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I set up this blog to hopefully introduce those outside Japan to some of Japan's best music and a taste of Osaka and Kyoto's thriving underground music scene.

Alot of what I post will be CDR's and CD's sold by bands on the Kyoto/Osaka live circuit. Hopefully giving a little exposure to the bands outside Japan. The rest will be Japanese bands from pretty much any and every generation and genre. From 60's Rock'n'Roll and folk to 00's noise and electronica.

If anyone has an issue with me uploading their music please contact me and I'll remove the links immediatley. My intention is to introduce this music to new audiences. So please help support these bands by buying their releases or catching them live if you have the opportunity. Alot of these guys are working full time jobs on top of making great music. Please send comments, complaints, recommendations and seasonal greetings to stinkinhippy@hotmail.com

Monday 27 May 2013

Pig Fat Pigs - Jabberwocky


P is for Pig Fat Pigs

I found this beauty in the treasure trove of weird and rare records that is Forever Records. Besides the great band name what caught my eye about this record was a blurb that said something about "punkish lounge music" and a reference to the Lounge Lizards. I inquired further with Taro the owner of Forever Records and Osaka's No.1 source on obscure music and he described it as "junk jazz" and name dropped Tom Waits which was enough to make me drop some cash on this mysterious find.

Turns out my intuition payed dividends. Unfortunatley despite scowering the net I've managed to turn up almost no information on the band so all I've got to go on are the scraps of info contained in the liner notes. The band were (are...?) a Kyoto 5 piece (guit, bass, drums, organ, sax) who as was promised play some excellent Tom Waits-esque Junk Jazz. It seems most of the songs were composed by bassist Shimizu Kosuke (Who now plays in accordion/contrabass duo Milk!Mama who are also well worth checking out.) while the lyrics and vocals are handled by Shiraishi Takahide. The vocals are mostly sung in a gravely, jibberish approximation of what I asume is supposed to sound like English with occasional sentences and phrases emerging from the cacophony of harsh, slightly off-tune and out of time guitars, sax and clinking-clanking junkyard percussion. "Life's too short to fuck your mom" is one that springs out from the opening track "Bore Bore" a twisted, elephant man like bastardisation of the Pink Panther theme. It's the exact sort of thing I can imagine Tom Waits sitting around tapping his crusty, yellow tabacco stained toes to while sipping on a bottle of illuminous green moonshine. You would be advised to do likewise. 


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