Ok Motherfuckers! Let's Go!!

I've posted a few Ultra Bide related things before and have always gotten a number of emails and inquiries about Hide and his band. So you'll be glad to here that Hide and his cohorts are embarking on their first U.S. and Canadian tour in almost 2 decades accompanied by a new album on Alternative Tentacle records.

Originally formed in Kyoto in 1978. Ultra Bide were amongst Japan's early waves of young sonic aggravators (Including noise legend Jojo Hiroshige as one of the bands original members.). Centered around mastermind Hide Fujiwara the band is an ever evolving beast that has spanned multiple line-ups, multiple styles and even multiple continents. In 1985 Hide moved to New York and reconstituted Ultra Bide as a prog-punk 3 piece where he toured extensively, built up a dedicated following and released a number of EPs and albums through Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacle records.

In 2001 Hide moved back to Japan and re-established himself as one of the Japanese undergrounds key figures. Without slowing his stride Hide has for the last 10 or so years been tirelessly working away in a prolific number of band projects and musical collaborations, championing up and coming new waves of Japanese bands, cultivating the underground scene and crusading against Japan's bullshit "pay to play" system.

During that time Hide has been honing and refining his latest incarnation of Ultra Bide as a super tight, non-nonsense twins bass and drums power trio. And at the ripe old age of 53 Hide is producing the best music of his entire career. Not something you can say of many aging punksters. Ultra Bide are a formidable live band who regularly show up eager young upstarts less than half their age. Playing with the sort of power and precision that decades of living and breathing music has possessed them with.

I've seen hundreds of bands perform and still Ultra Bide stand head and shoulders above them all. Consistently solid regardless of the size or reaction of the crowd or the venue Ultra Bide are never not an awesome band to see. I must have seen them play at least four dozen times since they were first introduced to me about 5 years ago... Ahhh fuck it! Just go and see them! The cunts deserve it and more importantly you deserve to see Ultra Bide.

Tour starts 9th October. Album drops October 15th.

2013 10/9 (Wed) at Death By Audio Brooklyn, NY

2013 10/10 (Thu) at El N Gee Club New London, CT
2013 10/11 (Fri) at Flywheel East Hampton, MA
2013 10/12 (Sat) at Midway Café Jamaica Plain, MA
2013 10/13 (Sun) at The City Belle Pub Belleville, ONT CANADA with SNFU
2013 10/14 (Mon) at Van Gogh’s Ear Guelph, ONT CANADA with SNFU
2013 10/15 (Tue) at Call The Office London, ONT CANADA
2013 10/16 (Wed) at The Hideout Toronto, ONT CANADA
2013 10/17 (Thu) at Café Chaos Montreal, QUE CANADA
2013 10/18 (Fri) at Khyber Pass Philadelphia, PA
2013 10/19 (Sat) at The Saint Asbury Park, NJ
2013 10/21 (Mon) at Metro Gallery Baltimore, MD
2013 10/22 (Tue) at Black Cat (Backstage) Washington, DC
2013 10/23 (Wed) at Strange Matter Richmond, VA
2013 10/24 (Thu) at Bernie's Distillery Columbus, OH
2013 10/25 (Fri) at Garfield Artworks Pittsburgh, PA
2013 10/26 (Sat) at Cake Shop New York, NY
2013 10/31 (Thu) at Hemlock Tavern San Francisco, CA
2013 11/1 (Fri) at Eli's Mile High Club Oakland, CA
2013 11/2 (Sat) at The Blue Lagoon Santa Cruz, CA

http://www.midheaven.com/item/dna-vs-dnac-by-ultra-bide-cd

http://www.ultrabide.net/

     

Regular posts coming soon. Sorry.

Ultra Jr. - We R ULTRA Jr.

OK I got a couple of great responses and requests from the Ultra Bide post so I thought I'd upload this rare CDR. Ultra Jr are one of Hide from Ultra Bide's many sideprojects. Featuring Jinichiro Ida (A.K.A. JJ) from Limited Express (Has Gone?) and current Shonen Knife drummer Reo. Sadly the band were fairly short lived and only put out 2 CDR singles. The band have been on indefinite hiatus since Reo joined as Shonen Knife's drummer after the tragic death of their previous drummer China in a car accident while touring the U.S. Unfortunatley I don't have the other single otherwise I'd bundle them together.

Jr. are much closer in spirit to JJ's band Limited Express (Has Gone?) with Hide taking a backseat role and letting JJ and Reo share vocal duties. Sadly the single is only 2 tracks long but shows alot of the promise the project had which will hopefully one day be fullfilled.

Official
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Youtube

Ultra Bide - Sonic Crush!!!

Ultra Bide are one of Kansai's most respected bands and local legends on the underground circuit. Originally formed in the late 70's by core member Hide the band over the years has gone through numerous line-up changes and switch ups. The original line-up (Now fondly refrered as "The original Ultra Bide".) included noise legend Jojo Hiroshige on bass with Hide himself taking up duties on lead guitar. In it's current form Ultra Bide feature a brutal dual bass and drums set-up.

Bide are without a doubt Kansai's most consitently impressive live bands. No gimmicks, no fucking about just straight up ear drum battering punk. But despite how great the band are their recorded output is patchy at best and doesn't really do the band justice which is why I've held off on posting about these guys for so long.  Thankfully though the band recently put out a DVD-R of one of their live shows and luckily the sound is pretty good so I've taken the liberty of ripping the audio from it for your listening pleasure. It's obviously no substitute to seeing these guys but it'll have to do. Pure obnoxious, snot nosed punk is what you get. Fans of Friction, Big Black, Shellac etc should find immediate comfort.

Not resting on his laurels, Hide despite being one of Kansai's longest standing and well respected underground veterens (Hide turned half a century old this year. Happy Birthday you old cunt!) is also deeply involved in nurturing up and coming acts and is always seeking to use his status to champion the latest generations of bands. Not to mention that even at 50 Hide and his cohorts consistently manage out play bands more than half their age. Take note kids. This is how you do punk.

Official
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Youtube

Amazon Saliva - Amazon Punch

Amazon Saliva are a local supergroup of sorts. Made up of local underground legends Hide of Ultra Bide on bass, Tabata of Acid Mothers Temple on guitar and Nani of Bogulta on drums. Released on Kochi's new Chaotic Noise label "Amazon Punch" is the bands latest studio album of hard rocking no nonsense punk/new wave and protests Japan's draconian drug laws.  I'll be posting some other stuff by the band members other projects later.

Myspace

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