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Anozaa Hira Hira-Tem Hira-LIVE Hira-Kyoku

History

1973-1978: Mandrake

In the spring of his third year in high school, Susumu Hirasawa was approached by Fumiyasu Abe (安部　文泰) who, aiming to pursue a professional career in music, asked to form a band with him. Hirasawa had been a guitarist of local group The Doctors (ドクターズ, Dokutāzu) (which he has claimed was a predecessor of Group Sounds band The Lind & Linders) in his middle school years, and its leader had recommended him to Abe, having been amazed by his proficiency with heavy gauge string bending. Hirasawa had left The Doctors—and performing music altogether—due to creative differences, and afterwards gravitated to motocross as his hobby of choice. However, the day after they met, Hirasawa was hit by a truck that had run a red light, totaling his motorcycle. Lacking money to fix it, he took up Abe's proposal.

After a couple failed attempts (what Hirasawa described as "an imitation of white people blues" and a search for similar-minded people that only pushed them towards studying jazz), the two placed an advertisement poster in a music store near Shinjuku Gyo-en, soliciting musicians willing to play heavy rock in the style of Black Sabbath. It was answered by Yasumi Tanaka and Sadatoshi Tainaka, who got together with the other two at the arranged meeting point, Higashi-Koganei Station. The band's first lineup, which consisted of Abe on vocals, Hirasawa on guitar, Tanaka on bass and Tainaka on drums; rehearsed weekly while juggling college studies and part-time jobs. They used a spare room on the Koganei campus of the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, where Tanaka was enrolled. Abe brought a violin to one of their sessions unannounced, which led the group to gravitate towards progressive rock and writing original material. Hirasawa and Abe were also big fans of the Third Ear Band album Alchemy, which turned them onto the nuances of Celtic and alchemical words. On a train ride to rehearsal, they named the band Mandrake (マンドレイク, Mandoreiku) after this fascination.

Following a bout of erratic behavior the day his girlfriend broke up with him, Abe disappeared. Mandrake took this opportunity to go through a significant change in formation. Tanaka, who had secretly taught himself to play piano, became a keyboardist (playing synthesizers, Hammond organ and Mellotron); and Tainaka got a new drum kit with 8 toms. Hirasawa was pushed towards becoming the new lead singer against his wishes, and one of his college classmates, Hiromi Seki (関　弘美), was recruited to fill the bassist role. With those changes, Mandrake oriented itself towards progressive rock in a style similar to those of Van der Graaf Generator, King Crimson, Yes and Genesis; they would follow this direction until the end of band's existence. The group's second lineup endured until late 1977; Seki returned to his native Niigata Prefecture after graduation to continue his family's business. Although he commuted to Tokyo for Mandrake regularly for about 2 years, his family thought they were involved with the yakuza, and did not allow him to continue after a point. He was replaced by Tohru Akutu (阿久津　徹), who occasionally sung lead vocals.

Aided by Hirasawa's older brother Yūichi, who provided visual effects to the group's shows, Mandrake spent the bulk of its existence doing live gigs. They performed regularly in Tokyo and Saitama, and acquired a following in the prog scene. Despite the band's niche success, they were by then wishing to make music that formed a connection with wider society, which they thought to be impossible within the parameters of progressive rock. The group felt that the genre in general had turned into just a form of entertainment and the Japanese scene was effectively conjoined to fusion, to the point where the conflation of both as the same genre was commonplace. Prog itself was only accessible to people interested in music, and by Hirasawa's estimate, only about 300 people went to prog shows. Excluding festivals, Mandrake's live attendance records ranged from 150 people to 3.

