S-KEN -- Saku Saku（サク・サク）

 

Tokyo-born Tadashi Tanaka（田中唯士）was in his early 20s, having graduated with a degree in telecommunications engineering and then teaching computer science when he made the quick switch into music from 1971. He participated in the Poland Music Festival as a composer and then after traveling the world for a while, Tanaka became an editor at a music magazine, before going to the United States as a foreign correspondent for the Yamaha Music Foundation in 1975. He got into the emerging punk music scene through venues such as CBGB in New York City and when he returned to Japan, he launched his own punk movement through the Tokyo Rockers project which promoted punk and New Wave.

Tanaka himself would get behind the microphone in 1981 with an album "Mato"（魔都...Bad Metropolis） and a single "Saku Saku" (Crunchy) under his stage name of S-KEN. It's a boppy New Wave number with an arrangement including flying saxophone that reminded me of some of those tunes that I heard in the late 70s and early 80s as a teenager. There's a bit of a flair also reminiscent of The Tubes. Meanwhile, S-KEN's slightly restrained devil-may-care vocals have me thinking of a milder Plastics or a slightly less croon-y Hiroshi Tachi（舘ひろし）in his early rock-n'-roll mode.

I haven't gotten into all of Tanaka's history but it looks like he has definitely lived the life a lot of music men would envy. If I do another S-KEN article or even a new one in one of his other projects, I'll have to relay some more information.