Various - Introducing Teen Trash From Psychedelic Tokyo '66 - '69 in ... Monster A Go-Go: Volume One




Other than The Bunnys (aka Takeshi Terauchi And The Bunnys) all of the other groups here have also appeared on the previous two posts.

All three of these LPs are fantastic ... but to package these as "Psychedelic Tokyo" is particularly misleading.

Everybody here falls under the Group Sounds umbrella and this is where I apologise if I'm telling you how to suck an egg. In the mid-60's, massive Japanese conglomerates looked enviously at the mop-top types in the UK and the consequences of the "English Invasion" in America and thought that there has got to be profit in this. In an episode of The Monkees meets The Gremlims, there was an explosion of bands generally made up of session musicians and "nice looking lads" all dressed in uniformly sharp suits with uniform haircuts.

Other than cashing in, the intention was to replicate the music that was popular in the west (hence the number of covers). This was a perfectly reasonable thing to assume within the regimented (still) apologetic post-war culture of the times. What actually happened was that these groups started to deliver superbly fuzzed out blues / garage rock and sowed the seeds for the psychedelics to come once the shackles came off.

Fujio Yamaguchi of The Dynamites went on to play with Les Rallizes Denudes, Chito Kawachi of The Happenings Four, Hiro Yanagida of The Floral and Kimio Mizutani, Masaoki Terakawa and Toshiaki Yokota of The Beat Generation all went on to play in Love Live Life and on and on and on ...

"Unofficial" LP released on Planet X in 1990.

Monster A Go-Go

6 comments:

  1. Caligari:
    more more more !!!!

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  2. This was so much fun!

    The Mrs is in Tokyo right now. She's looking out for LRD, Fushitsusha, Kousokuya (etc) gems on the record store racks. Is there anything in this vein that you'd suggest hunting down, given the opportunity?

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  3. hmmm ... lucky woman!

    I wouldn't go for LRD ... they are vastly overpriced bootlegs ... I have most so can post them ... would recommend buying the one's I don't have (as it's tempting to see if I can get a free rip haha).

    Everything Fushitsusha, Kousokuya etc is gold but would imagine it would all be second hand by now...always good to get though.

    Anything on http://www.art-into-life.com/ would be gold dust. Virtually impossible to find in my half of the world without a 300% mark-up. Even with inflated prices, most doesn't even appear for sale here ... and the packaging is great! Literally nothing not to love!

    Super Fuji Discs is a varied bag but there are some diamonds in the dirt.

    http://diskunion.net/ is a chain store with a big presence in Tokyo. Well worth going there!

    I would definitely check http://www.inoxia-rec.com/e/index.html ... it's a site/label very closely linked to Boris and has links to other great Japanese labels.

    Taco are great and have a couple of members of Gaseneta ...

    This:

    https://www.discogs.com/%E3%82%BF%E3%82%B3-%E3%82%BF%E3%82%B3-Box-Vol1-%E7%94%98%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83%E3%82%93/release/3810226

    is quite expensive and if she can spend the money elsewhere and you don't mind a rip then buy something else (I'll be posting it soon). It's volume one ... given that I have a poor control of English and can't speak "Japanese", I haven't been able to tell whether there are subsequent volumes ...

    If it's "noise" you're after ... there is (of course) Jojo Hiroshige's Alchemy Records: http://www.kt.rim.or.jp/~jojo_h/ar/p_ams/index.html

    and there are some great related releases on Reveil ... I have loads of the Hijo-noise/J-pop releases ... so I guess it depends on the price?

    This is off the top of my head ... I might think of some others ... but if anyone watching can offer recommendation then please join in!

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  4. ... and obviously P.S.F Records!

    http://www.psfmm.com/

    I saw a very recent post (which irritatingly I can't find now) where Hideo Ikeezumi said he has stopped releasing because people hadn't honoured their obligations to pay him for distributed releases (bastards!)

    I think that he still runs the Modern Music record store in Meidaimae, Tokyo. If he is still there, get her to give him a very large hug from me!

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  5. Thank you so very much!
    You are, in more ways than one, a great resource :)

    I'm confused by what's going on with PSF. Looks like Black Editions bought the rights to everything? But no (re)releases yet, as far as I can see.

    Taco sounds interesting - I'll see if I can track that down. Enjoyed the Gasenata box very much (thanks to you again!).

    looks like there is a vol 2:
    https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%BF%E3%82%B3BOX-Vol-2%E3%80%8C8%E3%83%8A%E3%83%B3%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E3%80%8D-%E3%82%BF%E3%82%B3/dp/B009KNTJZU

    Do you have anything by Conformist (Mitani Masashi, Miyake Jirou, Asahito Nanjo)?

    The Mrs has already been looking for some Boris-related things. I'll send her over to Modern Music and see if we can come up with any PSF goodies.

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  6. Ohh, that Taco volume 2 looks very tempting ...

    The only Conformist that I know about is the "Dark" tape on La Musica but I don't have it ... I do have a bit more of La Musica and a few other rare / obscure Japanese things coming at some point in the next few weeks tho ...

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