Last night, Jim, Nelly, Nick, and I brought Super Art Fight to the JapaNoodle Fever at the Ottobar. JapaNoodle Fever unites Bakubeni, Quaff, TsuShiMaMiRe, Zazen Boys, and Peelander Z into one night of J-Rock madness! Seriously this is the best rock show I’ve ever seen! Okay, so I don’t go to many rock shows. But I’m so glad I got the chance to live in a time when such things are possible and that I got to participate in the show in some small way.
I don’t know how it all started, but at some point, someone brought up the idea of drawing with Peelander Yellow at their Ottobar show since it was only a few days after Super Art Fight. Got in touch with the Pee People and Yellow agreed. When we showed up last night with our 4′x6′ battlefield, Yellow told us that the girls of TsuShiMaMiRe wanted to draw as well. Hells yeah! It was going to be a big freaking J-Rock art jam.
The Zazen Boys are only performing at the last stop on the tour in New York so we didn’t get to see them. Bakubeni kicked things off with a bang. Watching their lead singer Rayla kick the shit out of the stage and scream her little lungs out was amazing! She really got the crowd going and she even taught us a little Japanese so we could scream along.
Bakubeni’s set ended and we got started with the canvas. Nick and I took the left half while Mizue, Mari, and Yayoi of TsuShiMaMiRe attacked the lower right. Nick and I paced ourselves because we wanted to give ourselves enough room to go nuts later when Yellow joined up. The ladies took up an entire canvass and drew three cute cats, one with gigantic fun bags. The session ended fairly quickly as Quaff took the stage.
I was really looking forward to seeing Quaff. They far exceeded my expectations and just rocked the shit out of the bar! After they played “More than Blue” (which will easily stick in your head) MC Ukisemi (who wears a fucking awesome mask) got on the mic and started rambling in Japanese. His band mates held up signs with subtitles translating Ukisemi’s story about how he comes from heaven’s paradise and that he knows all the songs because he’s old. He asked if we wanted to hear a new song. Hells yeah! He got the drummer to kick out a beat, told the bass player to just hit an A, got one of the guitarist to jam on an A, and all of a sudden, they launched into “Beat It.” That’s right, “It doesn’t matter, who’s wrong or right. Just beat it!” The crowd went fucking nuts! They closed their set with another cover, and absolutely rocking version of “You’re Just Too Good To Be True.” God, I heart Quaff quite a bit.
As Quaff walked off the stage, Yellow ran up to the canvass and along with Nick, the three of us attacked. I can’t tell you how awesome it was to art jam with Yellow. It was like we were possessed by this strange spirit of awesomeness. No words, no plans, just throwing up as much ink as we could. It all worked. We somehow made Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re’s cats fit into the whole composition. It was over before we knew it. Yellow had a giant smile on his face and gave Nick and I huge hugs. Wow, if I could do this for the rest of my life it would be a dream come true!
TsuShiMaMiRe took the stage. Those three chicks fucking wail! I still have “Aircontrol and remote control” swimming in my headmeats. They’re working with cartoon network on the anime version of Power Puff Girls so they played the theme song they wrote for the show, Hyper Sweet Girls,” as well as Mojo Jojo’s theme. At one point, lead singer and guitarist Mari jumped into the audience while still wailing away as an audience member held the mic for her to sing. They’re amazing cute and badass at the same time.
After a short break, Peelander Z took the stage. Honestly, words cannot capture the absolute insanity of a Peelander Z show. Highlights include Pee Red hanging upsidedown playing bass, turning the entire audience into the rhythm section during “Mad Tiger,” some lady from the audience playing tonsil hockey with Pee Green, grabbing Makito from Quaff to play guitar and Kozaken from Bakubeni to play drums, Red stage diving and crowd surfing, turning the audience into a giant conga line/mosh pit, and of course, human bowling!
Goddamn, what a goddamn genius show! If you live in Philly, you can catch the tour tonight at the Khyber. If you’re in New York, you can catch the last show Sunday at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. If you’re anywhere near there, get your ass to the show.
I’m sure there will be more floating around out there, but for now check out this sexy photo from Nick!
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