With their mix of silly and serious, happy and sad, acoustic and electric, and a highly distinctive sound all their own, Tama was one of the most idiosynchratic and original major label bands of the 90s. Comprising Toshiaki Chiku (vocals, guitar, mandolin, harmonica, recorder), Koji Ishikawa (vocals, percussion, recorder), and Yoichiro Yanagihara (vocal, keyboards, guitar, accordian, recorder), Tama was formed in 1984 in Tokyo, later adding Koji Takimoto (vocals, bass) in 1986. Chiku, the de facto... read more

With their mix of silly and serious, happy and sad, acoustic and electric, and a highly distinctive sound all their own, Tama was one of the most idiosynchratic and original major label bands of the 90s. Comprising Toshiaki Chiku (vocals, guitar, mandolin, harmonica, recorder), Koji Ishikawa (vocals, percussion, recorder), and Yoichiro Yanagihara (vocal, keyboards, guitar, accordian, recorder), Tama was formed in 1984 in Tokyo, later adding Koji Takimoto (vocals, bass) in 1986. Chiku, the de facto leader of the group, had a tough life growing up, and ran away from his Saitama home in the Tokyo suburbs when he was sixteen, at which time he first became acquainted with Ishikawa. Ishikawa, a theater school dropout was working in a restaurant and hospital in Tokyo at the time he hooked up with Chiku, and the pair began planning to form a band. They soon made the acquaintance of Yanagihara, a college graduate also working in a restaurant, and Tama was formed as a trio. Tokyo-born Takimoto was added later, and the group began to record and play out. After releasing several self-produced tapes and vinyl records, Tama made its major label debut with the single "Sayonara Jinrui (Sayonara Humanity)" in 1990. The song struck a chord with listeners nationwide, hitting #1 on the Oricon charts and ranking as the fourth bestselling single of the year. While the band went on to several successful albums and top 20 singles over the ensuing thirteen years, they never reached the heights they did with their first single, and dissolved in October 2003. Tama is often looked back upon as a kind of joke band, but this would be selling them way short. While they certainly became a cult band as their career progressed, Tama was overflowing with a DIY spirit, a poetic vision, and a burning need to create that was virtually unheard of among chart toppers of the day. Interestingly, Tama appealed to Japanese as a very "Japanese" band, perhaps due to the wistful tone present in many of their songs, reminding bubble-crazy Japanese that we are all, in fact, human. collapse