a Melt-Banana story I wrote

[Tom Roche]

I asked a friend yesterday what she thought of the article I'd 
written, and she didn't know what I was talking about. I realized 
that while I'm quick to send out all sorts of stories by other 
writers, I usually forget to distribute pieces I've written myself. 
The following appeared in the most recent issue of Atlanta's STOMP 
AND STAMMER magazine.

I had sent this out to just 3 or 4 people and I have forgotten to 
whom... so if you had it already sorry you get it again.

Cheers, tom.











MELT-BANANA REDEFINES EVERYTHING YOU KNOW
by Tom Roche
Stomp And Stammer Magazine January 03



EAST ATLANTA - It's 3AM Monday night, The Echo Lounge has closed up, 
and we have sauntered home in a state of sonic shellshock. No, I 
don't want to write about Melt-Banana. Not tonight. Not ever. There 
are a finite number of words and linguistic tricks in music writer's 
toolbox, and the good ones have been used up. Repeatedly. Ad nauseum. 
There's little left to say that can do this band justice.

An unforgettable night for all, but just another night on the road 
for Melt-Banana.  "Unlistenable noise" say some. "F-----g awesome" 
say others. Melt-Banana is both. Melt-Banana is neither. No confusion 
there: everything has been re-defined. The thesaurus goes in the 
digital trash can.

To explain Melt-Banana a new language is needed, and there ain't one around.

They are two gals, two guys. From Japan. The fastest band you will 
likely ever see. Every generation thinks they have discovered fast. 
Yeah, what about 90's speedcore? And before that, what about 
Mahavisnu Orchestra? And before that, Jimi Hendrix? And before that, 
Lionel Hampton? And on and on back through time. Well good bye to all 
that. A word as basic as "fast" is now re-defined.

The house lights dim, they take the stage. Guitar, bass, drums and a 
smiling girl. OK, fine. Big deal. Lead vocalist Yasuko "Yako" Onuki 
takes center stage. "Heh-looo!" Big smile. "Wee-arhŠ meltbananaŠ frum 
tokeeyojapan."  How cute. How sweet. We might even be in for some 
Pizzicato Five sort of silliness.

And then the swirl of raging noise begins. Her smile turns neutral. 
She holds the mic stand at arm's length, stirring it slowly, slowly, 
eyes transfixed on a vague spot in the back of the room. Swirl 
redefined. Onslaught redefined.  Thunder redefined. This could be 
trouble.  Building. Towering. Louder. LouderŠ

BAMbamstopstartstopstartyellwhispertellscreechtwangsirenstopstartrumbg=
renstopstartrumblecascadetwichscreechtwangSTOP.

Pause. She pulls the mic to her lips. "PLOT IN A POT! PLOT IN A POT! 
BANKRUPT'S BIRTHDAY! BURNING BANQUET! PLOT IN A POT! PLOT IN A POT!"

Pause.

Stic-stic-stick. ROARRRR-blam-yelling-pleading-whisper-yes-no-yes-no-blam.
Siren-screech-twang-slam-roar-twang-STOP. "BLOODSHOT BUSMAN! BREAKS 
UP BUS STOP! PLUG IT IN PUT IT OUT! PLUG IT IN PUT IT OUT! GRATING 
SEEDS CRAZE! PLOT IN A POT! 
Screeech-yes-no-yes-no-yes-no-stopstartnobassroarfuzzscreechŠ.

"SEEDS CAN TELL YOU HOW TO POP OUT!" stop!

Pause. Silence. Smile. Meekly: "Thenk-yoo."  Stunned applause.

My God. My God! What just happened? Newcomers are reduced to 50's 
flying saucer movie dialog: Where did they come from? What do they 
want?

The initial entre-nous to the Melt-Banana world for many, it must be 
admitted, is comic spectacle. "Early Husker Dü fronted by a ferocious 
Chihuahua," said one review. "They make Atari Teenage Riot seem like 
Barry Manilow," said another. "A slight Japanese woman has screamed 
at me all nightŠ." And so on. I mean, what nerve, what balls, to 
blast an extended blipvert of musical noise under random 
caterwauling/ chirping, and expect to get away with it. Hilarious. 
Hey, do that again - it'll be funny too. Go on, hit me.

