The Miracle Trajectory of City Pop: Takizawa Yoichi and Magical City – [Vol.2] Demo Tapes Filled with Masterpieces　

Demo Tape Delivered to Alfa

After the Shiga live performance, the four-piece of Aoyama, Ito, Shinkawa, and Makino began sessions at Tokyo’s Meguro Mouri Studio for Takizawa’s demo tape recording. Under RCA’s Robby Wada and Okamura arrangement, Takizawa and true Magical recorded additional demos including “Saishū Bus” and “Boku ga Toshi wo Tottara,” but RCA didn’t realize record releases for Takizawa and Magical.

However, these demo tapes were brought by Wada to “Alfa Music,” a music publishing company run by composer Kunihiko Murai. This dramatically changed Takizawa and Magical members’ destinies. Wada frequently visited Murai’s Alfa then.

“We can’t seem to release records at our company (RCA), but how about Alfa?”

The Takizawa & Magical RCA-take demo tapes brought by Wada were shared within Alfa, catching one employee’s attention. Toshikazu Awano, a second-year Alfa employee and Keio junior to company president Murai, was enchanted by Takizawa’s “Saishū Bus” melody on the demo. The performance was, of course, by Magical members.

The emotionally rich lyrics depicting passengers waiting for the last bus at winter bus stops and urban scenery through car windows were written by Junichiro Yamaguchi, a dormitory friend of Takizawa and Arimoto at the education dormitory. The sophisticated melody and un-Japanese chord progressions beautifully colored this lyrical world. Awano, captivated by “Saishū Bus,” requested to meet Takizawa, first connecting Takizawa and Magical with Alfa. Hearing Takizawa’s songs, Awano felt “It’s just like Gilbert O’Sullivan,” sensing Western melody sensibility.

While Takizawa had backing band Magical, they couldn’t contract with Alfa as a band, first signing individually as composer. However, through senior Junichi Goto’s idea, Magical connected with Alfa through demo tape creation work described later.

Coincidentally, Takizawa and Awano attended the exact same Setagaya ward elementary school, with a three-year senior-junior relationship. Once this was known, the director-artist barrier quickly dissolved and they hit it off. Thus, Awano led Takizawa and Magical demo recordings, steadily preparing for Takizawa’s major debut.