JAGATARA -- Last Tango in Juku

 

I'm not a punk rock fan by any means but I do know that it arose from around the mid-1970s and was perhaps one antidote to all that disco (which I just wrote about in my previous article). 

This has been hanging around in the backlog for some time, but I'm finally getting to JAGATARA's "Last Tango in Juku". This band that dabbled in a number of genres including punk rock, funk-rock, Afrobeat and post-punk got its start in 1979 touring the live houses beginning with the Kamiuma Gasoline Alley in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo. Led by vocalist Akemi Edo（江戸アケミ）, "Last Tango in Juku" was the band's debut single released in April 1981 (at the time, they were calling themselves Zaidan Houjin Jagatara/財団法人じゃがたら [Judicial Foundation Jagatara]), and though it sounds like a mix of rock and Eastern European tango music, I can pick up the punk attitude f rom Edo's singing and his lyrics of getting into the muck of some dark corner in the urban neighbourhood for some dancing and fine dining (sucking up a piece of hamburger that his dance partner dropped onto the ground). Not sure whether the "Juku" in the title refers to Shinjuku or Harajuku, although I'm leaning toward the former.

According to the J-Wiki article on the band, JAGATARA did a Kansai tour to promote "Last Tango in Juku". However, despite the goodly amount of fans showing up, Edo still felt the music was being unappreciated so once the tour was done, he decided to just focus on the music rather than concerts.

Five singles and six albums would be released by JAGATARA up to 2020 and a lot of members would come and go (along with some variations on the name of the band). Edo himself took a respite between 1983 and 1985 due to a deteriorating mental situation but did come back. Unfortunately, he would pass away in early 1990 due to an accident in the bathtub after which JAGATARA would break up.