Soul Flower Mononoke Summit -Fukko Bushi, Tokyo Bushi

Live at Nagata Jinja, Kobe, January 21st 1996. One year after the Kobe earthquake, the ever resourceful Soul Flower Mononoke Summit, who had played numerous times in Kobe mostly around the area of Nagata to cheer up the victims, decided to organise a festival. They called it Tsuzura-ori no Utage and invited a lot of like minded musicians and friends to participate. Here is the band with many guests including Chindon Tsushinsha, Tokyo Bibimbap Club and Kazutoki Umezu playing the songs Fukko Bushi and Tokyo Bushi
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One of the first types of Western music imported into Japan about 150 years ago was brass band military music. At the time it was the government policy to ignore Japanese indigenous music, but it didn’t take too long for the two to merge, in the form of advertising and street performance music, Chindon. Before the TV commercial there was the Chindon commercial and up until the 1950s and early 1960s, colorful chindon groups used to be a common sight in Japan, marching in the streets noisily banging a chindon drum, while saxophones or clarinets would pick out the melody to the hits of the day. Another person, would carry a large banner announcing the opening of a new store or pachinko- pin ball- parlor. That is, until the advent of TV almost took away their livelihood. In 1995, a rock group from Osaka, Soul Flower Union, helped to revitalize the sound of Chindon. The city of Kobe was devastated by the Great Hanshin earthquake, and Soul Flower Union took to the streets of Kobe, to 'cheer up' the victims. In the absence of electricity, they were forced to go 'unplugged' swapping electric instruments for those of a chindon group. They played mainly old Japanese songs, including 'Fukko Bushi', based on a traditional Chinese melody that was the most popular song in the ruins of the Kanto earthquake that struck the Tokyo area in 1923. Soul Flower Union put new words to the melody, which included lines about 'Nagata' in Tokyo, the government area being rich, and Nagata in Kobe, an area of mainly immigrants, being poor. Too controversial to release for their major record company, the group christened this new music 'punk chindon' called this version of the group, Soul Flower Mononoke Summit, and released a record by themselves. The result is some of Japan's most infectious music of recent years.Tokyo Bushi was a popular song in 1920s Japan, with lyrics set to the tune Marching Through Georgia which had arrived with the opening up of Japan to the Western world.

[@RyanPelley1]

I randomly remembered this song today from the first Jackass film. What a cool band.

[@copybyear]

東京節めちゃ元気でる。日本人だなぁ。

[@EnoVarma]

Kobe: So, how many musicians do you want on the stage?
SFMS: Yes.

[@samwrought5650]

This lives rent free in my head

[@adamjenkins8245]

Hi I'm wee man and this is big cone

[@komitakeshi]

かあ

[@ryantomi4296]

これ長田神社でやったやつですよ！貴重！

[@edo179az]

この動画の存在は知ってましたが、確かこのライブのボランティアスタッフだけに配布した動画だったはず。まさか出てくるとは思わなかったので動画公開当時すぐお気に入りに入れました。記憶違いならすいません。

[@PaulTheSkeptic]

Ha ha, there are so many people in this band.

[@Average_Joe87]

I like this song. Wish I knew more japanese than just one word.

[@VanceRefrigeration]

Nagasaki means ‘Sorry’

[@spider-mang4211]

Jam session.

[@emanuelbellanti4308]

Haha!, there's a trumpetist outside of the stage too.

[@yuzy0808]

石やん～

[@sianb.5286]

Is it possible to find the lyrics for this song anywhere??

[@cdr8556]

ruclips.net/video/HecduFXZZQQ/видео.htmlsi=M2sUzAjLClqEFu5x

[@ardradiva]

That crowd is either very grim about the earthquake or they aren't digging it. Stone faces. A shame, it's a catchy song, good song.

[@berryforce6017]

To be fair, some of the audience are participating in their own way and that's all a perfomer needs. I'd be kinda stonefaced too if some band tried to cheer me up after I'd lost everything in a disaster, the Japanese are a famously stoic people anyway.

[@sergioesteban7663]

Lirycs