The rise of punk rock and new wave was revelatory for Mandrake, who sensed it to be the advent of a new era. A short while afterward, Hirasawa, despite never using a synthesizer in his life, started working under keyboardist Akiro Kamio Arishima (有島　神尾　明朗). He began teaching a synthesizer class to teenagers at a Yamaha school where Kamio also taught and became a supporting member of Kamio's band The Bach Revolution (バッハ・リヴォリューション, Bahha Rivoryūshon), opportunities that got him acquainted with the instrument and interested in its potential. Those two events led the group to write keyboard-heavy music with punk influences and incorporate it into their setlists. Mandrake had turned into a half-hearted band and Hirasawa was intent on starting anew, even declining a prog record deal from Victor Music Industries. Mandrake ended with a special 3-hour long show at Shibuya Jean-Jean on New Year's Eve 1978, divided into 1 two-and-a-half-hours-long set of prog songs and 1 half-hour-long set of new wave songs. Yūichi and Katsuhiko Akiyama, keyboardist of the Emerson, Lake & Palmer-inspired trio Abikyōkan (阿鼻叫喚) and occasional Mandrake roadie, appeared as on-stage actors, running on a treadmill and carrying a glowing multicolored fetus, respectively.

1979-1983: the Tanaka era – In a Model Room, Landsale, Potpourri and Perspective

After performing their final live show and celebrating the holiday, the members of Mandrake and Yūichi (who was considered as much a member of the band from then on as the musicians themselves) convened at Susumu's house in Kameari to define what direction they would take going forward. They observed that current music with corporate backing had appeal for non-music fans and worked as entertainment, so they decided to make a complete change, both musical and visual, that would cultivate an unthreatening image. Their new sound would be driven by electronic instruments, and their clothing and instruments would be brightly colored. The band's name was changed to something that evoked a mass-produced industrial good; the letter "P" (ピー, Pii) was chosen because it "sounds ridiculous". Akutu, obstinate in his passion towards progressive rock, decided to part ways with the band, going on to work on various projects with the members of Shingetsu. Since a live rhythm section was necessary for the punk feeling the group sought, Hirasawa recruited Akiyama to take Akutu's spot, because he had never played bass in his life before. With these changes, P-Model was formed on New Year's Day 1979.

The lyrics of songs they wrote in this period reflected on the changes Tokyo was going through as Japan's economy surged. As more and more people flocked to the city, the government purged subcultures from the special wards to make them "wholesome", and the P-Model members, who were all Tokyo natives except Tainaka, felt displaced in the metropolis. They felt that their city both lacked a shared culture and anything interesting or unique to do. In particular, the construction of the Sunshine 60 skyscraper and the surrounding Sunshine City complex over the former Sugamo Prison made them think Tokyo had reached its end. That led them to put an Orwellian sense of hopelessness in their songs. Susumu saw the music as a Jōban Line counterpoint to the urban sophisticated stylish music of the cultureless Tokyo that was being built on top of the place's original culture. To aid in that, each member took up a fake background that would be pushed to the public, in an effort to make the songs seem like they came from ordinary people instead of seasoned musicians. Hirasawa's experimentation with getting distortion, sound decay and noise lead to P-Model's sound being centered on 2 keyboards: the Maxi-Korg 800DV synthesizer, used for a blipping noise Tanaka got out of it that was named "Musical Stapler" (ミュージカル・ホッチキス, Myuujikaru Hotchikisu); and the Yamaha YC-10 combo organ. Although the band developed such an abrasive sound, Hirasawa thought it had pop appeal, and aimed to "overthrow Pink Lady".

Hirasawa and Tanaka recorded a 2-song demo at home and sent cassette copies to parties that might show interest. The demo found its way to Rockin' f magazine editor Hisaaki Katoh (加藤　久明) who, amazed at the band's sound, offered to help them get a record deal. Accruing interest from 8 different companies, P-Model signed with the biggest one, Warner-Pioneer. Interest in the band came from Warner's western division, which already handled a similar band, Devo. The Japanese division was asked to take P-Model, but they didn't understand what the group was going for, so they ended up in the hands of the western division.

P-Model thought they were the only ones in Japan making their kind of new wave music, until they saw Plastics live. Cautious to make their debut album, the group sought an experienced producer, and hired Plastics keyboardist Masahide Sakuma for the job. Much like the P-Model members, Sakuma was a prog musician who switched to new wave, having played bass and produced albums as part of Yonin-Bayashi. However, he clashed with the band over their choice of instruments and musicianship. P-Model's intent was to have a pop finish, but fought throughout the recordings to maintain the gritty aspect of their sound, which resulted in a techno punk album that did not match their desires. While the group maintained an amicable relationship with Sakuma, they never worked with an outside producer again.

