Hiroshi Tachi -- Asa made Odoro (朝まで踊ろう)

... I feel conflicting feelings here.

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As you probably know by now, I am quite... fascinated by Hiroshi Tachi... Okay, fine, "quite" and "fascinated" are an understatement but you get what I mean. He's cool, intimidating and suave as a hard-boiled detective; silly and warm as a home drama father figure in the recent years; hilarious as a high school girl in her father's body. However, one part of Mr. Dandy that I'm still not a big fan of is him as a biker dude/bad boy. I don't know, the combination of an all black leather get-up, the hair gelled up to the high heavens, the defiant look, and hunched swagger, just made me go, "He looks like a goon." rather than the usual (for Tachi) "Dang, that's hot." despite showing off them abs. Fine, the latter came afterwards and there is sort of a twisted charm in seeing a mischievous smirk like what you see up there. Nevertheless, goony Tachi from the 70's is goony and I'm really, really glad he grew out of that stage.

The song that introduced and reminds me of the actor-singer's biker phase from time to time is "Asa made Odoro", the newer version with rock band, THE COLTS, to be specific. It's got a funky 70's rock'n'roll vibe, plus those deep blaring horns and wonky rumbling of electric guitar that is reminiscent to a roaring Harley Davidson. While I did come to appreciate the music for its amazingly cool arrangement and the conjured image of a current-day, sunglassed Tachi riding that hulking motorcycle, it was initially quite bewildering to realise that the gentleman I see now was a scrappy, James Dean-like fellow the moment "Asa made Odoro" hit my ears - the goony Tachi pictures I saw later only intensified the bewilderment. Well, I guess everyone's got to start somewhere, right?

Prior to the self-cover with THE COLTS in 1996, "Asa made Odoro" had been released several times from the late 70's to the early 80's but it officially came out in 1977 as Tachi's 2nd single. The original isn't as loud or intense and it doesn't sound very much like rock. Daiko Nagato's (長戸大幸) composition has more of a laid-back, Latin feel and a young Tachi sounded like he had just taken a few shots before recording it. I much prefer the self-cover and I find that its arrangement better represents Tachi's lyrics of dancing all night long with his lady - isn't that tiring though? (opinions of a lazy person)

Now, that's a lot better.

On a side note, it seems like Tachi enjoys dancing as seen from the multitude of songs he has regarding getting down on the dance floor and there being a number of dance scenes involving him throughout the "Abunai Deka" series.