Shinjuku Club Doctor. July 9. “Girls Shoot the Curl” night.
Charlie and the Hot Wheels are on stage. I’m in front. The band is playing something that’s a cross between Jan & Dean, Number Girl, and The Dirtbombs. Fatal surf power punk rock. These are the days, etc. all.
Special guest lead singer, “Kummy” is mad crazy drunk, swigging from a bottle of something bad and hard the second he hits the stage. He grabs my damn fool head and sticks the mic in my mouth. I get a few nutty “yeah, yeah, yeahs” in on the chorus, before he abandons me for the Joey Ramone clone to my right.
The headliners are The Pebbles, a trio of girls who are cute, cute, cute and have pretty harmonies to go with their matching outfits. Unfortunately, they lack R&R’s most crucial ingredient: bad intentions.
Charlie and the Hot Wheels are trying to kill the crowd with peanut butter rock and roll. At least twice, I think I’m going to get kicked in the teeth just for being the gaijin standing in front. The lead singer looks like a bobcat in the headlights. Then he’s scared. Bored. Fucked. The set ends with him angrily throwing the mic down on the stage, just to my left.
I think I’m in love.
I can’t remember the last time I went to a concert that felt like it might break out into a fight. Nirvana at the Crest? The Meat Puppets at Slims when those guys ripped my shirt?
Two weeks earlier, I’m at Shinjuku Red Cloth with Batty Cheese and her friend Cherry. The Mighty Moguls are up there dressed in saber tooth tiger togas playing that “wild caveman stomp.” Louie Louie chord changes shot out of a Wave Motion Cannon.
The other bands on the bill cannot even begin to compete. There’s The Bunnies, yet another kawaii all-girl band, with perfect French Twist hairstyles and vintage equipment. There’s Money Spider from Osaka, a weird grinning rock combo who dole out their awkward New Orleans electric piano boogie a little too lightly for my taste.
But they there are competing with Miffy, the lead singer of the Mighty Moguls, who plays and sings like her soul is on fire, frying up in the crucible of rawk.
About Batty. She is one of the world’s greatest living illustrators. One day, the human race will wake up and realize what a rip-off the whole Superflat thing was. And Batty will be there with what Jaytack has already dubbed ”Superbumpy.” Behold her works mighty, and go surfin’.
Batty used to play guitar in the Mighty Moguls, and was also affiliated with the pre-Kill Bill 5,6,7,8s. She even drew some of their record sleeves. I ask her what she thinks of them now. “Too technical,” she says.
Batty’s last band was named Mmmmmmmms. She told everyone she wants to stop drawing to concentrate on playing music.
Cherry says she’s not hungry, but she orders up a storm at the izakaya. “You never saw Batty play guitar with the Moguls?”
Nope. Was it better, I ask?
“Not better. Just different. She plays very…sweetly. Very unique.”
There’s at least two other dasai gaijin at Club Doctor tonight, sticking out like pudding in a cloud with the Japanese rock nuts. But one fearless white guy has got it down: greased up ducktail ‘do, sunglasses, torn jeans, leather jacket flipped over his shoulder. A total dropout from Rydell High. The only mistake are his shoes, which are like, red Asics sneakers or something. I almost want to tell him to invest in some pointy-toed boots.
But he’s hooting and hollering. Clearly there for The Pebbles,
Cherry lived in a Whale for a year.
“Kujira?” I ask.
Wales, she explains. The food was fucking terrible. She only ate bread and baked potatoes.
Everyone thought she was Chinese.
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