Episode 50 - Blackjack and Hookers

Not quite three years ago, after listening to a lot of VGM podcasts, I decided to make my own game music podcast, with blackjack and hookers. For my fiftieth episode, I’m leaning into the “blackjack and hookers” theme by featuring a variety of songs about gambling!

Special thanks for this episode goes out to:

• Fellow VGM podcaster Jameson of barSILENCE podcast for contributing cover art. You can and should find barSILENCE wherever you download podcasts, and check out his website at barSILENCE.com. 
• LongTones, an experimental electronic jazz project that provides promotional consideration to Professor Tom. You can find their work on Spotify by searching for “LongTones” or on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/jon_no_h 
• BokiBokiPixelArt for the show logo. You can find him on Twitter @BokiPixelart. 
• My wife and my kids, who’ve helped me with ideas and occasionally contributed voices to promos, in addition to putting up with me doing this show in the first place.
• Fellow VGM podcasters Rayjkayj from VGMporium, Martyrus from RE-VGM, and Ed Wilson from The VGMbassy, all of whom were kind enough to let me do guest appearances on their shows. Thanks also go out to Ed for all of the game soundtrack rips he’s done; I regularly play his rips on the show.
• Drew Mackie, former host of game music podcast Singing Mountain, which was the biggest single inspiration for me to start this show.
• Fellow VGM podcaster Alex The Messenger Messenger for helping to build the community 
• Everyone who’s ever contributed to one of my promo segments, including Josh Grisham of Nerd Informants, Bedroth of BGMania, and Kurly Kevin Stevens.
• Fellow podcaster HeatOverride from Bring The Pain, who’s been an enthusiastic fan and who occasionally lapses into game music podcasting himself
• And finally, everyone who is a regular listener of the show.

If you want to reach me, you can find me on Threads, Tumblr, or Instagram as ShujinAcademyVGMClub. I’m also on Mastodon at @ShujinAcademyVGMClub@mastodon.coffee, my username on Discord is ProfessorTom, and I’ve joined Bluesky as @shujinacademy.bsky.social. All episodes of the show are posted to my YouTube channel, which you can find by searching for Shujin Academy VGM Club. You can email me at shujinacademyvgmclub@gmail.com. Links to everything are available on my LinkTree at https://linktr.ee/shujinacademy. Please leave me a five star rating on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you’re finding this episode. New episodes are released once or twice a month depending on how often I get them done, and they premiere on Thursday mornings on your favorite podcatcher and on 8beats.co, the internet's number one game music radio station. I’m also now appearing on Terra Player, the new app that’s a destination for gaming podcasts and other content, so you can check me out there. 

Track Listing:

00:00 - Show Tagline

00:06 - Final Fantasy VII (PS1) - Gold Saucer (composer: Nobuo Uematsu)

02:04 - Talk Segment 1

08:49 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis) - Casino Night Zone (composer: Masato Nakamura)

10:58 - SaGa Frontier (PS1) - Baccarat (composer: Kenji Ito)

12:53 - Dragon Quest IV (NES) - Casino Rag (composer: Koichi Sugiyama)

14:22 - Persona 5 (PS4) - The Whims of Fate (composer: Shoji Meguro)

17:33 - Side Pocket (Genesis) - Las Vegas (composers: Emi Shimizu, Masaaki Iwasaki)

20:25 - HuniePop 2: Double Date (PC) - Casino (composer: Jonathan Wandag)

22:43 - Emerald Dragon (Super Famicom) - Casino (composer: Hirohiko Fukuda)

24:27 - Talk Segment 2

30:34 - Dual Orb (Super Famicom) - Casino (composers: Nobuyuki Hara and Yu Yoshida)

32:07 - Vegas Stakes (SNES) - The Hideaway (composer: Kimitaka Matsumae)

32:57 - Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow (Game Boy) - Casino (composer: Junichi Masuda)

35:57 - Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (SNES) - Casino (composer: Yasunori Shiono)

40:56 - Caesars Palace (Genesis) - Casino Theme (composers: Tommy Tallarico and Steve Henifin)

42:11 - Casino Kid (NES) - Casino Floor (composer: Toshio Murai)

43:19 - SNK vs Capcom Card Fighters’ Clash (Neo Geo Pocket Color) - It’s Las Vegas (Las Vegas 1) (composers: Takushi Hiyamuta, Mitsuo, and Miwa)

44:20 - Shin Megami Tensei II (Super Famicom) - Casino (composer: Tsukasa Masuko)

45:29 - Talk Segment 3

52:00 - Final Fantasy VI (SNES) - Blackjack (composer: Nobuo Uematsu)

55:04 - Dragon Quest V (Super Famicom) - Gambling Fever (composer: Koichi Sugiyama)

56:04 - High Stakes Gambling (Game Boy) - Main Theme (composer: Paul Webb)

57:36 - HuniePop (PC) - Gold Falls Casino (composer: Jonathan Wandag)

59:31 - Golden Sun: The Lost Age (Game Boy Advance) - The Lucky Slots (composer: Motoi Sakuraba)

1:01:22 - SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters DS (DS) - Rare Music Casino Style (composers: Masashi Sugiyama and Kazuyuki Fujita)

1:02:30 - Side Pocket (SNES) - Las Vegas (composer: Fox Productions)

1:03:54 - Sonic Advance (Game Boy Advance) - Casino Paradise Zone (Act 1) (composers: Tatsuyuki Maeda, Yutaka Minobe, Hironobu Inagaki, and Atsuyoshi Isemura)

1:06:59 - Outro Talk Segment

1:11:04 - Casino Games (Sega Master System) - Ending (composer: unknown)