It's been 26 years and skipping for the band that unwittingly opened the doors for pretty much every other Japanese band to find an audience on American shores, no matter how resolutely "cult". Up through Friday, I'll be taking you on a journey that will hopefully prove enlightening, insightful and entertaining. A trip into and through a magical patch of Earth called Shonen Knife Land.
This happy character here is the sun. He shines down on Shonen Knife Land, see?
Break it down like--
TUESDAY--Introduction
WEDNESDAY--1982-1989
THURSDAY--1990-1996
FRIDAY--1997-2007
The goal, inasmuch as my silly self will permit me one, is to present a fair overview of Shonen Knife's music and serve due justice to one of the most underappreciated, underrated, under-cited bands in music history.
As a preface, I'm going to get the matter--the albatross?--of the band's "image" over with. Reviews cluttered with references to Hello Kitty, Pink Lady and "Asian girl fetish" are not ones I'd take pride in. It would indicate a failure as a listener that spilled over into my abilities as a writer.
INTRODUCTION
Shonen Knife have gone through a few different incarnations, but they have never stopped being three Japanese women, with singer/songwriter/guitarist Naoko Yamano the sole constant throughout. They almost always appear in photos and onstage in matching, homemade outfits. Their music more or less sticks like melted marshmallows to the tried-true pop-punk of their beloved Ramones--with enough dallying into other stylistic neighborhoods to keep things interesting--topped with surface-simple lyrics sung in both Japanese and English. The musical competence on display ranges from shaky to passable to impressive depending on the era.
Their famed fans are legion: Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Redd Kross, the Ramones, Fugazi, the Donnas, L7, Half Japanese, Beat Happening, Beck, and Sleater-Kinney have all given them the high hitch-digit. Perhaps even greater praise came from former Boredoms guitar-lord Seiichi Yamamoto, who once brushed aside any attempt to identify himself as a "godfather" of Osaka's storied Kansai music scene by naming the members of Hijokaidan and Shonen Knife as far more qualified candidates to hold said title. Indeed, SK have become so synonymous with the musical life of Japan that the quickest way for some intellectually lethargic member of the media to annoy a band from there is to ask what they think of Shonen Knife. (The price pioneers pay!)
Their famed fans are legion: Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Redd Kross, the Ramones, Fugazi, the Donnas, L7, Half Japanese, Beat Happening, Beck, and Sleater-Kinney have all given them the high hitch-digit. Perhaps even greater praise came from former Boredoms guitar-lord Seiichi Yamamoto, who once brushed aside any attempt to identify himself as a "godfather" of Osaka's storied Kansai music scene by naming the members of Hijokaidan and Shonen Knife as far more qualified candidates to hold said title. Indeed, SK have become so synonymous with the musical life of Japan that the quickest way for some intellectually lethargic member of the media to annoy a band from there is to ask what they think of Shonen Knife. (The price pioneers pay!)
The simplistic, cheap perception of SK as overly adorable Asian stereotypes is a two-way funhouse mirror: the band are implicit whether it's a brick-brained journo deeming them flaccid bubblegum pop or a rabid fan boosting them as one of the last remaining "geniune" rock bands. This duality stems from the fact that these women present a very attractive, convincing "rock star band" costume and then don't deign to aid in its deconstruction. An interviewer trying to play "the game" with Shonen Knife will not get the ball back. It is up to the eyes and ears of the beholder to plug gaps, and predictably, reactions vary: sweet and refreshing or cloying and sickening, so real it hurts or so manufactured that the joke is thoroughly on anyone stupid enough to bite the bait.
In one way, it's a shame. With some manifest guile and willingness to mold their own myth, Shonen Knife themselves could fingerpaint a clearer picture. As it stands, they've always been a sort of regenerative window display.
In another way...what a ridiculous thing to expect from a group that likes public baths. Whereas other musicians send fans into wild teeth-gnashing and hair-yanking over the "greater meaning" of their songs--'cause you just know something more is happening there, and it's damn near crucial to find out what, to bring yourself somehow closer to the artist, to act like you know--Shonen Knife inspire wonderment only at how you could enjoy a collective of guitar/bass/drums so fully and purely. It's almost rude to require explanations from women who, in the middle of the first song on their first record, decide to "meow" for 20-odd seconds.
There is undoubtedly an interesting story behind all the cotton candy and ice cream cake. The women of Shonen Knife weren't conceived in Barbie condos and nourished with food fresh from an Easy Bake Oven. Nor do they currently reside in gingerbread houses with pools of pudding skinning over in the backyard, periodically emerging to pick up instruments that almost dwarf their tiny bodies and giggle their way through pithy ditties about how cherubic the cheeks of a fucking chipmunk look, while an audience of anime freaks and stuffed animal collectors jump around squealing and shouting marriage proposals to the drummer. These are human beings with inspirations and conflicts uniquely their own. Trailblazers in a scene that has birthed many other unforgettable acts, they are still active, still recording and touring, still raising a magnificent joyous racket under the radar.
It's hard to give much credence to the "it's a trick" accusation after all this time. If you're lucky enough to get the opportunity, see them live--and stand witness to one of the most enduring, invigorating examples of honesty in artistry that has ever been.
Shonen Knife Boredoms Kansai
In one way, it's a shame. With some manifest guile and willingness to mold their own myth, Shonen Knife themselves could fingerpaint a clearer picture. As it stands, they've always been a sort of regenerative window display.
In another way...what a ridiculous thing to expect from a group that likes public baths. Whereas other musicians send fans into wild teeth-gnashing and hair-yanking over the "greater meaning" of their songs--'cause you just know something more is happening there, and it's damn near crucial to find out what, to bring yourself somehow closer to the artist, to act like you know--Shonen Knife inspire wonderment only at how you could enjoy a collective of guitar/bass/drums so fully and purely. It's almost rude to require explanations from women who, in the middle of the first song on their first record, decide to "meow" for 20-odd seconds.
There is undoubtedly an interesting story behind all the cotton candy and ice cream cake. The women of Shonen Knife weren't conceived in Barbie condos and nourished with food fresh from an Easy Bake Oven. Nor do they currently reside in gingerbread houses with pools of pudding skinning over in the backyard, periodically emerging to pick up instruments that almost dwarf their tiny bodies and giggle their way through pithy ditties about how cherubic the cheeks of a fucking chipmunk look, while an audience of anime freaks and stuffed animal collectors jump around squealing and shouting marriage proposals to the drummer. These are human beings with inspirations and conflicts uniquely their own. Trailblazers in a scene that has birthed many other unforgettable acts, they are still active, still recording and touring, still raising a magnificent joyous racket under the radar.
It's hard to give much credence to the "it's a trick" accusation after all this time. If you're lucky enough to get the opportunity, see them live--and stand witness to one of the most enduring, invigorating examples of honesty in artistry that has ever been.
Shonen Knife Boredoms Kansai
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