Their debut single, "Art Mania" (coupled with "Sunshine City") was released in 25 July 1979, with their debut album In a Model Room being released in 25 August 1979. Featuring 7 songs originally performed by Mandrake and pressed in unique pink vinyl, it was met with good sales. P-Model followed it with gigs alongside punk and new wave bands, as well as opening act spots on 3 XTC shows and the Asian leg of Van Halen's World Vacation Tour. The group got a positive reception by thousands of people and played multiple regions of Tokyo they had never gone to before for the first time. In an all-night concert at Kanagawa University, they befriended Kenji Konishi, who was also a prog musician who had turned to synth experimentation. P-Model started 1980 with their first national tour, which lasted until April. Between legs of the tour, they recorded their second album, Landsale. Maintaining the same style as In a Model Room, the album showcased P-Model going in a harsher direction with a guitar-oriented sound and featured compositions by Akiyama. Key among the tracks was the opener: "Ohayo" (オハヨウ, Good Morning), a song based around piano and string section parts influenced by Ultravox's "My Sex". The stylistic disparity between it and the rest of the album was intentional, as Hirasawa wanted a "barrier" between the band and its audience, whose increasing size worried him.

Landsale was a massive success, receiving a first order of 100,000 copies (most Japanese rock albums of the time generally sold only 30,000). P-Model found itself in the midst of a techno pop boom, with frequent appearances on TV and the press, billed as one of "The Big Three of Techno" (テクノ御三家, Tekuno Gosanke) alongside Plastics and Hikashu. Hirasawa found himself in a state of crisis, uncomfortable with the way mass media and audiences framed the band as idols and the sense that they were being treated as a fad. High-profile episodes of erratic behavior followed the group: lack of communication between band, promoters and audience led concertgoers to riot at a Nakano Sun Plaza Hall show. Their set at the "Pop the Hero" festival was punctuated by abstract videos directed by Yūichi, the group shedding its colorful image for a muted getup and actions that confused the audience (the squeezing of a tube of glue halfway through a song and them holding a globe together instead of playing the song titled "Globe"). For a concert at the Yaneura, a leaflet by the dōjinshi magazine Rock-May-Kan titled "The Point of Coming to a Concert" was distributed while Landsale was looped endlessly through the PA system; they did not play until the concertgoers started an uproar, which later led to a backlash against the band. Around the same time, the differences in attitude between Akiyama; who was naturally idolish and sought a stylish, romantic image; and the rest of the group widened. As forming an unified view became harder for P-Model, Akiyama was expelled from the band in November. Hirasawa asked one of his Yamaha school students, Tatsuya Kikuchi, to be the band's new bassist. Originally called upon for only 3 shows and having to be taught the instrument by Hirasawa, Kikuchi ended up as a full-time member of P-Model.

With their third album Potpurri, P-Model sought to prune its fanbase and find a new methodology to follow. Although the songs still maintained a pop sensibility, the band eschewed most electronics and socially conscious lyrics in favor of Public Image Ltd-inspired post-punk centered on guitar and organ that unintentionally sounds like reggae and dreamlike lyrics influenced by Shampoo, an all-female duo formed by students of Hirasawa's Yamaha school class. The biggest departure on the album is "Anothersmell", a sound collage built around a yodeling sample. The group's relationship with Warner, already conflict-laden, worsened from the first song recorded. Released on 25 March 1981, Potpourri was ignored by most of the press, and P-Model switched labels, to Tokuma Music Industries' Japan Record, by November of that year. The band's income decreased significantly around this time, with Hirasawa taking up part-time jobs to stave off abject poverty. Most songs from the first 2 albums were phased out of the group's live repertoire by the middle of the year, and they took to performing experimental shows where a conventional set was preceded by one of work-in-progress songs (most of them instrumental). Hirasawa started building his own instruments at home; recordings of experiments with them and songs from the experimental shows were later included on Unacceptable Song Collection (不許可曲集, Fu Kyoka Kyoku Shū), a self-released cassette made as a countermeasure against inflexible engineers.

