After starting to play music in semi-pro bands in Greenwich Village, Alan eventually moved to Japan in his late teens. Starting his professional career in music with the RCA-Victor Tokyo-based recording group, The Lead, in 1968, Alan replaced Mark Elder as guitarist in the band. They had one hit single, titled "Blue Rose". It was also then that his management changed his name, professionally, to Alan Merrill. Its stuck ever since.
When The Lead broke up, Merrill went solo, recording two albums: "Merrill 1" and "Alone In Tokyo" in 1970 -'71. He became the biggest foreign pop star in Japan's domestic market, hosting his own segment on the popular TV show, "Young 720", acting in the soap opera, "Ji Kan Desu-yo", and being featured in commercials, including major campaigns for Nissan cars and Jun clothing. He was signed to the most powerful agency in Japan, Watanabe Productions. Alan soon grew tired of being a "teen pop idol" and left the agency, forming the hard-edged glam rock group Vodka Collins (as lead singer and guitarist) in 1972, with Hiroshi Oguchi.
The charismatic Oguchi was already a well-known drummer and media celbrity who had been with the chart hit popular band, The Tempters. Vodka Collins recorded one album, "Tokyo-New York", for EMI Records, and it's proved their most-enduring work. Now available on CD, it remains a consistent seller. Vodka Collins had three hit singles off of the album: "Sands Of Time", "Automatic Pilot", and "Billy Mars". The song, "Scratchin'", was used as the theme for a gangster TV show. All these songs were Merrill compositions, with Japanese lyrics added on a couple (which then became domestic market hits) by drummer Hiroshi Oguchi. After a dispute with their manager in 1974, Alan Merrill left Tokyo altogether.
He must have a few Japan stories. Happily, he puts a few of them down in his forum. It's worth browsing - take a look at the gallery - but, since you are all very busy, I've done some of it for you:
Roppongi, Roppongi, Let Your Hair
...In my late teen days in Japan I spent most of my time in the Akasaka district of Tokyo. I was dating the top go-go girl in Japan, who danced at the most trendy discotheque, Mugen, in Akasaka. Next door to Mugen was Byblos, the show business hang out place for late night carousing. I played my first show in Japan at the Akasaka Space Capsule club in 1968. Akasaka is a nightime entertainment district.
The main place I go in Tokyo now though is an area called Roppongi. There really is no other place quite like it in the world. I have to say it's been on the decline since my first visit in '68, and I have watch amused as it has slipped further and further into depravity. A step down with each trip I make to Japan. In the mid 1990s the scene there still had some class and elegance, even at the strip clubs that dot the area. Toward the end of the 1990s there were even street vendors from the middle east there, selling Kebabs and cheap jewelry, something I never thought I'd see anywhere in Japan.
Off the top of my head I can remember in 1970 having tea with Bjorn Andersson and his press agent in Roppongi, doing some publicity photos together for a Japanese teen magazine. Bjorn was the star of the popular film "Death In Venice", and we talked about pop music at Pub Cardinal, a bar which is no longer there. It was a truly amazing room upstairs at Pub Cardinal. Beautiful leather chairs, gold fixtures, and lots of smoked mirrors. I did a lot of business meetings at Pub Cardinal, including my final meeting in '73 with my manager, ending phase one of my band Vodka Collins. A meeting ending in an impasse, with me jetting off to London the next day to start the Arrows.
It's alarming how Roppongi has changed.
Like a once beautiful whore, the Roppongi district has now descended to new depths, I suppose simply as a matter of fiscal survival. Chinese girls far from home, probably fleeing some impoverished village, wander the Roppongi streets in packs offering massages for money. "Massagi massagi" they say, persistent and smiling fake frozen smiles. They are young, thin, have bleached blond hair and are actually so blatantly mercenary that they are both cute and repulsively scary at the same time...
The Tokyo Brat Pack
...There are three Mister Chow restaurants, and of course I have been to all of them. London, Los Angeles and New York. Michael Chow was married to my dear old friend Tina. I knew Tina and her sister Bonny (also known as Adelle) in Tokyo in our teen years in the late 1960s. We were part of a brat pack that included future super model Marie Helvin, and the resident Tokyo Italian American don Niccola Zappetti's daughter Patty. Niccola's Pizza restaurant, it was the finest in Tokyo !
A squeeky voiced doll faced girl named Etsuko Shudo, who was one of Tokyo's top pop personalities, was also part of our social group. We were usually seen lounging, posing and dancing at the trendy discotheque Byblos in Tokyo's Akasaka district. Me and the girls. I was like a little prince. It was fantastic. The girls were all pretty, fun, and very supportive of me.
It was a time in my life that nearly sparkled with magic each morning that I opened my eyes, and I would think how lucky I was to be working and making money at what I loved, rock music, and to have such good friends.
