S-KEN -- Living Tricks

 

Well, over the past several weeks, I've been mentioning about the well-traveled engineer, musician and performer Tadashi Tanaka（田中唯士）regarding his time in the early 70s folk group Peace City（ピース・シティー） and then as an influence in Japanese punk and post-punk.

I've boomeranged back to his early 80s as a New Wave sort of guy under the name of S-KEN. The first time I mentioned him was via his single "Saku Saku"（サク・サク）which was also a track from his 1981 album "Mato"（魔都...Bad Metropolis）. Going back to "Mato", here is another song "Living Tricks" which was written and composed by S-KEN with further composition credits going to Mitsuwa. I couldn't find out who was baby-ishly singing alongside him but perhaps it was Mitsuwa. Regardless, "Living Tricks" is an amiable New Wave sock-hopper on the floor...once again with that feeling of a milder Plastics vibe.

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.