For P-Model's fourth album Perspective, it was decided that its sound would be the core of its concept. Lyrics were kept surrealist and answers to magazine interviews oblique so that listeners would form their own outlook on the album. Multiple microphones were set up to record Hirasawa's guitar, and the notes of drum parts were recorded individually. Hirasawa had wanted a specific drum sound on Potpourri, but was told by that album's engineer that it was something studios were not able to produce. Determined to get the sound he wanted for Perspective, he had the band's drum kit set up on the landing of the stairwell on the 8th floor of the multi-tenant building the studio was located, with microphones on the kit and the landings of the 7th and 9th floors. The album's engineer insisted the same effect could be acquired through digital reverb, while Hirasawa only accepted natural reverb. They clashed constantly over this, to the point that a meeting was required for the matter to be settled. Kikuchi's technique was found to not be up to par, so his parts were played by Tanaka on synths. P-Model continued their experimental shows into 1982, now bringing Hirasawa's homemade sampler (the Heavenizer) to incorporate the audience's cheers into their songs.

From around the time they were making Potpourri onwards, Yasumi Tanaka found it harder and harder to come up with material for the band. That sense of writer's block increased as time went on and as such, feeling that he was holding both himself and the band back, Tanaka chose to quit P-Model and his career as a musician altogether. He performed his last live show with the band on 20 March 1983 at the Yaneura. Hirasawa, who found that decision a massive blow, comparable to losing an arm, and made him feel like quitting himself,[?] would later say that "P-Model was over when Tanaka left".

1983-1985: the "One-Man Band" - Another Game, Scuba and Karkador

Shunichi Miura, chosen for his ability to copy Tanaka's parts accurately, took up the keyboardist role. Much like Kikuchi, he studied at the Yamaha school (although not on Hirasawa's class) and was meant as a temporary replacement, but ended up a full-time member. The band's dynamic went through a definitive change: P-Model was originally established as a group of equals following a concept, but Hirasawa increasingly took leadership as time went on. That consolidation of creative control intensified after Tanaka's departure; the group's membership changed annually until the end of the decade, and the press took to saying Hirasawa lead a "One-Man Band" (ワンマン・バンド, Wan Man Bando). At the same time, Hirasawa's mental health started deteriorating and he looked for ways to treat it, starting with Silva Mind Control workshops.

P-Model decided to focus on their live performances; Tanaka's departure made Hirasawa willing to work with guest musicians, bringing a geisha and a violinist to gigs. Conceptual shows continued, but without the experimental edge. P-Model gigged with punk bands and increased its punk audience;Hirasawa befriended figures from the scene in the process: Shigeki Nishimura (西村　茂樹), vocalist of The Loods and founder of the independent label RBF Records; and Michiro Endo, vocalist for The Stalin.

In light of these circumstances, P-Model recorded their heaviest and darkest album, Another Game. Their only "main" album to lack any songwriting compositions from members other than Hirasawa and to feature the Heavenizer, it marks the return of synthesizers as a primary instrument and the introduction of Hirasawa's therapy into music: the album is bookended with biofeedback instructions and alpha wave-inducing oscillations, both of which are promoted by Silva Mind Control. The album was originally set to be released on 25 October 1983, however, the Recording Industry Association of Japan's Record Creation Standards and Ethics Committee (レコード制作基準倫理委員会（レコ倫）) took issue with the lyrics of the song "Atom-Siberia", believing it to encourage discrimination. This led to the release being postponed 4 times, ultimately happening on 25 February 1984. Faced with carelessness towards paperwork and lack of promotion from Tokuma, P-Model annulled its contract with the company.

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Takahasi, Kasiko, ed. (2010) [1999], 改訂DIGITAL復刻版 音楽産業廃棄物 [Music Industrial Wastes Rev.2.4], vol. P-Model Side — Open Source (3rd ed.), Fascination {{citation}}: |format= requires |url= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help).
• Hirasawa, Susumu (2010) [1999], "魂のふる里 — The Autobiography of Hirasawa" [Root of Spirit], in Takahasi, Kasiko (ed.), 改訂DIGITAL復刻版 音楽産業廃棄物 [Music Industrial Wastes Rev.2.4], vol. Hirasawa Side — 卓上のウロボロス [Desktop Ouroboros] (3rd ed.), Fascination {{citation}}: |format= requires |url= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help).