5 Bands Who Are Tight And Also Happen To Be Japanese
The second or third time I listened to KSCU as a sophomore in high school I heard "Workin' Dayz" by Kemuri on The Neighborhood hosted by Tyler. The song was totally awesome, and my friend Chris lent me his Kemuri CD a few days later. The CD quickly became my favorite and I lucked out when Chris decided ska wasn't cool anymore and told me I could keep the CD.
This was the start of my interest in Japanese music. Kemuri thanked a bunch of Japanese bands in the liner notes of their CD, among them Snail Ramp, Duck Missile, and Fruity. With the help of my good buddy Napster I was able to download songs by all of these bands as well as dozens of other random bands with similarly strange names. Bands like the Garlic Boys, Young Punch, Pez Stomp, the Mega Stink Men, and more entered the Bob consciousness at this time. I also bought CD's by a few other bands with record deals in the US such as Potshot and Nicotine. As much as these bands excited me at the time, my maturing musical tastes and the eventual death of ska in Japan like that in the USA caused me to move on to different and better bands.
I'm still interested in Japanese music more than most people are, but my tastes have been tempered and with that in mind I would like to talk about five Japanese bands that are totally tight.
1. Fruity: Having been one of the first bands from Japan that I discovered, these guys hold a special place in my heart. Unfortunately, what I was able to hear from them was but a few limited songs from compilation CD's and a 7". Their ska-punk style had the same production quality as Operation Ivy as well as the same energy, per se. Their posthumous complete discography was released on Stiffeen Records several years after I initially discovered them. My interest was rekindled with a passion as I was able to hear tons of songs I previously had no idea existed. Not only are these guys nearly on par with Operation Ivy, but they've also spawned many subsequent bands that rock, among them School Jackets (Spazz gone ska), Your Song Is Good (groovin' instrumental ska) and Twinkle (straightforward rock n roll). I hear that Fruity briefly toured the US in the mid 90's which has mewishing that I had been aware of their existence sooner.
2. Snotty: The Asian Man Records website compared Snotty to Breakfast and Going Steady, which aren't the most accurate comparisons, but if I hadn't seen the name Going Steady in there I probably wouldn't have bought their CD. Snotty play music that sounds like, well, a snotty version of the Minutemen. Aggressive punk rock with fast and funky guitar, these guys are another great band on Stiffeen Records.
3. Go!Go!7188: I discovered this band purely by chance as I downloaded random bands with weird names off of Soulseek. To my pleasant surprise they ended up being one of the most amazing bands I've heard from Japan. Though they play pop-punk, a traditionally stale genre, they infuse all sorts of elements from surf guitar to oriental melodies that make their music really interesting. Every song of theirs, even their worst ones, have amazingly catchy hooks. The dual female vocals are strong and harmonize so well. Having released three albums worth of original material, each progressively better than the last, I see this band becoming even better than they already are and I can't wait.
4. Eastern Youth: Emo is a much
maligned genre these days, what with the likes of Dashboard Confessional
and Saves the Day sullying its reputation, but bands like Eastern
Youth are what emo really is and Eastern Youth are good! Starting
out in the late 80's as a street punk band, this 3-piece eventually
developed their sound into the earnest and complex punk sound
they've been milking for several albums. Every one of their songs
sounds honest and desperate and the guitar and bass always come
up with new and interesting melodies. Their one downside is that
their songs tend
to drag on regularly for 5 or 6 minutes without featuring much
variation in structure from song to song. I suppose their music
requires a bit of patience but the payoff is usually worth the
wait.
5. Going Steady: Those of you who know me know that I wouldn't leave these guys off of my list. I discovered them practically the same way I found Go!Go!7188, by downloading them randomly off of Napster. Their first album "Boys & Girls" was a fairly standard melodic-punk effort, energetic and with conviction, but far from original. Napster would soon die and I didn't hear anything new from Going Steady until several years later when I started using WinMX and found stuff from their second album "Sakura No Uta". These new songs were awesome, to say the least, but little did I know that these would be overshadowed by the subsequent singles and EPs Going Steady would put out.
It's such an awesome feeling to have a band become your favorite band, and constantly make themselves even more of your favorite band by blowing themselves away release after release. I can't really pigeonhole their new material too much, but I suppose I can loosely describe it as "Pinkerton"-era Weezer playing insanely optimistic and desperate punk rock. They are literally the only band I can listen to day after day without getting sick of them, and I've gotten sick of all my other favorite bands from time to time without a doubt.
I've not been able to see any of these bands play live, unfortunately, but I have seen videos for several of them. Fruity looks energetic and fun. Go!Go!7188 also looks like a fun band to see live but isn't particularly crazy. Eastern Youth fall on the more desperate side of things, and their singer looks like he's about to cry out in pain and relief at all times. Going Steady are pure insanity live and do nothing but help cement how tight they are in my mind with their live show.
So there you go. If you knew me back when I liked all those average Japanese bands, just wipe your memories clear and check out these bands here, for they are the real deal. Word. Thanks to this article, I have been able to successfully kill 2 hours of time here at work.
Bob Vielma