Richard on the motorcycle, extra vocals by Pete Henderson. They added Warsaw Concerto to the show by then, which Richard also did in October 1974 at the Hollywood Bowl. They lowered a long mirror over the piano so the audience could see his fingers on the ivories. Opening act for that one show was Gilbert O’Sullivan. Probably the best of the shows I saw from 73-78. Karen’s outfit was beautiful. I agree with Harry about the concerts. They were exciting to attend, but the studio recordings are so much better. They just couldn’t reproduce that magic sound live. They needed another Karen to sing the harmonies. Still I’m grateful for what I heard and saw in that brief time.

 

[tomswift2002]

CD2 of this set gets more work out in my CD players than CD1.

 

[Cuyler]

My first Hawaiian trip wasn't until sometime in the 1990s, but I recall also visiting the Ala Moana Mall on Oahu. And we visited a record store there, too. They also sold videos, and at the time I was big into LaserDiscs, and in their sale rack I found a title I wanted - and had to figure out how to get it home.

WOW. I visit Ala Moana pretty regularly hahaha. There used to be a Sam Goody in the basement, but when Borders and Tower Records closed across the country, Sam Goody closed its doors at Ala Moana shortly thereafter. There's a Barnes and Noble in the basement (in a different space) that's still operating today. I am fairly certain that, given the physical and cultural closeness between Hawaiʻi and Japan, it is generally easier to find Japanese records (including "Live in Japan") in Hawaiʻi than on the continent. I got my double-LP for probably $8 in 2006. I'm digitizing it now.

My only addition (for now) to this is that the double-LP in question came with the obi. It has a nasty tear in the middle, but other than that, it's in pretty decent shape. I'm sure I could scan it if I just set up my good flatbed photo scanner. Maybe I'll send the file to one of you to clean up if you want to take a stab at it. (Paging @Vinylalbumcovers and @Harry, the master scanner pros!)

Sorry... the actual addition: I'm not sure if this is part of the public record, but the obi (which says many things in many different colors) says:

• 一九七四年六月七日、八日、九日　大阪フェスティヴァル・ホールにおいて録音

In English: "Recorded at the Osaka Festival Hall on June 7, 8, and 9, 1974."

Hope this little info can be of some help to fans wanting to know when and where the music is from

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

WOW. I visit Ala Moana pretty regularly hahaha. There used to be a Sam Goody in the basement, but when Borders and Tower Records closed across the country, Sam Goody closed its doors at Ala Moana shortly thereafter. There's a Barnes and Noble in the basement (in a different space) that's still operating today. I am fairly certain that, given the physical and cultural closeness between Hawaiʻi and Japan, it is generally easier to find Japanese records (including "Live in Japan") in Hawaiʻi than on the continent. I got my double-LP for probably $8 in 2006. I'm digitizing it now.

My only addition (for now) to this is that the double-LP in question came with the obi. It has a nasty tear in the middle, but other than that, it's in pretty decent shape. I'm sure I could scan it if I just set up my good flatbed photo scanner. Maybe I'll send the file to one of you to clean up if you want to take a stab at it. (Paging @Vinylalbumcovers and @Harry, the master scanner pros!)

Bring it on...LOL! I'd be happy to fix it up.

Ed

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

If you want to, @Cuyler, it can be sent to covers (at) vinylalbumcovers.com. If you can scan it as a PNG or TIFF, that'd be great. Most things on the site are 1200 x 1200 at either 300 or 600 dpi. FYI.

Ed

 

[Cuyler]

Sorry, my Japanese is way not good enough to translate the obi on my own. The hiragana and katakana (two of the Japanese alphabets) are very straightforward, but the kanji is always difficult. Thanks to the Internet and assistive technology, namely the handwriting function on my MacBook, so I could input the kanji into the online dictionary by writing it, and Google Translate, for making sense of Japanese word soup.

