JUN SKY WALKER(S) -- START

 

Finally coming out of the Golden Week hiatus, "Uta Con"（うたコン）was back on duty on Tuesday night Japan time this morning. Of course, they couldn't let the opportunity to pay tribute to the nation's mothers go since Mother's Day was just the other day, but there was also another new entry to the long "Uta Con" guest lineup. 

JUN SKY WALKER(S) is a band that I've heard about since my JET days in the early 1990s. I was asking one of my students in class what her favourite band and she gave this band's name but I couldn't quite hear it so I had to repeatedly ask much to her frustration. I finally found out that it was JSW (and I was frustrated, too). After that, I would hear them occasionally including from students at karaoke.

Well, the band showed up on "Uta Con" for the first time tonight and I discovered that the band has been around since 1980 with their major debut single "Suteki na Yozora"（すてきな夜空...Splendid Night Sky） coming out in November 1988. However, JUN SKY WALKER(S) showed up on the show to perform their 4th single from January 1991, "START". Written by vocalist Kazuya Miyata（宮田和弥）and guitarist/band leader Junta Mori（森純太）with Mori also handling composition and arrangement, it's a jet engine-powered song of encouragement to take that first step into the rest of your (hopefully successful) life. 

"START" peaked at No. 4 on Oricon and it was also the title track on JSW's February 1991 album. That album managed to hit No. 1 on the charts and eventually became the 40th-ranked release of the year. As for the current lineup of the band, it's Miyata, Mori and drummer Masayuki Kobayashi（小林雅之）.