shonen knife C/D S/D

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Just been getting into this band, probably about 10 years too late, but whatevs.

Can't stop listening to the cover of "daydream believer".

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Sunday, 3 September 2006 11:02 (seventeen years ago) link

Funny you should mention them, I've just been hearing more of them than I had previously (thanks to p******.com). They seem like a bit of a one-joke band, but I still like what I've heard.

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Sunday, 3 September 2006 11:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Let's Knife is an excellent album, its a lot of fun.. probably the only thing by them you'd need, though.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Sunday, 3 September 2006 13:32 (seventeen years ago) link

another band (like prince, van halen, john cougar, springsteen, etc) that i'm hesitant to add to my p******.com station since ALL their great stuff (and it WAS great -- they were a great rock'n'roll band at a time when such things did not exist on indie rock labels -- as frank kogan wrote once, they took punk rock and made it HAPPY) came early in their career. Everybody should own the Shonen Knife and Pretty Little Baka Guy albums if not the even earlier Japanese releases those drew from (all of which were not jokes, except in the sense that they're often very funny); anything after that is almost as pointless as all those boring Cibo Matto records that stole the Japanese gals sing about food and animals concept and took all the energetic rocking hooks out it etc etc...

Oh what the hell, I'll add them to pandora, and just thumbs-down the later stuff.

― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 3 September 2006 13:35 (seventeen years ago) link

(xp -- and I don't get the Let's Knife vote at all, sorry. By then the idea wasn't really fresh anymore -- they'd already long been embraced by the American indie scene, who preferred them not to make rock'n'roll you could dance to, and they were going downhill already. Their great stuff was from before American indie kids knew who they were.) (To his credit, though, by the way, it was Calvin Johnson at K Records who first released them here -- a cassette-only release I reviewed in the Voice sometime in the late '80s.)

― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 3 September 2006 13:44 (seventeen years ago) link

here's my Shonen Knife review from Rolling Stone; it's possible that older Voice piece is floating around cyberspace some place, too; or maybe the interview piece I did for Spin around the same time this review came out:

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/shonenknife/albums/album/317037/review/5942430/shonen_knife

― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 3 September 2006 13:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Totally second the recommendation of the self-titled album that collects the stuff from the first two EPs. A GREAT album.

Let's Knife was a lot of newly-recorded versions of their early songs, wasn't it?

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 3 September 2006 14:51 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, I think you're right. Pointless watered-down versions. I'd forgotten the specifics; just remembered that album ticked me off at the time. But 712 (which came out a couple years earlier, in 1991) is when I actually started to stop caring about them, I guess.

― xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 3 September 2006 15:02 (seventeen years ago) link

712 was when I stopped buying them, too. I have always wondered about the number of cool songs they've had on all the releases since then, though. There is this one great song I only heard one time, but I've always remembered it - "Strawberry Cream Puff," which is on the B-sides album. Heard one of their new songs when someone was interviewing them on local radio about a year ago. Song about a rubber band - it was pretty good. Have they gotten into kind of a rawer sound? When the DJ asked I'm-assuming-it-was-Naoko/Nancy what music she liked, she said, "Ritchie Blackmore, Black Sabbath, Motorhead, and disco!"

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Monday, 4 September 2006 03:29 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha! I put on 712 the other day by accident, meaning to put on one of the other ones.

― My Little Ruud Book (Ken L), Monday, 4 September 2006 03:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Burning Farm is the only one I have, so far. Hearing Rock Animals once when it came out convinced me not to go anywhere near the 90s stuff.

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Monday, 4 September 2006 04:25 (seventeen years ago) link

i used to own let's knife and didn't like it that much. but i should probably try to track down the earlier releases.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 4 September 2006 07:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Get the "birds and the b-sides" album, if only for their "Top of the World"...

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 4 September 2006 07:59 (seventeen years ago) link

I like their track on the "Powerpuff Girls" soundtrack album. But it's as indie as they come, and not danceable at all (jumpeable, maybe.)

