The 50 Kaitenz
These guys are completely and utterly fucking brilliant. They play great rock'n'roll
and they're incredibly funny too, even to someone with crap Japanese. Danny (guitar), Dory (bass)
and Bogie (drums) make up a trio of pure awesome whose live shows are unbelievable.
Here's a translation of their official profile.
"50 Kaitenz" means 50rpms. Faster than a record, see? But slower than a CD.
Try saying "go-jew-kite-ends" fast and you'll be close.
Whatever. Just listen to the music. Most of the lyrics are in Japanese but
it rocks in any language. They're fast, they're furious and their
tunes stick faster than semi-dried snot.
Catching them live is the best. They've toured
the US a couple of times and Oz once, and done a show in Germany, but they mostly play in Japan.
There's a Kansai show coming up at Shangri-la on March the 3rd, with Midori and Scandal -
but it's sold out. Shit.
Then there's a killer show on March 25th at Varit, with King Brothers and Kegawa no Maries, tickets on sale
from February 14th.
Goju did the opening theme for the most recent season of the anime "Ge Ge Ge no Kitarou".
There's an article about it on
The Japan Times Online
with an interview with the band that mentions their origins. It doesn't mention that they also appeared
as characters in the show, doing their own voices.
The single includes
a kickass live version of the 50 Kaitenz theme song.
Their third full album, "50 Kaitenz no Bikkuri!!" (WPCL-10636) came out on January 28th 2009.
The 50 Kaitenz fan club started up on November 1st 2008 with information in Japanese on their site. You can join online
or through Lawsons.
Discography
"50 Kaitenz no Gya!!" (WPCL-10251) - 13 tracks, released January the 18th 2006.
"1-2-3-4!!" (WPCL-10379) - 5 tracks, released December the 6th 2006.
"Money! Money!" (WPCL-10401) - 4 tracks, released May the 9th 2007.
"50 Kaitenz no Biribiri!!" (WPCL-10409) - 12 tracks, released June the 6th 2007.
"Let's Go Sanbiki!!" (WPCL-10451) - 7 tracks, released February the 6th 2008.
"GeGeGe no Kitaro" (WPCL-10474) - 6 tracks (1-5 are different versions of the same song), released May the 21st 2008.
"50 Kaitenz no Bikkuri!!" (WPCL-10636) - 15 tracks, released January the 28th 2009.
Links
- The 50 Kaitenz official website
In Japanese.
- 50 Kaitenz fan site
Also in Japanese, unfortunately this site has historical value only these days. The sitemeister is
too busy to update.
There are some great concert photos and the live schedule often
includes
set lists.
My favourite feature is
under 'Special' - the old gig flyers designed and drawn by Danny.
- Warner Music Japan's 50 Kaitenz site
Again in Japanese but click on the little speaker symbol next to the CD covers
(designed and illustrated by Danny/Dory/Bogie/Danny/Dory&Danny in order of release
of the first 5 disks) and you can
hear 40-secondish bites of the songs. The bites for "Bikkuri!!" are only 29 seconds long.
You can also click on the little TV symbols and see far-too-short samples of the music videos for
the theme song, "Mr 1234 Man", "Money! Money!", "Let's Go Sanbiki!!" and "Tama ni wa Love Song o".
- Smashing Mag's 50 Kaitenz site
An online magazine. Mostly in Japanese but it's easy to tell which pages are photos and some of the photos
are magnificent. Ryota Mori's shots in particular are well worth a look.
- Jim Shorts 49.
Jim Shorts 68.
Jim Shorts 95.
Jim Shorts 101.
Jim Shorts 126.
And, just for fun,
here are the episodes of Jim Shorts that feature the band. There are some easter eggs. Click on
the 'chibi kaitenz' picture in Ep.49 and you can see the sculptures that Pete based on it.
Also try clicking on the first
panel in Ep.68 and then click again on the page it takes you to. Goju are also mentioned in
Jim Shorts 100 which is about the Club Citta gig.
- YouTube
This link takes you to the video Martin shot of The 50 Kaitenz doing "Thank You For Ramones"
at the Crown & Anchor in Adelaide in March 2006. It's a short step to lots of other cool footage including some
shot in the US in March 2007.
- MySpace
The 50 Kaitenz MySpace. Gets updated a bit irregularly and
the bio was written for their Oz 2006 tour so
don't get your hopes up when you read it, they haven't reported any plans to return.
Mostly the usual MySpace muso-spam riddled waste of time but sometimes the gigs list is
up to date and it's
handy if you've never heard any
of their stuff.
Photos
Romanised lyrics
From '50 Kaitenz no Gya-!!', '1-2-3-4!!', 'MONEY! MONEY!', '50 Kaitenz no Biribiri!!', 'Let's Go Sanbiki!!',
'GeGeGe no Kitaro' and '50 Kaitenz no Bikkuri!!'
They follow the lyric sheets pretty closely. Mostly. Note that these aren't translations. I'm not up to it!
I have, however, started putting in some comments about what the songs are about etc. from time to time, so I'm just
giving a general "possible bullshit" alert right here.
I should probably
also explain that if things are in English on the lyric sheet I usually put them in italics (couldn't be bothered for
'Thank you for Ramones') and things in round brackets aren't off the lyric sheets. For those not familiar with
how to read romanisations they're phonetic, which takes getting used to since English spelling really, really isn't.
"ai" is pronounce "eye", "ei" is as in "hey" and "ou" is a long "o" sound, not a long "u" sound. So "mou" sounds like
"mow", not like "moo". Ganbare.
| Taku Taku, Kyoto.
|
Left to right - Danny, Bogie and Dory.
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