My favorite artist is Kenichi Asai
I used to listen to hide, Shena Ringo and Chihiro Onitsuka. But today my favorite artist is Kenichi Asai.
Kenichi Asai debuted as a member of Blankey Jet City in 1991. He sang and played the guitar, wrote all lyrics and most of the music as well. Then he started Sherbet as his solo project in 1996, which became the group Sherbets in 1999. Then Blankey Jet City broke up in 2000, and he started Ajico in 2000.
Ajico’s main vocalist was UA, a famous Japanese female singer. Also there were songs Asai sings mainly and UA sings with chorus. Asai wrote almost all of Ajico’s music, but most of the lyrics were written by UA rather than by Asai. Now Ajico is not performing any longer. Then he stopped all activity of the Sherbets in 2002. He called it “winter sleep”. And he started Jude (the pronounciation is yuda) in 2002, and then reactivated Sherbets in 2005. Now he is a member of two bands, Jude and Sherbets. All lyrics and music of Jude and Sherbets are written by Asai. You can see the latest photos of Jude and Sherbets in the gallery of SexyStones.com. Now you can see the photos of Sherbets there. You can learn about the latest activities of Jude and Sherbets from those photos.
Why does Asai form bands with various musicians? He says, “I can make different songs by playing with various artists.” In fact there are many powerful songs by Blankey Jet City, sensitive songs by Sherbets, deep songs by Ajico, free-form songs by Jude. If you want to know his band members, biography and discography in detail, please look at Siberia. I often look at this site, especially the message board.
Kenichi Asai is one of the most appealing artists. His voice is sometimes sweet and sometimes bitter. It is sometimes boyish and sometimes feminine. He has many voices. He sometimes whispers and sometimes shouts. In his early years in Blankey Jet City he was chanting words over a melody as if he were talking. Today in Sherbets he often sings in falsetto.
He is called “Benzie” by the members of his bands, his fans, etc. because he is similar to a hero of the movie Growing Up. (As far as I know, the hero of Growing Up is “Benjie,” but Asai seems to prefer “Benzie”.) Growing Up is a youth movie which describes high school students whose emotion waves in friendship, love, etc. It seems that the bassist of Blankey Jet City, Toshiyuki Terui, started to call Asai “Benzie”.
His lyrics are sometimes sentimental and sometimes wild. They grip my heart. His favorite words are love, dream, pure, beautiful, clear. I introduce my favorite lyrics and titles of songs in English: “If you love someone, tell her of your devotion / Because it is the reason for which you were born into this world” (“Water”), and: “Hey God, do you have a pure heart? If I ask such a question, will you punish me? What on earth is believing? I believe nothing. I want you baby. Only stay with me until I die. I love you” (“I want you”).
His melody is different from any other artist’s. I can’t always calculate it and I am always excited. Representative songs of Blankey Jet City, “Punkey Bad Hip,” “Go to the dance hall in No. 3104 town,” “Romeo” feature his fast, talk-like vocals and his sharp guitar sound. These songs have an originality that immediately makes us recognize they’re by Asai when we listen to them. Minor chords are also characteristic.
He has an enormous stage presence. Especially in the early period, audiences were overpowered by his performance. He does little talking during his shows. At most he says “Hello” and “Thank you.” In his shows there are moments to listen to silently and to dance to wildly. I went to Jude’s gig at Zepp Nagoya on July 15 in 2005. This was the first of Asai’s concerts I’ve been to. When the lights went out in the whole live-house and the opening background music started, he appeared on the stage without saying anything and he started to play the first song, “The Poisonous Apple Seller.” He had a very big presence. He played the guitar very well and the guitar sound was very cool. The vocals and chorus were also very good—as good as on CD. I remember I was very excited when I listened to his music at a loud volume while watching his figure before my eyes. There were many hard songs and it was a very heady show.
I like reading his interviews because he’s very attractive as a human being. He has his own firm opinions; I think his philosophy would be living naturally and honestly. His talks in a simple, positive and pure way.
