【CITY POP】ASPHALT LADY / 杉山清貴&オメガトライブ COVER by PIANO & WHISKY

 


Kiyotaka Sugiyama & Omega Tribe (杉山清貴&オメガトライブ) was the very first incarnation of the "Omega Tribe" band back in the early 1980's. I remember hearing this song on a TV show and fell in love with it without knowing the title or the singer; nor was there any notion of "city pop" or "AOR", back then it was simply known as just pop / funk / rock. However, it was trendy to incorporate the various elements of funk, jazz and rock like what became the "sophisti-pop" in the West, and later "jazz fusion" on the instrumental side of things. 

It was all fun, especially with the introduction of new synthesizer technology in the 80's, the Roland Juno-60, Yamaha DX7, and later the samplers and romplers - E-MU, Emulator, Roland D-50, Korg M1's from the mid- to late- 80's. One no longer needs full brass band or orchestra to incorporate the elements of big band jazz, and symphony.

Many producers and session musicians in Asia and Japan were big fans of jazz, jazz fusion, but it was not yet a popular genre in the oriental back in the 80's. Sure, there were jazz and blues from the 40-50's when it was the mainstream, and funk / disco / blues rock in the 60's and 70's. Mostly, the oriental mainstream was smooth pop ballads, but they made sure to include some of these jazz elements in the oriental pop songs.

It turned out that the band members were not recording the songs, "Omega Tribe" was producer Koichi Fujita's project and they were performed by session musicians in the studio as dictated by the producer(s).  [1] In fact, this was not uncommon back then, and probably made worse today with better technology - many pop artists and rock bands still do not perform in their recordings (or TV shows), some didn't even sing with their own voice. 😆 

Nonetheless, it was said that the Omega Tribe members were frustrated and the band was dissolved in 1985. Later it was reincarnated in various forms with new members from 1986 on.

I've played all the instruments and sang all the vocal and back vocal parts in my cover. 😆


"Asphalt Lady" (c. 1984) was probably one of my earliest introduction to this fusion of styles from the East, alongside those from the West - ABC, Style Council, Johnny Hates Jazz, on the pop front, and also George Benson, Earl Klugh, Dave Grusin, Lee Ritenour and the GRP artists, and others on the jazz front.



Later that year, I also heard a Mandarin rendition of the song by Taiwanese pop-diva Pauline Lan (藍心湄) who also wrote the Chinese lyrics as I found out later through Google. "濃妝搖滾", literally "glam rock" - Pauline wrote and sang from the "Asphalt Lady" party girl perspective and made a very successful debut in Taiwan music.


If anyone is interested, I've also made a piano version and have posted on my Instagram account. I don't think I have seen or heard a piano version before.

PS: Koichi Fujita also produced one of Toshiki Kadomatsu's  (角松敏生) early album(s) - Weekend Fly To The Sun, another well known city pop artist many would be familiar with today. Songwriters Kan and Hayashi have wrote many songs for city pop artists and idols - Anri, Mariya Takeuchi, Junko Ohashi, Koizumi Kyoko just to name a few.

Credits:

作詞： 康珍化 (Chinfa Kan)
作曲： 林哲司 (Tetsuji Hayashi)
Keyboards, drums, bass, guitars, vocals and back vocals: PIANO and WHISKY


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