But soon it is the 10th song, the 20th song. Err, um, this joke isn't 
funny anymore. This is nowhere near as random and scattered as once 
thought. This is densely ordered chaos, sprung from an orderly 
culture. This is jaw-dropping precision, unclockable speed. These 
kids mean business. We have entered the strata of pure art, undiluted 
by any discernable influence. Sure there are probably obscure 
influences in their little Japanese-avant-thash universe at home, The 
Boredoms maybe, but realistically speaking they are out there all 
alone. Pioneering trailblazers no one has ever caught up with.

This is a band that puts in the miles, and then some. A 2002 40-city 
tour in 51 days, in a NYC/Seattle/LA/Georgia/NYC loop. Back and forth 
across America, over and over. Europe too. Together for 9 years.




Swish pan. Wide shot. Exterior, twilight. A COUPLE at a pay phone 
just off the highway in Montclair New Jersey. Cut to Close-up. A 
question is asked:

Q: So your tour ended yesterday at the Knitting Factory and you're 
flying back to Japan?
A: Ahh, no. (traffic noise) One gig tonight in Montclair then we fly 
back home. This was 5th US tour.

Yako has agreed to an interview.

Q Who travels with the band?
A: The four members and a T-shirt guy. Stay at mostly cheap hotel, 
sometime friend house. Share driving.

Q: You cover huge distances, repeatedly. Why tour?
A: We like to tour and also for it's good to tour because we can play 
in front of the people our music. We can show the people directly our 
music. This time Seattle was good and also San Francisco and Austin.

Q: How do you compose your lyrics?
A: I read dictionary and pick words from pronunciation, and also 
meaning. I get idea and develop song.

Q: Americans have a stereotype that the Japanese are very hard workers...
A: HA-HA-HA
Q: ...like the businessman who works 15 hours and gets on the Tokyo subway...
A: We actually, we are kind of lazy, ha ha. But playing music on 
stage is fun. So it is half fun, half work.

Q: There's another stereotype that Japanese are humble.
A: "Hom-ble"?
Q: Not extra proud. What I mean is when a reviewer says Melt-Banana 
is one of the best bands around how do you react?
A: We say thank you. It is, ummm, good to hear those kind of things 
from people. We thank the people who understand our music.
Q: But do you think you are among the best?
A: We try to make good music so if people say that we are happy.

Yako's limited English serves her well, giving her answers a clarity 
you'd not find in responses 5 times as long. Interestingly, 
Insound.com conducted an interview in 2001 with Yako and guitarist 
Agata Ichiro in Japanese, and then translated it:

How do you fit in with the Japanese music scene?
Agata: We like playing with all kinds of bands. We play with 
fastcore/grind bands a lot and, also, alternative style bands, emo 
bands. There are also times when we play with noise bands. But we 
don't have situations where we play with, like, jazz bands. You know?
Yako: We run all over the place. We don't stay put.
So, there's an emo scene in Japan?
Agata: Emo is really popular right now.
Yako: It's really big.
Agata: There are bands like Blood Thirsty Butchers or Number Girl. 
Number Girl is so popular they'll draw one thousand people to a show, 
easily. This band Envy, too. They're an "emo grind" band. So, it's 
really fast but they are still crying. [laughter]
How was it at the beginning?
Agata: I really couldn't play the guitar when I started. Instead of 
trying to learn to play the right way I thought, 'How could I play 
without working too hard and still sound like somebody who can really 
play?' I started by changing from regular tuning to open tuning, so 
even if I couldn't hold regular chords I could hold these ones. And I 
couldn't move my hands quickly, so I f-----d around with the slide. 
[laughs] After a while, I started using the top part of the neck. I 
guess I started practicing the guitar after that.
Yako: When we started playing people thought we sounded avant-garde. 
We didn't really think we sounded that way but people grouped us 
together with the noise and avant-garde scene. After we put out a 
split record with D.A., we started playing shows with hardcore and 
grindcore bands. We started getting more influenced by that stuff.


It is well past midnight and we are now we are well into the set. The 
audience is 9/10 transfixed, 1/10 slam-dancing. Agata carries the 
most beat up Gibson SG ever played, one that's been marched, 
literally, through a thousand dark clubs and string changes. A worn 
out axe, redefined. He stands still for a time, then bounces around 
like a nutcase in a padded cell. Every song is bludgeoned to pulp yet 
he always parachutes onto a sonic thumbtack at the end. There's a 
dozen Japanese mystery-circuit black boxes at his feet (with details 
at http://www.guitargeek.com/rigview/262/ )

"All the guitar sounds, a very important part in this band, "says 
Yako. "But these days he got too many pedals and out of control 
(laughs.) For this tour three more, and he sees more sound pedals he 
is interested in. So when he gets back to Japan he'll go to equipment 
store and get some more."

