Here are some selections from the album Teenage Mojo Workout by the surf/rock-a-billy style girl band from Tokyo called The 5,6,7,8’s. So named because they focus their sound on music from the 50’s to 80’s. The core of the band are sisters Sachiko on drums on and Yoshiko (aka Ronnie) Fujiyama on guitar and lead vocals though the girls often take turns wailing into the mic. There have been some lineup changes as far as bass goes but Akiko Yomo has filled the slot since the 1990’s. The band has a garage sound and Quentin Tarantino used them in his Kill Bill film during the House of Blue Leaves sequence. The sound is definitely raw but it is a side of Japanese music I welcome over the sappy J-Pop stuff you hear all over Asia these days. American culture, with good reason, has been more noticable in Japan than any other Asian culture. This is for better or worse and there is a strong fascination with good ol’ Yankee kitsch in Japan that is noticeably absent from countries like China. Their album covers are clever take offs of old 60’s covers by girl bands like the Ronnettes. The songs are usually sung in Japanese but sometimes in a pretty rough English that you will either love or hate. Part of the band’s underground success is their appearance and attitudes. They stay in character most of the time off stage and they sport teenage-deb type tattoos. The gals all typically wear  groovy retro hairdos and rolled up blue jeans or  sleek leather outfits. And hell they’re just cool Japanese chicks so that is a super plus no matter how crumby their songs are. Not for everyone’s taste and that is why there are here at The Uranium Café. More 60′s style Japanese pop music coming in the future.

TEENAGE MOJO WORKOUT

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HARLEM SHUFFLE

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GREEN ONIONS

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HOW TO DOWNLOAD AND SAVE AUDIO/VISUAL FILES FROM THE URANIUM CAFE:
If you want to download and save an audio (or even video) file this is the easiest way to do it:
1) Use Mozilla Firefox
2) Install any number of add-ons that capture Flash Media. I use Fast Video Download. It is straight forward and easy.
3) Play the file let it buffer a bit then click on FVD in your status bar and select the file then rename it after the download completes.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Music-MP3s . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.