Plus-Tech Squeeze Box -- Kitchen Shock

 

For the purposes of this song, I had been searching for any bloopers from any of the famous cooking shows on Japanese television. I distinctly remember that there was one such program with former aidoru hosts Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）and Miyuki Imori（井森美幸）getting themselves into a pickle in the kitchen one time, but alas, I couldn't find it on YouTube. However, I can settle for the above video of a lady cheerfully admitting to carbonizing her gratin. Well, at least, it has one thing going for it...it sounds delightfully crispy.

A YouTube commenter noted that "Kitchen Shock" by the technopop unit Plus-Tech Squeeze Box has an intro that sounds as if it should have been made into a theme song for a cooking show on Japanese TV...perhaps a comedic one. But instead, this happy-go-lucky number of techno-Shibuya-kei skippiness was placed onto a December 2004 compilation titled "Contemode V.A. 2". "Kitchen Shock" itself doesn't appear on any of the unit's own albums.

The video below is from YouTuber Orange Glider who gives his take on what makes Plus-Tech Squeeze Box tick. Enjoy!

Plus-Tech Squeeze Box -- Dough-nut's Town's Map

By Angeldm via Wikimedia Commons

Well, I never thought I would ever see a video combining the hilarity of a "Looney Tunes" cartoon with the macabre nature of a particularly sour "Outer Limits" episode. But to be honest, I haven't seen a "Simpsons" or "Family Guy" entry recently.

I am referring to the above music video created by YouTuber xchemix for the Plus-Tech Squeeze Box song "Dough-nut's Town's Map", a track on the band's second album "CARTOOOM!" from 2004. The track itself is one friendly ball of looniness that sounds like an especially insane and grand soundtrack to one of those old Warner Bros. cartoons from the 50s or 60s. And apparently, the gaggle of singers, represented by the catch-all group name of The People of Dough-Nuts Town, includes Chinatsu Furukawa from the duo Sonic Coaster Pop.

The melody reminds me a bit of "Heigh-Ho", the famous work song performed by The Seven Dwarfs in the 1937 animated feature "Snow White" by Walt Disney. That makes the "Gotcha" moment in the video all that startling when it arrives at the end. There is something quite "Soylent Green" about that. One-half of Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, Tomonori Hayashibe（ハヤシベトモノリ）, was responsible for words and music.

Plus-Tech Squeeze Box -- A Day in the Radio

 

A day in the radio? Oh, here I thought that I was going to have to put on my English teacher's hat once more to rectify a prepositional issue.

But then, I figured out that this was a track from the 2000 album "Fakevox" by Japanese duo Tomonori Hayashibe（ハヤシベトモノリ）and Takeshi Wakiya（ワキヤタケシ）who are collectively known as Plus-Tech Squeeze Box. They first got together in 1997 and have released a couple of original albums including the aforementioned "Fakevox". Their genres of choice happen to be electronica and Shibuya-kei, and "A Day in the Radio" is a good example of the two genres put together like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. 

Hayashibe was responsible for both words and music, and it starts off like something for a Nintendo video game but then explodes into a cute Day-Glo danceable (privately, if you wish) ditty. From the sounds of it, I would have thought it ideal as a theme song for some zany gag-filled anime.