| Golf & Mike | |
|---|---|
Golf & Mike in 2009 |
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| Background information | |
| Also known as | GM, Golf–Mike |
| Origin | Bangkok, Thailand |
| Genres | Thai pop, J-pop, dance-pop, hip hop, R&B |
| Years active | 2005–present |
| Labels | GMM Grammy in Thailand Johnny's Entertainment in Japan SM Entertainment in South Korea |
| Associated acts | Kitty GYM, Yamashita Tomohisa, G-JR |
| Website | golfmike.gmember.com |
| Members | |
| Golf Pichaya Mike Pirat |
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Golf & Mike, more often credited in Thailand as Golf-Mike (Thai: กอล์ฟ-ไมค์), is a Thai pop duo artist consisting of brothers Pichaya "Golf" Nitipaisalkul and Pirat "Mike" Nitipaisalkul, formed under Thailand's biggest entertainment company, GMM Grammy.
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Golf was born on February 20, 1987, into a family of Thai-Chinese descent and the younger brother of Sand and Bank, a retired musical sibling duo that was under record label RS Entertainment. Mike was born on December 19, 1989, the youngest son in the family. Influenced by their older brothers, Golf and Mike aspired to be singers.
Golf & Mike have their very own clothing range, which appears in popular shopping areas such as Siam Square in Thailand.
They are currently studying at Mahidol University International College.
In 2002, the two Nitipaisalkul brothers were auditioned into the 1st generation of G-Junior, a training project by GMM Grammy, Thailand's largest entertainment company. As trainees, Golf & Mike were practiced in singing, dancing, acting, and language and they were made appearing in many GMM Grammy concerts. Golf & Mike along with other G-Juniors joined J-Asean Pops Concert 2003 (October 10) in which the concert featured Johnny's Entertainment artists, Hideaki Takizawa, Jimmy, KAT-TUN, Ya-Ya-Yah, A.B.C, & Five.[1] The G-Juniors also performed consecutively at Pattaya Music Festival in 2003 & 2004 (all featured Johnny's artists). From these concerts, Golf, Mike and other G-Juniors were spotted by Johnny's crews and later were invited to join the Thai-J Pop Concert in 2004 (Tackey & Tsubasa, KAT-TUN & A.B.C).
In 2004, Golf & Mike issued their first Thai concert performance as an opening act to Bird Thongchai McIntyre's For Fan Fun Fair Concert. The two boys with B-boy dancing at the middle of the stage started to gain their own fanclub. At the end of 2004, Golf & Mike were invited to join NEWS concert at Tokyo International Forum as special guests and early 2005 they were invited again in Ya-Ya-Yah concert in 2005. Golf & Mike performed "Epilogue" at these concerts and were called Thai Junior by Japanese press at the time.
It took 4 years before the Nitipaisalkul brothers finally debuted as Golf-Mike[2] in October 2005 with their self-titled album, Golf-Mike. Dance-pop track "Bounce" was chosen to be the album's first promotional single, and it became a big hit in Thailand. The other tracks, "Ruang Lek Kaung Tur", "Ta Lok Dee", "Yah Len Bab Nee," and "Epilogue" were also widely accepted in the industry. Noted that "Epilogue", a cover of Tackey & Tsubasa hits, was given as a present from Johnny Kitagawa for their debut album.
Golf & Mike's first album became a blast in the Thai music industry as theirs first nomination was the Most Popular Artist for the Year award for the Seed Awards 2006, which they also won in February 2006. In March, they were able to hold their first solo concert, Golf-Mike Let's Bounce Concert at Thunder Dome with an audience of 5,000 people.
In June 2006, Golf & Mike was awarded Best Breakthrough Artist from the Channel [V] Thailand Music Video Awards 2006. Later that month, they showed up in Japan forming Johnny's Entertainment's first ever international unit, Kitty GYM[3] along with popular J-pop figure, Tomohisa Yamashita. "GYM", stands for Golf, Yamashita and Mike, respectively with "Kitty" standing for the 4 Johnny's Jrs, Hiromitsu Kitayama (Kis-my-ft2), Kei Inoo (J.J. Express, later Hey! Say! JUMP), Shota Totsuka (A.B.C.), and Hikaru Yaotome (Ya-Ya-Yah, later Hey! Say! JUMP). GYM released one single, "Fever to Future" (フィーバーとフューチャー)[4] as an official supporter of the Women's Volleyball World Grandprix. The single ranked #1 on the Oricon chart.[5] Golf & Mike also performed in 25 rounds of Johnny's Jr no Daibouken Concert.
At the end of August, Golf & Mike teamed up with other G-Juniors including Chin, Guy, Happy, Madiow, J, Nut, Ken, and Ice as a group called "G-JR"[6] (read as G-J-R) releasing an album, 10 Club.
