Fresh Blood: 逃亡くそタわけ (Toubou Kuso Tawake)
Intro: I'm starting a new series of posts covering the best up and coming bands/artists in Japan (i.e. fresh blood). These bands will primarily be underground acts of the post-punk/noise/HC/weirdpop variety (i.e. no Kana-Boon).
Onodera (Gt, Vo) Kuso Mushi (Ba, Scream)
Kageyama Daijiro (Gt) Kikuchi (Dr)
逃亡くそタわけ (which I'll shorten to Toubou) are a Tokyo quartet who play a heavy, emotional brand of punk with an old school vibe that feels like a throw back to bands like Cowpers and Bloodthirsty Butchers. However, they have quite a quirky sense of humor so add a little Weezer into the mix and shake well.
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In fact the first time I saw this band perform, it wasn't on stage but while performing a skit during NEXT POP 2012 for the year end festivities @ Shinjuku Motion. Onodera and Kuso Mushi (note: Kuso Mushi = sh*t insect... I'm not 100% positive... but I don't think that's his real name.) recited traditional Japanese folk stories/fairy tales while the drummer scribbled arbitrary and progressively sarcastic commentary on pieces of paper for added humor.
I finally saw Toubou perform on stage as a band this year in June when they played with Happy!Mari, ランランランズ and some other bands @ Shinjuku NINESpices. I went to the show primarily for Happy!Mari and ランランランズ while having low expectations of the other bands so I intentionally showed up a little late and Toubou were already partway through their set. But as soon as I entered the floorspace I was greeted with a blistering sonic assault:
Whoa! That kicked my ass. I definitely regretted not showing up at least 15min earlier to witness Toubou's set from the beginning. The song they played above is called "Ototoi Kiyagare!!!" and it's probably my favorite song by them on their lovely and badass CD "逃亡くそタわけの逃亡."
The rest of their set was just as intense and what impressed me about Toubou is how much fun they have on stage playing as loud as they can with as much passion as humanly possible.
Here's a clip someone else uploaded that exemplifies their ability to rock out on stage:
Toubou look like they should be in the chess club rather than playing hardcore punk and they have almost zero chance of CD sales taking off and becoming rich and famous but who the f*ck cares?! These guys rule and have developed a cult following and they will continue to melt faces with their emotionally powerful music and ferocious live performances.