Shigeru Suzuki/Tin Pan Alley/Toshiki Kadomatsu -- Hyakku Watt no Koibito（100ワットの恋人）

 

For the first time in a couple of years, I was able to accomplish a couple of things: 1) meet up with an old friend and KKP contributor Larry Chan here in Toronto and 2) slurp down a bowl of ramen that I didn't make out of a store-bought package. It was good to see Larry again during these dark times and share some good conversation and ramen/gyoza at the midtown branch of Touhenboku Ramen. Initially, I'd been a little worried since the two other ramen franchises in the area, Kinton and Santouka were both closed for some "emergency maintenance", but when I saw the lit OPEN sign at Touhenboku, my spirit and hunger were raised considerably.

Getting to tonight's batch of songs on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", we're starting off with singer-musician Shigeru Suzuki's（鈴木茂）"Hyakku Watt no Koibito" (100-Watt Lover) off of his debut solo album "Band Wagon" (March 1975). Written by his old Happy End bandmate Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Suzuki himself, I thought it was a rather odd title since I didn't think that a 100-watt bulb was particularly all that radiant, although according to Matsumoto's lyrics, Suzuki sings the world of that girlfriend.

Mind you, though, he does mention that she can be very tardy and that she rattles off her words at the speed of a machine gun (not unlike my East Asian Studies professor in 1st Year), but perhaps Suzuki thinks of them as adorable idiosyncrasies rather than weaknesses. In any event, I really like "Hyakku Watt no Koibito" because of that downtown funkiness which for some reason reminds me a bit of "Black Magic Woman" by Santana. There's also some of that prog rock underlaid by some groovy 70s City Pop smeared with that synthesizer "haze". The titular lass should be very grateful for Suzuki's city serenade.

Tin Pan Alley's (which also had Suzuki within its ranks) cover of "Hyakku Watt no Koibito" can be found on the band's BEST compilation "Yellow Magic Carnival" from 1980. I don't think that there is much of a difference between Suzuki's original and this newer version.

However, there is that distinctive arrangement touch of Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）in his own cover of "Hyakku Watt no Koibito" in "MORE DESIRE 〜TOSHIKI KADOMATSU SPECIAL LIVE '89.8.26", an album released in December 1989. At over eight minutes long, this is basically an extended remix with Kadomatsu enjoying his jazzy flights of fancy (and indeed, he flies high) with the original. Most of the songs on the album are the musician/producer's covers of not only Suzuki's songs but also those of Chu Kosaka（小坂忠）and Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）. "MORE DESIRE" hit No. 23 on Oricon.