...The Tokyo brat pack actually split up around 1973. Tina Lutz went to London, married Michael Chow and became the famous Tina Chow. She died in 1992, but she bravely never let on to anyone that she was ill. Her sister Bonny Adelle Lutz married David Byrne (of the band Talking Heads) and today is a successful actresss and artist. Marie Helvin became a supermodel in London and married photographer David Bailey. Patty Zappetti married and moved to New Zealand after her dad Niccola died.
There is still a Niccola's Pizzeria in Tokyo, and it's franchised now. Etsuko Shudo worked in the band Iron Maiden's London and Los Angeles office in the 80s. She is currently working as singer Cher's personal assisitant.
The Akasaka Shuffle
...Akasaka is an area where I started my music career in Japan,
doing a show with the band The Lead in October (or November)
of 1968, at The Pasha Club. Although the area has changed across the
years, and The Pasha Club is long gone, I still love it there. Akasaka's a busy and vibrant late night playground for music, mayhem, and later at night of course, much inspirational madness.
Still, seriously, I'm amazed at how much it's changed since I first lived
in Japan. There were hardly any foreigners living in Tokyo in the late 1960s. Now it's teeming with thousands of foreigners, a side effect of Japan's fiscal boom in the mid 1970s.
Money is like blood to sharks.
I preferred Tokyo back in the days of the late 60s. Probably because I was treated like a foreign prince, and anyone familiar with my music knows I wrote a song about that very experience, titled "Foreign Prince Of Tokyo." It's on Vodka Collins' "Boys life" album.
Tokyo Night In New York
... When I got to the club, I met Kirk's friend, Mr. Utada, a Japanese gentleman about my age. I never found out his first name, but that's normal in Japan on first meeting. It's a necessary formality. His brother is married to a former Tokyo neighbor of mine, Keiko Fuji. So he's actually Keiko's brother in law. The Tokyo night in New York was beginning. Keiko Fuji's daughter (Mr. Utada's niece) is a major star in Japan now. Her name is Utada Hikaru. She, like her mom, is a great singer. I think I've recently heard that she can sell as many as half a million singles in Japan. Utada Hikaru's mom Keiko Fuji is easily the best singer I heard in Japan during my seven years living there, and she's perhaps one of the best singers in recorded music history. She is explosively emotive in her genre, enka music. She reminded me of a Japanese version of Tammy Wynette, but of course very differnt. The voice is undeniable, that ability to communicate, no matter what language you sing in.
...The four of us then took a taxi to a Japanese restaurant, but I have no idea where it was. It was a place without a marquee, so passing by it you'd never know it was a restaurant. Upon entering, I was suddenly transported to Tokyo. It was the total experience. We were in New York, but it felt exactly like Tokyo. Most of the clientele were Japanese, save for a few foreigners.
We had some sake, which doesn't mix terribly well with vodka, but at that point I was speaking almost exclusively Japanese. I momentarily forgot where I was. I was fairly sure I was in Japan. Everyone in my party was Japanese, and just about everybody in the restaurant was Japanese. After that much alcohol things tend to become merrilly confused.
It sort of went hazy after that, but I recall leaving the restaurant. After that we went to a bar in Soho. A huge bar, with a dim lights of a reddish hue setting an ethereal mood. There were no customers in the place. Everything began to look totally surreal. I talked to Mr. Utada a bit more about Tokyo, and some people we knew, mutual friends.
It was about 4 AM by then, so we all decided to call it a night...When I got in my apartment I went straight to the fridge and warmed up some frozen chicken curry in the microwave, and then made a sandwich out of it.
Blue Note Tokyo To South Street
...I haven't written anything on this journal for a few weeks because my laptop didn't work in my hotel room in Japan. The hotel computer in the lobby was about a dollar a minute, so I didn't stay on it long when I used it. I stayed at the Capital Tokyu hotel, a building which used to be the Tokyo Hilton long ago.
...My shows at the Blue Note Tokyo were fun...I enjoyed doing introductions to my songs in Japanese...Lots of old friends stopped by to see me perform. Monsieur, the rhythm guitarist of my Tokyo based band Vodka Collins came to 2 of the 12 shows that I did in Tokyo at the club. Bernd of the most famous German restaurant in Tokyo came to a show with his wife Noko. Tom Kohata of the Rock Pilots flew in from Shanghai for a show, and journalists Hitomi and Juzo also showed up for a show.
My usual lunatic late night carousing was restricted by my busy schedule, so it was a rather tame trip in the hedonism department.
I did go to the Shibuya section of Tokyo, and checked the record shops (HMV, Tower, etc.) to make sure my albums were in stock. They were. They had both Arrows and Vodka Collins. Also some of my solo stuff. I am one of the few artists to have records in the Japan based domestic J-Pop section and the foreign rock section as well. These are on different floors in these multi storied shops.