On October 7, G-JR held a concert again called The Show Must Go On Concert By Golf-Mike & Friends at Impact Arena. The concert was first meant to be the Thai-J Pop Concert with Arashi & Golf-Mike but Arashi had to cancel its participation due to politic occurrences in Thailand at the time.[7] At the end of the month, G-JR managed to win a Virgin Hitz Awards 2006 for Popular Vote New Band.
After finishing the promotion for their album 10 Club, Golf & Mike got back to the studios and started working on their second full-length album. By the end of 2006, Golf & Mike decided to release a special album 365 Days With Golf-Mike instead of their second album. This special album included a hit song, Kaub Koon Young Noi Pai.
They promoted the special album and worked in the studio for the second album until March 8, 2007 when their second album, One By One, officially launched to the stores. The first music video for the album, "Fight For You," took them three whole days to practice for Free-Running. Golf took his first step in song writing for the lyrics of "Sexy Girl".
On March 13, Golf-Mike was voted by Thailand's Entertainment Reporter Association in the Star Entertainment Awards 2007 as the "Best Group".
In June 2007, they released their first Japanese debut single, "Nippon Ai Ni Ikuyo". Two months later they released their debut Japanese album RIN under Johnny's Entertainment production.
In September 2007, Golf & Mike were invited to perform the Asia Song Festival 2007 in Korea. Along with this introduction, they released the Korea edition of their One By One album under SM Entertainment. It contains two bonus tracks sung in Korean, Fight For You and Thanks to.
Both Golf and Mike have taken the leading roles in a Thai series called Ubat Ruk Kaam Kaub Fah (Love Beyond Frontier) (directed and screen-written by Ping Lampraplerng) that was broadcast on Modern 9 TV in Thailand during the year 2008, and was later followed by a sequel "Ubat Ruk Kaam Kaub Fah 2."
In late 2008, the brother duo made their moves into Chinese music market by doing their first promo in Malaysia and launched their greatest hit album, Inspiration Greatest Hits.
In December 2008, Golf & Mike released the awaited third album, GET R3ADY featuring the collaboration song Let's Get Down with Khan Thaitanium. Their interests in song writing were fulfilled in this album as Golf wrote and produced a song called "My Superstar" and Mike wrote a song called "You" which became a big hit.
In May 2009, Brother duo Golf & Mike released their first-ever Chinese album in Malaysia entitled "Get Ready 2", including 2 Chinese tracks, 同班同學 (meaning Classmate) and Inspiration.
Golf Mike and Ice Saranyu from GMM Grammy held their first concert in Tokyo, Japan on July 11, 2009 entitled Golf, Mike, Ice Thai Shiki Concert.
From October to November 2009, Golf Mike held their first-ever national concert tour around Thailand in 9 provinces, entitled The Closer Golf Mike National Tour Concert By Puriku. Their last concert of the tour was in Bangkok.[8] To support the tour, Golf & Mike wrote & produced their very own song, "Let's Stay Together" and sang it as the close song of this tour.
Currently they are working in collaboration with the Korean duo Mighty Mouth to release an album that will be sold in Thailand and Korea and has performed the song "No Matter" for the Star Stage TV program on the 29th of November 2009.[9]
Golf & Mike began the year with superb Michael Jackson dances at This Is It The Concert on February 20–21, the official tribute concert to Michael Jackson held collaboratively by Sony Music (Thailand) and GMM Grammy. Golf & Mike had been known for being an avid fan of Michael Jackson delivered acclaimed "Smooth Criminal" performances and also were joined by Chin, also former G-Junior, Peck Palitchoke and Dan Worrawet in the song, "Billy Jean" and "Beat It".
Golf & Mike still remain commercial favourite stars as they opened the year with 2 new commercials including Fino with Super Junior members and Singto and then also endorsed Puriku Sicily Lemon.
By March 2010, Golf & Mike mentioned their next project of this year as a diclosed big surprise, rumorly that they were going to take dance class in the USA before coming back with their 4th album.
On February 1, 2011, Golf officially released his new solo single titled "Take Me to Ur Bed".
On March 1, 2011, Mike (D. Angelo) officially released his new solo single, "Ayo".
Thai
Japanese
Golf & Mike have released 3 official photobooks. All published by GMM Grammy's subsidiary, 'In Publishing'.
| Film | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Film | Role Golf | Role Mike | Notes |
| 2007 | Mid-Road Gang มะหมา 4 ขาครับ |
Makham (voice) มะขาม |
— | Main protagonist |
| Television series (Lakorn) | ||||
| Year | Title | Role Golf | Role Mike | Network |
| 2008 | Love Beyond Frontier อุบัติรักข้ามขอบฟ้า |
Golf กอล์ฟ |
Mike ไมค์ |
Modern 9 TV |
| 2009 | Love Beyond Frontier 2 อุบัติรักข้ามขอบฟ้า2 |
Golf กอล์ฟ |
Mike ไมค์ |
Modern 9 TV |