Midnight Junction
Ryu Amamiya & Tap Tips

In April, 1982, a night club opened in the Hotel New Otani in Akasaka, Tokyo. The club was named, "Tap Tips" and featured a stage show with young, good looking male tap dancers and the occasional drag queen. Shozou Nakano was hired on as choreographer. One of the Tap Tips' dancers, Ryu Amamiya (in the middle on the LP jacket) was a popular TV drama star of the time. His popularity with his female fans helped to make the club successful. I was still in university then and could have visited this club, but I had the impression it was mostly a place for women, so I made no real effort. Well, I came to regret this decisio., The show and club closed and now I will never know the rest of the story unless someone who reads this page contacts me.

Anyway, I found this record at a used record shop priced at only ¥100. I expected just silly pop tunes with taps here and there, but actually it's not bad. Side A, called Midnight Junction is all nice swing tunes with big band. Amamiya does a pretty good job as singer, very cool, accompanied by a 2-man backup team called The Tap Tips, appropriately enough. The band sounds almost too good, but no wonder, the arrangements are by Norio Maeda renowned jazz pianist, leader, composer and arranger.

Side B is called Satin Doll but it has nothing to do with the famous standard. It is also plays out nice slow swing tunes, although sometimes the lyrics are silly. "Tap tips, doki doki waku waku ...” —well, I just can't explain what that means in English, if it has a meaning at all.

Though I have no idea what kind of quality the Tap Tips shows may have had, it is part of Japanese tap history now. A night club featuring tap dancing shows is worthy of note, even if the audience was more interested in the cute boys than they were in the dancing.

— Shinichi Matsumoto