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Winnie Chung

The trail-blazing career of Japanese musical duo Chage & Aska will blaze a little further afield on Wednesday when they become the first Asian artists to be featured in a segment of the acoustical special MTV Unplugged.

The duo have had many things to crow about in their 16-year career: they have written songs for Hollywood movies such as Streetfighter and Judge Dredd, and Boy George, Chaka Khan, Michael Hutchence and Cathy Dennis recorded an album of Chage & Aska songs in English.

The duo, who recently released their new album Code Name 2: Sister Moon, have pipped local idol Andy Lau Tak-wah at the gate for the historic session by being, one presumes, 'more available'. The Canto-pop warbler was originally the first Asian artist to be signed on for MTV Unplugged, an announcement made during last year's Midem Asia.

But a heavy film and recording (plus promotion) schedule has seen Lau postponing it from last September, with no word yet on a definite date.

 Lau now will lose even the honour of being the first Chinese artist to appear on the programme because Taiwanese singer-songwriter Harlem Yu has been slated to hold his session two days after Chage & Aska.

Indian band Colonial Cousins will follow. All the sessions will be produced by Unplugged veteran Alex Coletti.

Yu and Chage & Aska will join the list of more than 70 international artists who have been featured in MTV Unplugged since it started in the late 80s.

Artists featured since then have included old-time luminaries such as Tony Bennett, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart and Bob Dylan, while more recent recordings have featured contemporary artists such as Bjork, Alanis Morisette, Tori Amos, The Cranberries, REM and Seal.

The first session of MTV Unplugged was taped at the National Video Centre in New York City in October 1989, as a low-key jam session hosted by Jules Shear. The artists then were British band Squeeze and an American folk-country rock vocalist, Syd Straw.

But it wasn't really until former 'Eagle' Don Henley's appearance in March 1990 that the series got its stamp of approval from the bigger names in the US.

Even then, getting Henley on the show was a fluke for Coletti who has produced most of the MTV Unplugged sessions. Former Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh taped a fifth-edition of the then little-known show and wanted to include a version of Desperado in his set.

It did not go down well with Henley, who wrote the song and recorded it with the Eagles.

'Joe and Don weren't seeing eye to eye, and when we went to clear the song to air, Don wouldn't give permission,' says Coletti.

Henley sent Coletti and his crew a fax saying that if they wanted to hear Desperado unplugged, then he would do it himself.

'We all kind of went, 'all right, do it'. He put his foot in his mouth and that was that,' Coletti says.

With Henley in the fold, it was not difficult for the producers to attract other big names such as Sting, Paul McCartney and Elton John.

In the early days, taping was done mainly in New York and Los Angeles but, as MTV expanded, it moved to European and Latin American locations to cater for artists based there.

For most of the tapings, artists are told they can re-do any song they are unhappy with.

 Usually, about 20 songs are recorded in each session, after which about nine or 10 are chosen for the broadcast, and sometimes the album cut.

The artists can also choose the type of set they want so they can feel at home. Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries, for instance, chose to have a 'junky room with things thrown around so [they] could just relax', while Hole (led by Courtney Love) requested that the stage be covered with 'lots and lots of dolls'.

Still, these things have not stopped even the most experienced artists from getting an attack of nerves before their tapings. 'We weren't used to this,' says Eric Erlandson, guitarist for Hole, at their taping.

'The problem is the lyrics and the vocals. When you start screaming, 'I want it now', over an acoustic guitar, it just doesn't work.' At the 'unplugged' peak, Hong Kong also took the trend to heart, coming up with mini-sessions during Canto-pop concerts and album singles. Observers point to a downswing in popularity during recent years.

It will be interesting to see, however, if truly all-unplugged sessions by two popular Asian acts can revive the territory's interest.



A plug for Asian artists