• カーペンターズ・ライヴ・イン・ジャパン
  Carpenters – Live in Japan
  (By the way, they did zero to translate "Live in Japan" – the phonetic reading is literally "Raivu In Japan")
• 豪華カラーピンナップつき！！
  Includes a gorgeous/extravagant color pin-up!!
• カーペンターズ初のライヴ録音遂に登場！
  Carpenters’ first live appearance!
• 未発表曲は「悲しき街角」「ブック・オブ・ラヴ」「ダディズ・ホーム」「ジョニ！Bグッド」等のナツメロ曲そしてカレンが日本語で歌う「シング」と新しい魅力がいっぱいの２枚組アルバム、コンサートで行なわれた24曲完全収録。
  Unreleased songs are golden oldie songs "Runaway," "Book of Love," "Daddy's Home," "Johnny B. Goode," etc., then "Sing," sung by Karen in Japanese, a new two-album set full of charm, complete recording of 24 songs performed at the concert.
  (From an English speaker's perspective, this is one sentence that would be broken up into three sentences in English.)
• あのカーペンターズ３度目の来日の興奮と熱唱がここに甦る
  The Carpenters' third visit to Japan, excitement and singing enthusiastically are revived here.
• メドレー（スーパースター／雨の日と月曜日は／愛にさよならを）トップ・オブ・ザ・ワールド／ヘルプ／ミスター・グーダー／遥かなる影／ジャンバラヤ／イエスタデイ・ワンス・モア　ハーティング・イーチ・アザー／オールデーイズ・メドレー（リトル・ホンダ／この世の果てまで他）シング／サムタイムズ／愛のプレリュード／ふたりの誓い（アンコール）他全24曲
  Medley (Superstar/Rainy Days and Mondays/Goodbye to Love) Top of the World/Help/Mr. Guder/(They Long to Be) Close to You/Jambalaya/Yesterday Once More/Hurting Each Other/Oldies Medley (Little Honda/The End of the World) Sing/Sometimes/We've Only Just Begun/For All We Know (Encore), 24 remaining songs

Doing this little translation exercise (someone please do a better translation, but at least I transcribed the text on the obi), I learned a few things about the Japanese translations of Carpenters songs:

• 雨の日と月曜日は (Ame-no Hi-to Getsuyoubi-wa) – "Rainy Days and Mondays" – Literally translates to "Rainy Days and Mondays" but with a topic-marking particle at the end (-wa), probably to make the title make sense in Japanese.
• 愛にさよならを (Ai-ni Sayonara-wo) – "Goodbye to Love" – Literally "To Love, Goodbye" but with an object-marking particle (-wo) after "goodbye" that can't be directly translated into English in this context. Again, probably to make sense in Japanese.
• 遥かなる影 (Haruka Naru Kage) – "(They Long to Be) Close to You" – Literally something like "Shadow Growing Distant." Jisho.org specifies that "haruka" refers both to distance in space and time. This title is quite haunting actually, and imho gives this song a new depth it doesn't have with regard to the English title.
• 愛のプレリュード (Ai-no Pureryuudo) – "We've Only Just Begun" – Literally "Love's Prelude."
• ふたりの誓い (Futari-no Chikai) – "For All We Know" – Literally "Two People's Vow(s)" (probably because the song and the film it's from are about two people getting married).

Hopefully this post was semi-enlightening

 

[Cuyler]

If you want to, @Cuyler, it can be sent to covers (at) vinylalbumcovers.com. If you can scan it as a PNG or TIFF, that'd be great. Most things on the site are 1200 x 1200 at either 300 or 600 dpi. FYI.

Ed

I definitely will take you up on it! My scanner is unplugged now, but maybe I'll plug it in soon.

 

[Murray]

Hopefully this post was semi-enlightening

I nominate Cuyler to translate the Mook!

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

Okay, here we go. This is the best I could do. I removed the old color cast, cloned out the damage, and straightened things out as best I could. That OBI has absolutely seen better days (many decades ago).

Ed

 

[Cuyler]

Okay, here we go. This is the best I could do. I removed the old color cast, cloned out the damage, and straightened things out as best I could. That OBI has absolutely seen better days (many decades ago).

Ed

Breathtaking, Ed! Great work!

I also want to commend you (and me in part) for how it came out, especially considering that the original obi was printed using those dots. (I don't know the proper word for it, but it's the same way they print CD covers today.) There's virtually no blurriness and no dot distortion in Ed's final product.

 

[Cuyler]

カーペンターズ初のライヴ録音遂に登場！
Carpenters’ first live appearance!

Correcting myself here -- it should say something like, "Carpenters, first live sound recording, finally released!"