Tokyo Trashville!

(Au-Go-Go)
by Jon Sarre

The liner notes to this Tokyo garage rock comp give the impression that the sheer hideousness of the Japanese pop music scene has inspired most of the bands included on this record to form; sorta like pre-Pistols London or New York the day after R. Hell and T. Verlaine convinced Hilly Kristal to book ’em at his little Bowery folk dive. If that’s the case, then we’re in for some action as soon as these people hit our shores in force. The bigger ones you should already know by now: Guitar Wolf (they do “Kung Fu Ramone” here and yeah, it smokes) and, of course, Teengenerate (who cover Aussie Ramonephiles Eastern Dark‘s “Johnny and Dee Dee” like they thought it was rockabilly, or somethin’). Elsewhere, the perpetually great Muddy Frankenstein clocks in with “Chocolate” and frenzied as it is, it still isn’t as loopy as anything on their stateside released Dance With Evil (live, they’re even more crazed!). Great Mongoose comes at ya like a broadcast of strungout hillbillies lost in space since 1956 returning via beat-up shortwave as they attempt to tackle “Let’s Dance” (which only kinda sounds like the one the Ramones did). The Mad 3 are very technically proficient surf rockers who got a record out on Estrus, which should be all the info needed. On the precious side of things are the 5,6,7,8s, three women who play a kind of garage-jazz and sing off-key in tandem and, if they were Shonen Knife, I’d understand why everyone finds ’em so fucking charming. There’s also a whole five more bands here, which is enough “lock and loll” to keep even a xenophobe like me smilin’!
(www.augogo.com)