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 4 September 2006 10:37 (seventeen years ago) link

two years pass...

Just saw them do an in-store. They sang a song about a barnacle.

― ¥€$ (gnarly sceptre), Thursday, 25 June 2009 13:14 (fourteen years ago) link

one month passes...

Occurred to me I hadn't listened to this band in years. The first three (everything up to Pretty Little Baka Guy) are great, as is "Lazybone," the single released in advance of 712. But everything after that, including 712 I can do without.

― unperson, Saturday, 22 August 2009 02:52 (fourteen years ago) link

six months pass...

My Shonen Knife interview in Spin, 1991:

http://books.google.com/books?id=5zrzfgLFgUYC&pg=RA1-PA17&dq=chuck+eddy+shonen+knife&rview=1&cd=2#v=onepage&q=chuck%20eddy%20shonen%20knife&f=false

― xhuxk, Saturday, 6 March 2010 16:32 (fourteen years ago) link

one year passes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSveOVUdkPI

― timellison, Sunday, 13 March 2011 00:49 (thirteen years ago) link

five months pass...

I saw them on friday. They were a lot of fun. It is great seeing people so in love with what they are doing.

― The New Dirty Vicar, Monday, 22 August 2011 13:35 (twelve years ago) link

eleven months pass...

Had a chance to interview Naoko!

http://www.ocweekly.com/2012-08-09/music/shonen-knife-naoko-yamano-alexs-bar-long-beach/

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 10 August 2012 14:41 (eleven years ago) link

four months pass...

wow is my daughter way into shonen knife

― If I was a carpenter, and you were a douchebag (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 13 December 2012 17:54 (eleven years ago) link

two months pass...

cover of 'when you sleep' on 'yellow loveless' is ~awesome~

― железобетонное очко (mookieproof), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 01:26 (eleven years ago) link

I'm happy to break the "update thread once in a long while with a single post before immediately fading back into irrelevancy for eons" cycle insanity WITH A SECOND POST.

― Raymond Cummings, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 01:33 (eleven years ago) link

thank u!

― железобетонное очко (mookieproof), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 01:36 (eleven years ago) link

Also, search and treasure "Concrete Animals" (though entire source album is dope)

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=UWhppE2inng&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DUWhppE2inng

Ned, reading your story now

― Raymond Cummings, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 01:36 (eleven years ago) link

Aaaand I'm reminded again why I don't bother with comments on my alt weekly stories, those trolls are the absolute fucking worst

― Raymond Cummings, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 01:41 (eleven years ago) link

one year passes...

They were great on their Oceanic tour, having a lot of fun w/the hard rock flourishes of their latest album - "Like A Cat"!

― etc, Friday, 30 January 2015 11:27 (nine years ago) link

six months pass...

From the last album. Thin Lizzy groove on the verses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gifQpJmnlY

― timellison, Thursday, 30 July 2015 03:45 (eight years ago) link

three years pass...

Saw them play a great show last night, last show on their U.S. tour. Atsuko Yamano on bass and the drummer they've had for a while (who is very good).

I'm realizing that I've given them short shrift over the years. A dozen albums of original material since they lost their U.S. major label deal. Time to make that up. There was a time where I felt that Naoko Yamano was one of the best songwriters of her generation - I have a feeling she's maintained that quite a lot over the years.

― timellison, Monday, 8 October 2018 03:56 (five years ago) link

This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Song about dog fighting, which I believe is still legal in parts of Japan, and witnessing it as a kid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw0k7O9QAB8

― timellison, Thursday, 11 October 2018 01:58 (five years ago) link

five months pass...

New single!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=225&v=gFcycK3vCNE

― timellison, Wednesday, 27 March 2019 05:14 (five years ago) link

Great lyrics!

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, 27 March 2019 05:18 (five years ago) link

Ned's interview has gorn

― Mark G, Wednesday, 27 March 2019 08:45 (five years ago) link

two years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VODHquDrYZE

― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 14:43 (two years ago) link

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