Young Gun Silver Fox -- Moonshine

By Jane023 via Wikimedia Commons

When it comes to moonshine, my image is always that of jugs of homemade alcohol with the "XXX" as the label. They are no less than 200 proof and could potentially conk out even the Incredible Hulk (HULK!!!....crash😵). So, when I encountered this song by Neo-AOR duo Young Gun Silver Fox called "Moonshine", I was rather intrigued.

But then again, whenever Young Gun Silver Fox comes up here, I am always intrigued and delighted. They have often come up in the fifth and final position during Urban Contemporary Fridays on KKP as something to clean up the list of smooth and groovy.

However, what makes this particular song even more special is that not only did YGSF create it, the late great Rod Temperton had a hand in it. And as with a handful of Japanese and non-Japanese songwriters, if I see that a song was made by Temperton, then I automatically investigate. After listening to his creations handled by folks like Michael Jackson and the Manhattan Transfer, it's almost Pavlovian how I react to a Temperton tune. Please read the story of how Andy Platts who would become one-half of Young Gun Silver Fox met Temperton and collaborated with the songwriting legend over twenty years ago (Temperton passed away in 2016) to create "Moonshine".

And no, "Moonshine" wasn't written to celebrate drinking the rough stuff out in the forest. It's about that special lady who can knock a man out like the "XXX". And unlike the real moonshine, the song is one real smooth ditty (Bailey's Irish Cream smooth)...what else from Andy Platts and Shawn Lee? The song finally came out in its final form as a single in March 2023. In fact, the way that Platts and Temperton designed "Moonshine", I swear that I could imagine MJ covering the song himself.

"New York" Tunes

 

Last Friday, when I put up Iruka's（イルカ）"NYC wa Toosugite"（NYCは遠すぎて）, I realized that there have been a number of New York-themed tunes posted up here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" over the years. And since we have those "America" tunes that I posted as an Author's Picks back in 2023, why not become even more localized and go straight to the Big Apple? A couple of them on that list ("Kennedy Airport" and "Purpletown") could comfortably belong on this list but since they're already up there, it wasn't too difficult to find two more. But without further ado, here are my five New York tunes.

(1978) Akiko Wada -- Park Avenue 7 PM

(1978) Jun Fukamachi -- Letter to New York

(1978) Cools Rockabilly Club -- Sentimental New York（センチメンタル・ニューヨーク）

(1983) Yasuhiro Abe -- Manhattan

(1985) Naoko Kawai – Manhattan Joke 

FINAL SPANK HAPPY -- Smooth Escalator

By Kakidai via Wikimedia Commons

During my years in the Tokyo area, I've managed to enter and traipse through all of the major department stores in the megalopolis such as Mitsukoshi and Matsuya. I've also visited Isetan in Shinjuku. These days, I'm not sure about the future of department stores, generally speaking. Perhaps as has been the fate of the department store here in Toronto, the Tokyo ones may also be facing extinction like the dinosaur but knowing Japan and their penchant for holding onto the oldest things, the depaato that I've mentioned may stick around for a few more decades like a stubborn Time Lord I know.

Well, Shinjuku Isetan was the setting for this rather fascinating music video for the song "Smooth Escalator" by the eclectic group SPANK HAPPY (or officially FINAL SPANK HAPPY in this case) which got its appearance in December 2020. The month itself is fascinating since this was smack dab in the pandemic years. How did they get permission to film inside the commercial emporium? Was the video a visual gift for those stuck at home? And for that matter, what was up with the additional "FINAL"? Were they about to break up?

Regardless, this is about as recent as I've gotten with SPANK HAPPY in the blog since most of the entries have covered their early material in the 1990s and then into their technopop 2000s, although I did cover their "Natsu no Tensai"（夏の天才）from 2018. By the late 2010s, the group consisted of founder Naruyoshi Kikuchi（菊地成孔）and singer-songwriter Tomomi Oda（小田朋美）, and I'm assuming that Kikuchi and Oda are indeed the ones tripping the light fantastic within the deserted department store with the former looking like a hip-hop member from m-flo and the latter looking like a New Wave gamine from "Breakfast at Tiffany's". According to the story for the video, the two of them sought refuge in Isetan from zombies.

"Smooth Escalator" has a mix of sophisticated piano pop of Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）sentiments and a commonly-heard synth that I will have to ask YMOfan04 about sometime wrapped around some gentle, almost whispery, singing-like-talking...not quite rap. As someone who hadn't been able to enter a store aside from the local supermarket for several months at the time "Smooth Escalator" came out, watching the video would have been rather swooning for me as well.

