Akko vs Akko (pt 2 ft. Akiko Fukuoka)

of

Chatmonchy

There was a time when I considered Chatmonchy the greatest band on the planet. Mostly because Eriko Hashimoto is a true genius when it comes to composing vocal melodies and any good songwriter knows the vocal melody is the MOST important aspect in writing a timeless and memorable song. (You can play devil's advocate and bring up instrumental bands and classical music but in these cases the vocal 'focal' melody is "sung" by a lead instrument instead. I guess if you twisted my arm, melody, not necessarily vocal, is paramount. BUT regarding songs with lyrics, the biggest mistake modern songwriters make is composing the instrumentation first and tacking on a trite and half-assed vocal melody thereafter.) So in terms of Chatmonchy vs GO!GO!, Yuu is 'decent' but HashiEri's vocal melodies are incredibly sophisticated yet sound so magically simple and timeless. GO!GO!7188 may rock harder on stage but Ecchan's songwriting ability in crafting ingenious vocal melodies is almost without peer. Chatmonchy vs GO!GO!? Are you kidding me? The discussion should be Eriko Hashimoto vs Brian Wilson/Lennon & McCartney/Elton John etc. Damn I have a knack for digressing.

Soooo... how does Akiko Fukuoka aka 'Akko' aka 'Akkobin' fare on bass? Is she better than Ms. 'GO!GO!' Hamada-Noma? Oooh, that's tough. Akkobin is incredibly nice (though not on the elite level of some bassists I have coming up in future posts). I'd say they're both solid and at about the same technical level. They both have incredible stage presence. Tiebreaker: Akkobin's hotter! Okay, that's sexist. Akiko Noma has a much better singing voice. But seriously, I don't want to choose between the two because they get along so well with each other:

Akko vs Akko ends in a tie. They're both incredibly dope female bassists.

2 of my alltime fave Chatmonchy songs ("ひとりだけ" and "DEMO、恋はサーカス") in one clip in a tribute PV created by my friend ena: (No doubt their older songs are by far their best! A lot more soulful and powerful. "DEMO、恋" was the first song I ever learned on guitar.)

Akkobin doesn't have a solo career as does Akiko Noma but she does dabble as a DJ. An incredibly sexy one I might add:

Eriko actually showed up as a guest at Akko's first DJ stint at Shinjuku LOFT. Akiko convinced Ecchan to sing along to "Make Up Make Up" and Eriko forgot the words to her own song. =) That was hilarious! This was probably the most fun club event (midnight to 6am) I went to outside of Tokyo Boredom Drive to 2010.