Pop and Rock and Stuff y Ted Watts Imagine, if you will,three Japanese women in a Mexican restaurant in the middle of Detroit dancing like it was the '50 s to a redneck- looking blues band with an older gentleman named "Crazy Eddie" who is dancing as if he is in Twin Peaks, which is hardly his fault consid- ering the kitszchy dead animal/Mexican decor of the place. Now that you have that image in yourmind, labelthethreewomen Shonen Knife. Yes, the Japanesepop-punk trio Shonen Knife was in town Saturday, April 30 at St. Andrew's on tour to promote their new album, "Rock Animals."And whilethey've beenmakingrecords for about 12 years, most of those on small independent labels, they had not come to De- troit until this last week. Their first major label release, "Let's Knife," was basically a rere- cording of earlier Shonen Knife songs from their indie years. The new album is the first major American release with all new material. Yet, Shonen Knife is much more popular in America and Europe than in their home country, although they try to adapt to their domestic crowd. "When we play in Japan, about 70 percent of our lyrics are in Japanese. We write in English and then translate into Japanese," says guitarist Naoko Yamano. "English is easier to remember when we sing, because we are not thinking about the meaning." This seems to tie in with some ofthe criticism of the band as being too vacuous, but Shonen Knife claims to be deeper than that. "We don't mind if you take us for a novelty band, but actually we are very serious about our music," explains bassist Michie Nakatani. "If our lyrics sometimes sound as if they are funny, it is be- cause we have a good sense of humor. But if you look at our lyrics deeper, you will see that there aresome very cynicalpointsofview fromShonen Knife." Both their sense of humor and their serious- ness come out in talking with them. In response to what the song "Butterfly Boy" was about, Nakatani answered: "On tour in Europe, I met a butterfly boy. The boy had wings, and he was flying. He had a human head. He was very handsome. No, really, I was thinking about vio- lence. You know, sometimes people are not nice to children. Or a man is not nice to a woman, date rape and stuff. So the song is an anti violent one." Still, on the surface Shonen Knife's songs seem pretty simple, in spite of the stated themes and the fact that Nakatani professes being influ- enced greatly by books. "I like John Irving. I recently read 'Joy Luck Club.' 'Fried Green Tomatoes' was a very fine book."Many of their songs are about relationships, and most of the rest are about everyday things. But there is a rather large degree of difference between those themes and the strong entertainer personalities that come across from them on stage. They are, nonen nnme are beauiaulbeautiul people. re you. after all, rock goddesses. comments Yamano. "They are very kind, gentle The divas have brought the Dentists with Englishmen. We have different musical styles, them this tour. A quartet of Englishmen in hori- and it's a very good combination." zontal stripes, they play a harder pop in general The kind, gentle Englishmen took the stage in than do their headliners, have been around for front of a relatively small crowd, which grew about the same length of time, and are infinitely considerably as Shonen Knife fans filed in. The less well known. "We like their songs a lot," See KNIE, Page 14 Daisies ... roses ... happy days Self-released You're wading through a thick swampland. Youstruggle to reach the fresh air of dry land, but your nostrils *only inhale the pungent scent of mud and slop. In the distance,youcan hear asoftmurmurthatsoundslikeaswarm of bees singing Gregorian chants. As you draw closer to the source of the sound, you recognize a human-like voice wailing above the chanting bees. Now you can distinctly hear the pounding of drums. But the source of the sound only to see a three-piece rock band standing knee-deep in muck. "Murk," the opener of Killswitch's "Daisies ... roses ... happy days" does indeed sound like it's half-buried in mud. In fact, the wholerecordis anexperienceofwad- ing through bass-heavy rock-noise. This noise has some interesting mo- ments like on "Tragic" when bass player Bill Clements plays some damn fine melodies and on "Slip and Fall" when Clements funks it up a bit. TheKalamazoo-based band comes as close to an original sound as pos- sible these days. The closest compari- son would link Clements and drum- mer Mike Yount to Primus, but Jeff Clements' guitar is aligned closer to the Cocteau Twins' buzzing wail. Throw in some interesting heavy *metal progressions and you have the art of Killswitch. But how much art can you take? By the end of the album, you are most likely up toyourneckin swamp muck. Will you drown or manage to climb out to dry land? Perhaps Killswitch is trying too hard to dump slop all over you dear readers. At least they're better than Violet Wine. - Matt Carlson Stabbing Westward Ungod Columbia Judging fromthis album,this Chi- cago 5-piece would love to be de- scribed as "industrial," or at least as having something todo with thegood ol' Front 242/ KMFDM/Ministry Wax Trax scene. There is definitely a fusion of electronics and thrashing, explosive rock music going on here, but the problem is that the Wax Trax sount oad more to do witt pure, harsh electronic sounds, which were occasionally augmented by guitars, while Stabbing Westward's music is almost the complete opposite. Still, "Ungod" is an undeniably powerful effort. The grating guitar riffs explode and retreat at just the right moments to create the right feel- ing of intenstity and the electronic sounds do help to create a dark atmo- sphere highly reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails' "Pretty Hate Machine." However,ifthere'sone thing Stab- bing Westward does share with the industrial music, it's the use of trite, cheesy, meaningless lyrics. This would be excusable if it wasn't for their spreading these lyics out over three pages of liner notes, but obvi- ously they seem to think that repeat- ing the line "And this is what you take from me" over and over on "Control" is something that will mean some- thing incredibly deep to someone. "Ungod" is a decent effort, but if you're looking for a revival of the Wax Trax sound, you should prob- ably look elsewhere. Stabbing West- wardisloud,explosiveandharsh, but Crunt -Andy Dolan Crunt Trance Crunt is the side project of Kat BjellandofBabesinToyland,Russell Simmins from Jon Spencer Blues Ex See RECORDS, Page 12 HEADACHE RESEARCH Men and women between the ages of 18 and 55 who experience intermittent headache may be eligible for a study evaluating new research medications for migraine. 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