Parachute -- Hercules

Parachute is another Japanese fusion band find after getting to know other similar units such as Casiopeia and The Square.

Formed in 1979, it had the intriguing catchphrase of "Music is sport". Whether or not Parachute members were trying to spark a competitive rivalry with the other two bands is unclear but what is certain to me is the fame of the members. As I scrolled down the J-Wiki article on the band, I realized that there were some big names in the original lineup: drummer Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）, percussionist Nobu Saito（斉藤ノヴ）, New Zealand bassist Mike Dunn, guitarists Masaki Matsubara（松原正樹）and Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）, and keyboardists Yoshihiko Ando（安藤芳彦）and Izumi Kobayashi（小林泉美）, almost all of whom have been mentioned in the blog and a few of whom even have their own articles. Kobayashi left after Parachute's 1980 2nd album "6 kinds 6 sizes" but was officially replaced with Akira Inoue（井上鑑）after his guest status on that release.

Speaking of "6 kinds 6 sizes", the first Parachute article I bring to you from that album is "Hercules". It starts off sounding quite Supertramp-ish before the music gets into the familiar zone inhabited by The Square especially. Referring back to that catchphrase, "Hercules" then sounds like something that probably would have been at home as background music during a Japanese sports broadcast, a la The Square.

Parachute released 6 albums in the early half of the 1980s and probably after that, everyone decided to go their separate solo ways. However, there was a DVD released in 2015 to celebrate the band's 35th anniversary.