Yes, Chairman Kaga of "The Iron Chefs": The Emcee of Ever-Eating, The Fop of Flamboyance and The Noble of Noshing. One could not have asked for a better over-the-top host of what first struck me as the incredibly crazy concept of two chefs going at it against each other in a Kitchen Stadium.
Arranger Akira Inoue(井上鑑)who took care of all of the tracks has kept that steady early 1980s City Pop beat intact although the songwriters for "Act 1" are completely for the ones behind "Harbor Light". This time, it's lyricist Keisuke Yamakawa(山川啓介)and composer Shinji Moriyama(森山進治). A bit of an aside, but according to J-Wiki, there is a lyricist Shinji Moriyama with the same kanji but his career began in 1986, so it would be quite the coincidence for there to be two Shinji Moriyamas in the music industry, each taking care of words and music separately.
The last thing is that despite my scene-building of Kaga's night cruising downtown and then meeting up with Terao at the Polestar, "Act 1" is actually the penultimate track on Side B while "Harbor Light" starts that side off, according to the track list shown at Hip Tank Records. Then again, why does a story have to go along linear time?
That's a dead ringer for Akira Terao as it sounds almost exactly the same. Wouldn't be surprised to learn that most of the personnel were also on Terao's Reflections album. This particular song, 'Act1', borrows heavily from 'Habana Express' and perhaps from 'Ruby no Yubiwa' as well. That all being said, I'm curious to hear more of this gentleman's work.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's why I rather like "After Dark". I like that sort of homegrown City Pop (i.e. no Steely Dan, Doobie Bros., Airplay influences) that Terao showed me.
DeleteDo you hear the People sing, by 17 Valjeans (1995)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPpkTgMbhRU
Takeshi Kaga is at 2:15.
Hello, Jim. I would think that if people outside Japan had widely known about "The Iron Chefs" back in 1995, they probably would have remarked "Hey, wait a minute...isn't that...?". Not sure if the Chairman had ever sung on the show, but if he had, his voice would have been appropriate in the setting.
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