Golf & Mike, more often credited in Thailand as Golf-Mike (Thai: กอล์ฟ-ไมค์), were a Thai pop duo[1] artist consisting of brothers Pichaya "Golf" Nitipaisalkul and Pirat "Mike" Nitipaisalkul, formed under Thailand's biggest entertainment company, GMM Grammy. They debuted in 2005, known for their pop tunes and performances.[1]
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 trained in singing, dancing, acting, and language and they made an appearance at many GMM Grammy concerts. Golf & Mike along with other G-Juniors joined J-Asean Pops Concert 2003 (October 10) where the concert featured Johnny's Entertainment artists, Hideaki Takizawa, Jimmy, KAT-TUN, Ya-Ya-Yah, A.B.C, & Five.[2] 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.
2005: Debut
It took 4 years before the Nitipaisalkul brothers finally debuted as Golf-Mike[3] 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. It's 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 their 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.
2006: Special units in Japan and Thailand
In June 2006, Golf & Mike were 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[4] 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)[5] as an official supporter of the Women's Volleyball World Grandprix. The single ranked No. 1 on the Oricon chart.[6] 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"[7] (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.[8] At the end of the month, G-JR won a Virgin Hitz Award 2006 for Popular Vote New Band.
Golf & Mike performing on MTV Fast Forward in 2009
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, This special album included a hit song, Kaub Koon Young Noi Pai and released second album on November 11, 2006.
2006–2007: One By One and Overseas albums
They promoted the special album and worked in the studio for the second album until November 11, 2006, 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 at 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.
2008: Get Ready and TV drama debut
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 hits 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.
2009: The 1st National Tour and International Appearances
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.[9] To support the tour, Golf & Mike wrote & produced their very own song, "Let's Stay Together" and sang it as the closing song of this tour.
They were working in collaboration with the Korean duo Mighty Mouth to release an album that is to 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.[10]
2010: New project
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 avid fans 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 songs, "Billie Jean" and "Beat It".
Golf & Mike still remained 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 disclosed big surprise, rumored that they were going to take dance class in the USA before coming back with their 4th album.
They disbanded later and become solo singers.
2011: Solo 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".