Of All The Elevators In All The World
I was in a descending elevator in the Tokyo Roppongi Prince Hotel, I guess it was around 1995, and a familiar looking lady with a young blond child of about 10 years of age got on the same elevator I was riding, coming on board from a lower floor. She entered and then said "I know you", and I replied "where from?" in my usual Tokyo dizzy hung over daytime state. She said "I'm Sharon Arden, well it's Osborne now since I married Ozzy, and this is my daughter Kelly". I recognized Sharon after she said something, but her hair was changed to blond and when I first met her in the 70s she was dark haired. With the sunglasses and the hair colour change, I was not clued in. She knew who I was straight away, which made me feel happy since it had been years since she'd seen me, and I was hammered from the night before. Kelly was shy, but she said hello. An extraordinarily pretty child. Very blond hair, small nose, and large blue eyes.
...1995 in Tokyo. I was recording "Chemical Reaction", the Vodka Collins album. I was there two months !
As it happens, at the time Oasis were doing a tour of Japan and staying at the same hotel. I had never heard of the band, and by chance had some drinks with "Bonehead" their guitarist at Aston's English Pub not far from the hotel by the Roppongi crossing. I wished him luck with his band. I was moving on to another bar to meet some friends.
Wish him luck ? He wouldn't need it. Oasis did just fine from there on, and about a year later were one of the biggest bands in the world.
The Roppongi Prince hotel has a swimming pool, and the hotel restaurant wall is a sheer glass window, so you can clearly see the pool while you dine. The elevators are also sheer glass, so everyone is visible.
The pool walls are also glass so all the swimmers are visible, head to toe in the water.
I was having lunch there, dining alone in the large empty room, late in the afternoon. It was a few days after my drinks with "Bonehead", and I saw a bunch of guys and attractive local foreign strippers, some I knew, come down the elevator. They got off, dropped their towels, and they were jumping into the pool nude. I nearly choked I was laughing so hard at the Fellini-esque scene. Especially when I saw that one of them was "Bonehead". The pool attendants and hotel staff didn't know what to do.
After much attempted polite conversation turned to frustrated shouting by the hotel manager, Oasis and their silicone enhanced wenches were ejected from the pool. Banned. It was great. I was the sole customer in the restaurant, witness to a wonderful rock n roll moment. I nearly stood up and applauded. The Roppongi Prince. I love that hotel. One of the truly unforgettable rock 'n roll hotels in the world.
Bonehead, Beauty, And The Beast
About ten years ago I staggered out of Aston's English pub in the Roppongi district of Tokyo and ran into actress/model Jaime Pressly.
I can't really say that I met her though.
...I left the pub after a couple of hours, saying goodnight to
Bonehead and I wished him luck with his band. As I left the bar I noticed two slim and beautiful foreign girls, obviously models, standing around outside chatting, and walking slowly down the hill past the bar Mogambo.
They neared the intersection where Aston's English pub was. There were many people milling about, even though it was around 3 AM. This is the way it is in the Roppongi district of Tokyo.
One of the girls was the very lovely Jaime Pressly,
a stunning young model, and not yet an actress.
They adore her type of fair haired, blue eyed look in Japan,
and I'm sure she was very busy working there.
Upon leaving Astons, this vision before me of the young Jaime Pressly
hit me like a brick falling from the roof of a very tall building,
squarely on my head.
I am sure that the garbled, inebriated and certainly unintellingible
(but adoring) descriptives that left my mouth upon seeing her were
terrifying to the young girl, who was more or less on her own in Japan
that night, without a chaperone.
She shrieked loudly, then her friend followed
with another louder shriek, creating a chorus of screams.
Then, with a look of terror in their eyes, the two girls ran away
up the hill toward the main drag. All I saw of them was a blur.
Long legs akimbo, shiny hair, and galloping high heels.
Their thin fingers clutching purses, with arms all pumping
this way and that as they ran away, looking over their shoulders
for "the beast."
I tried to follow, to explain, but that only exacerbated
the already tenuous situation.
At that moment I felt something like Frankenstein's monster,
waving my hands about in front of me and
making gutteral hurt noises. It was no use.
The two girls ran off into the night, obviously reacting sanely
to my temporarily insane alcohol induced overtures.
I have always felt badly about frightening her and her friend.
Perhaps they'd remember nothing of it. I hoped so.
I have a photographic memory, even of situations when I'm drunk,
and these moments replay themselves over and over in my mind,
as I cringe in horror at the recollection of my past crass
(but typical) rock 'n roll behaviour.
Several years later I saw her in films and thought, even in my
drunkest moments I can pick a star out of the crowd.