Masami Urabe -- Tomadoi（とまどい）

 

Back in early April, I introduced a singer by the name of Masami Urabe（浦部雅美 or うらべまさみ）who I'd never heard before until commenter Robert B. informed me. The song that I covered was "Sukoshi Tōde wo Shitemimasen ka"（少し遠出をしてみませんか）, her debut single from September 1976. It's quite the amiable country song including a happily plucky banjo.

Well, her sixth and penultimate single from 1982 is "Tomadoi" which can be translated as "Wonderment" or "Confusion". Written and composed by the singer herself, I'm hoping that she meant the former meaning. Urabe's voice had become richer and mellower by this point, and "Tomadoi" is one of those tunes that is delectably difficult to categorize outright. First off, it's got a folksy waltz rhythm but with an intro and chorus that hints at City Pop especially with the breezy and minty background vocals. At the same time, there's something also some rather old-fashioned kayo kyoku meshing with the City Pop of the chorus. 

Suchmos -- Miree

 

Cooler temperatures out there but at least the sun is also out so no complaints from me. Welcome to another Friday Urban Contemporary session on KKP.

The last time I wrote about the cool-as-heck band Suchmos, it was for their comeback single "Eye to Eye" from July 2025, and it did attract a lot of attention from appreciative fans.

Well, I've decided to look back at their career and arrived at their debut single from June 2015, "Miree/Pacific". That first song "Miree" had also been included in Suchmos' 1st EP, "Essence" which had been released in April that year. Written and composed by the band's late bassist Hayata "HSU" Kosugi（小杉隼太）, according to this Musixmatch page, the song goes into how love is the reassuring constant navigating throughout the vagaries and superficialities of life; sounds like a more hopeful version of a certain City Pop song I and millions of other people know. 

HSU's melody is a pleasant smooth drive with the top down on the Shuto Expressway. A differently arranged version of "Miree" (below) was provided on the band's first full album "The Bay" which came out in July 2015. This one has more of a beefier bass and seems a bit more measured in overall delivery, and I think I prefer the single.

Art of Noise -- Beat Box

 

I've already posted a number of Art of Noise articles in the past ten years as parts of the Reminiscings of Youth file here on KKP, and indeed, the avant-garde synthpop group consisting of Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn and all of the rest made up some of the most incredible collages of sounds to form music to add pleasure to my time in the 1980s. By the time that they came up with their version of "Dragnet" for the movie starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks in 1987, they were very much a welcome part and parcel of the decade's pop panoply.

However, several years earlier, I was honestly taken aback and maybe even somewhat intimidated by the Art of Noise when I heard their December 1983 debut single "Beatbox". It was nothing that I had ever heard before; they made this beloved song in the breakdancing world out of various sounds which emanated like and not like human voices screeching out a march alongside some pounding percussion and perhaps my first exposure to orchestral hits.

I've read and heard that there have been various takes (or diversions) on "Beatbox" on record and in music video. If so, then the music video below is the one that I've seen because I remember seeing that image of the London police officer getting duplicated and stretched out. It was quite the tourist video for London as well.

Among all of the diversions (I've seen No. 10), I think the one that I heard the most on radio was Diversion 1 which lasts more than eight minutes and finishes with a classy classical piano take on the core song. It's almost as if AON was trying to let us know that no matter all of the technology and sampling, music still comes down to a basic beautiful melody played out on an old-fashioned instrument.

So, as I said, "Beat Box" was released in December 1983. What else was being released in Japan in that month?

Yutaka Ozaki -- Juu-go no Yoru（15の夜）

Yoshie Kashiwabara -- Camouflage （カム・フラージュ）

Tatsuro Yamashita -- Christmas Eve

Ritsuko Kazami -- Karui Kankei（軽い関係）

 

The last time I wrote about Ritsuko Kazami（風見律子）, it was for the mysterious and panther-y "Yoru no Subete"（夜のすべて）from her 1985 debut album "Kiss of Fire". It has quite the bass synthesizer thrumming throughout the song which seems to have some of that City Pop and some of that throwback exotic kayo.

Well, another track from "Kiss of Fire" is "Karui Kankei" (Slight Connection) which takes things a little more into the blippity-bloppity technopop while filtering some chugging train-like jazz rhythm. Not surprisingly, words and music were provided by Haruo Chikada（近田春夫）who knows something about the eclectic stuff. Some nice harmonizing between Kazami and who I think is Chikada himself on background vocals.