One guitar sounding like ten. Oh, lets guess 640 beats per minute. 
Again words fail. Thanks to Agata the standard guitar-god cliché's 
have truly done dried up and blow'd away now. Sonic hurricane, 
anyone? What a joke. A hurricane needs a week to develop and roar 
ashore. He does it in 90 seconds. Over and over. Category 5. Agata 
Ichiro has mastered his instrument. There's only one word left that 
fits, a word never used lightly. The H-word. Not since Hendrix have 
such an endless parade of amazing textures and finely detailed noise 
experiments come flying out with seemingly effortless abandon.

Agata dons a surgical mask over his mouth for every gig. As Yako 
explained in an interview at antburg.tripod.com in 1999, "When he was 
3-5? I'm not sure-years old, he suddenly got a disease, a serious 
blood condition. His bone marrow is not good; it can not make 
good-conditioned blood. Inferior blood. Unfortunately, any treatment 
of this disease has not been found yet. Anyway, he has disease, and I 
guess one of the reasons he wears mask is from disease. He needs to 
rest a lot because his body takes a longer time to recover from 
tiredness. And he need to stay away from getting cold. If he got 
fever, he can hardly move because of exhaustion." This year, from the 
payphone, she adds, " But these days he is doing good so no problem 
so far."

To Ighiro's right, Rika Chang is off in her world, at the peak of her 
prowess, her fingers a blur on a bass guitar almost as tall as her. 
She is the cornerstone of some of the most complex rock ever made. 
You see her play in her quasi-anonymous corner and you wish that the 
next time she is in a 7-11 in Kansas the clerk will say "Sweet Jesus 
Rika you are the fastest bassist in the word, that Slurpee is on the 
house!"

Yako again: "She works very hard. She is very small and how do you 
say her hand is very small. But she try hard and it's all good."

MB has had a variety of drummers, on their latest tour was New 
Jersey's Dave Witte, lately from Burt By The Sun, providing 
metronomic fun and games.

In the center of it all, Yako O is relentless. She admits she is a 
"me first" woman. She founded the band, the lyrics are all her own. 
Under the spotlight she is in charge. She is slender with short 
auburn hair but by no means androgynous. She is out there in her own 
orbit. The onslaught stops and starts with the furrow of her brow. 
This is control. This is passion. This is power. This is sexy. What? 
Sexy noisecore? Sexy thrash?

She isn't even trying to come off this way. Sexier still.


Q: Yako, what do you do to keep from getting bored?
A: Bored? (Japanese discussion, traffic noise) We go shopping! Or we 
change the set. In L.A. Buzz from The Melvins took us to a store 
where you can buy human skull and we were about to buy it but it was 
kind of expensive so we gave up..
Q: Does it get lonely on the road?
A: Lon-lee? (Japanese Discussion) Ahh, no. Why?
Q: I was wondering how often young college boys ask you out on a date?
A: Ha ha ha ha! No. Not at all! Uhhhh, maybe no time.
Q: Are you homesick?
A: Ummm not really. But I need my fish.
Q: You need some fish?
A: Yeh, no, I have a fish at home. A small copperfish is waiting for me.




And tonight, on the final encore, the four are all smiles. A fan runs 
to the stage after the end of the second encore, in search of a 
coveted set list perhaps taped to the floor. Here is a gig where 
seemingly 20, 30, 40, individual songs have flown by, who can tell. 
And there is no set list. Once again, "set list" redefined.

This punishing music, this punishing life on the road. There can't be 
a lot of money in this. But, says Yako, translated, "You experience 
things at a live show that can't be expressed on a CD or something. 
Sometimes you can't understand why this or that music exists when you 
hear a recording but you get a greater understanding of that music 
when you experience it live." 

She's right. There's a couple of CD's and a prolific discography of 
dozens and dozens of singles, little labels, you know where to look. 
Every one of them a tasty snack. But the live show is the main 
course. So when they come round these parts again go see 'em for 
yerself so I don't have to struggle to write any more about 
Melt-Banana.




(c) 2003 Stomp and Stammer

Melt-Banana's entire live set from BBC radio last year can be heard 
by typing or pasting this address into RealPlayer (can't click, must 
PASTE):
rtsp://rmv7.bbc.net.uk/radio1/g2/djs/peel/melt_banana_mv_oct2001.rm