Hearing him talk is different from hearing him sing. You may not be able to imagine from his singing, but he is very humorous and he likes a gag too. But in the case of a gag it seems to me that he thinks that a gag which everyone feels commonplace is funny. And he takes a deep interest in war, racial discrimination, environmental destruction, and social problems. I like both the way he sings and the way he talks.
He has written many songs and those are full of variety. Why can he write so many songs? He often says in his interviews: “I like
singing,” “I play the guitar and sing, and then I can make a song
naturally,” “I just like music,” and “I have nothing I want to do except play music.”
He and his songs are appealing in many ways, but the main reason that I am attracted to him and his songs is the purity of his feelings.
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Comments (9)
Rudolf
wrote on November 22, 2005:
A while ago I got a few mp3s and CDs of Blankey Jet City songs from two students of mine. I found the band very—what to call it; traditional. They sounded a lot like rock music used to sound back in the Seventies—glamor rock, The Sweet, Cheap Trick.
I saw you play an acoustic guitar at the university festival. Are you in a band yourself? Do you play any of Asai’s music?
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Nobuko
wrote on November 24, 2005:
Hi, Takuya!
Your feeling to Asai communicates me. But Unluckily I have never heard his music. I want to hear his music. Can you tell me your favorite song by him?
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Takuya
wrote on November 27, 2005:
>Rudolf
I do not listen to “glamour rock” very much. I had not known “The Sweet”, “Cheap Trick”. I knew these bands by your comment. And Asai talked about Iggy Pop, Johnny Thunders, Marc Bolan in his interview.
Now I belong to a band as a bassist. And I play the guitar personally. I also practice Asai’s music with guitar. But many of Asai’s guitar phrases are difficult for me.
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Rudolf
wrote on November 27, 2005:
Bolan died in 1977 at a very young age. Iggy Pop is still around, as is Alice Cooper. The two of them were naughty before the punks tried to out-naughty them. Maybe that was the word I was looking for: Blankey Jet City somehow managed to sound pre-punk twenty years after punk.
Have you played any gigs yet with your band?
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Takuya
wrote on November 29, 2005:
>Nobuko
My favorite songs are “Strawberry water”（Ichigo-sui）, “Rain dog”,
“Beautiful necklace”（Kireina-kubikazari）, “Fresh”
（”Blankey Jet City 1991-1995” contains these four songs.）,
“Swing of gasoline”（Gasorin-no-yurekata）, “Romeo”, and
“Red tambourine”（Akai-tanbarin）
（”Blankey Jet City 1997-2000” contains these three songs.）
I recommend “Blankey Jet City 1991-1995” and “Blankey Jet City 1997-2000”. These two albums are “Best of" albums, which were released after Blankey Jet City had broken up. I think you can rent these two albums at a CD rental shop.
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Takuya
wrote on November 30, 2005:
>Rudolf
I have played a gig one time with the band which I belonged to in high school days.
I have not played a gig yet with the band which I belong to now.
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Han
wrote on December 28, 2005:
hi im from new york city, and i fell in love with BJC and asai’s music many years ago, around 1998…the only problem is i don’t speak japanese and i can only appreciate his music and voice and unfortunately not the meaning of his words nor interviews to try to understand the man. i found some of the information on this website very intertesting, if you could tell me more about benzie i would really appreciate it…
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Rudolf
wrote on December 29, 2005:
Hello Han—if there’s a demand for information in English on Asai and his work, you could start a Web site and collect that information. You just might be able to find a few Japanese fans who’d volunteer to work for the site, then you could polish their English for publication—and maybe pick up some Japanese along the way. =)
To “tell you more” sounds like a rather general request. Maybe you should ask specific questions and either post them to this thread or write to Takuya @ this site’s name.
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Stanley
wrote on January 21, 2006:
Hi, Just discovered your web site, thanks for your English introduction about Kenichi Asai, I love his voice and guitar playing so much since BJC, in comparatively speaking, I prefer Sherbets and Ajico, but I still have no chance to listen the materials from Jude (Disappointed), due to his CDs are very rare to find in Hong Kong, but when I travel to Japan, I must buy as many CDs as possible.
His music drives me crazy!!! Please translate some more news and lyrics in future if you have time to do so.
Many Thanks!
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