Old Friends, Earthquakes And Typhoons
I was in Japan to promote the release of the reissue "Boys In The Band" by my Tokyo based rock group Vodka Collins, a band that has now lasted four decades. The band are in such poor physical condition that a group tour was out of the question. It was decided that there would be acoustic shows with just myself and Monsieur, the rhythm guitar player in the band. Monsieur and I are still healthy, I'm happy to say. The Vodka Collins rhythm section, on the other hand, is another story.
The acoustic shows were on again, off again. The record label had changed staff members and there was an inter-departmental lack of communication
about the scheduling, and who was responsible for it all. The less said about it the better. Suffice to say I have experienced this sort of chaos before in the music business, and nothing surprises me now. It's why I prefer my indie releases to big label deals.
In my last week in Japan my dear friend Eva came to Tokyo, on an inspired whim. Eva was married to Arrows guitarist Terry Taylor. Terry was in the band during the group's second TV series. For those of you who don't know, I was the lead singer of The Arrows, and we were like a close knit family, at least most of us in the band.
It was great fun showing Eva my favorite Tokyo spots. Eva looks like a Viking princess, gorgeous, tall, with long blond hair. She drew lots of attention in Tokyo with her striking nordic looks. We went over the old days of The Arrows in the late 1970s , and it was fun reminiscing.
My friend Hitomi arranged for us to go to The Golden Cups film release party. A film about the band had been made, and this was a concert to celebrate its release. The bass player of my band Vodka Collins, Mabo, is also in the Golden Cups lineup, and was an original member of that band, so I had a personal interest in the show. The three of us went to the concert and first we went backstage. There I met singer Joe Yamanaka, who I've know since 1968 when he was a singer with the Flower Travelling Band, and I hadn't seen him since 1973. Joe looked great and still hit all the high notes on stage. He has a young wife, and a new baby with an angel face.The Vodka Collins band drummer Hiroshi Oguchi was also in the backstage area, and we talked for a while about the new album. He was walking with a cane, as a result of a hernia condition brought on by years of chemical and alcohol abuse. Yes, we're all getting older, I thought. The bill for all that fun is coming to the table. Time to pay.
Mabo looked ill as well, and he was missing his front teeth. This was a result of a confrontation with some yakusa a few nights earlier. Mabo, drunk, teased the yakusa, calling them idiots, and they pummelled him.
He was just out of the hospital as well, being treated for physical ailments resulting from a similar fondness for mind altering substances.
The Vodka Collins rhythm section of Mabo and Hiroshi Oguchi have been in jail many times for possession of illegal substances. Mabo four times, and Oguchi three. The passion for chemicals takes a physical toll. It's now visible. These were very good looking young men in their prime, and it's alarming to see the dramatic change over time.
The Golden Cups were about to take the stage, so Hitomi, Eva and I went to our seats. The show was very good. Golden Cups guitarist Eddie Ban in particular played very well. My friend Dave Hirao was his usual self on stage. He has his own unique singing style, and it brought back memories of shows we'd done together in the late 60s in Japan.
After the concert there was a post show party. That was fun, and I signed autographs and had my photo taken with fans. I don't like having my photo taken any more. I am no longer photogenic, so I am always disappointed with the results. There was a time, in my twenties, when it was impossible to get a bad photo of me. I didn't realize how remarkable that was at the time. I now understand the "photo approval" concept. Most artists won't allow photos to be printed without their permission.
There was then an exclusive, after the after-party, party. We went and it was in a fair sized restaurant. Everybody got up and said some words about the Golden Cups. I got up and mumbled something in a microphone half in Japanese and half in English.
I then sat down next to a man named Hiromitsu, who I had acted with in a Japanese soap opera named "Ji Kan Desu Yo", many years ago. We were both stunned at seeing each other, since it had been 1969 the last we saw each other. I kept marvelling at how much Hiromitsu reminded me of the American actor Al Franken. They are both clever comedians and media personalities. Meanwhile, Eva was in culture shock, and I imagine she felt like she had wandered in to a dream. Hitomi was talking to the many personalities at the party from the "group sounds" era in Japan.
It was a great retrospective night, and a good time was had by all.
A couple of nights later we (Hitomi, Eva and I) went to Dave Hirao's club
"Bold" in Roppongi, and I did a show with the live band there. It was fun, and both Eva and Hitomi took photos.
Follow the link below :
http://www.geocities.com/the_aleecat/p1.jpg
Photo by Hitomi
We all got very drunk, as we had started the evening at my friend Bernd's German restaurant. Bernd always gives me schnapps and the best beer. We were all feeling happy from the alcohol at Bernd's. Then we went to the club Bold.
We started on Vodka rocks there. One after another. It started to dawn on me that Eva and Hitomi were not used to consuming my amounts of alcohol, but they were keeping up with me, hit for hit.
After Bold we went to Castillo, my favorite Tokyo bar, where we had a couple of drinks, and then called it a night, with the sun coming up at around 5 AM. We then dispersed to our respective hotels and homes.
