Live: Zazen Boys @ Cake Shop 3.6.9

The boys are back in town. Zazen Boys that is. They've been recording their new record with Dave Fridmann in recent months and judging by the material they've been throwing down in the live shows recently, it's going to be pretty raging. 

Zazen Boys is the project that ex-Number Girl frontman Mukai Shutoku has dedicated most of his efforts towards in recent history. There's is a spastic rock, very much like a Japanese Dismemberment Plan in it's herky-jerky rhythms and frantic bass pummelling with freak-out vocals tossed on top. It's as danceable as it is indescribable. 

The band is normally frightentingly tight, and this night was no exception. It's always an eye-opener when these guys can come over and straight-up kill on borrowed gear with nary a bit of complaining. There's always a big Japanese ex-pat crowd, but while it was a pretty packed room, shockingly enough I didn't have any problem seeing. It might have been better if I didn't, as watching bassist Yoshida Ichirou always makes me want to sell off my entire stable of four-strings. It was a pretty short but mindblowing set that I'm told was comprised of most of the new Zazen Boys IV record. Gotta get my hands on that. They play tonight at The Saint in Asbury Park and tomorrow at Pianos. Check out Zazen Boys on the web here.

R

Live: Zazen Boys @ Mercury 10.6.8

So I was sick as a dog all weekend and living on a steady diet of Robotussin. How the youth of today manage to drink entire bottles of that stuff and skate is beyond me. Of course, I have to get sick on a weekend where I've got a million balls in the air and trying to get a couch bought and delivered. Doesn't make for a fun weekend, I'll tell you, but with the help of the White Lion (not White Lion, mind you) and Craigslist, there's a new sofa bed cluttering up the living room. Won't the guests be pleased! So as I'm hauling the monstrosity into the house with Drew, I get a text from Eric about checking out this Japanese band he's into. Turns out they were called the Zazen Boys. I threw their stuff on while I did my couch assembly and immediately wondered why the hell Eric was trying to rope me into seeing some damn J-pop on a Sunday night but the couch came together in short order and it was early, so I figured what the hell and ran out for a drink.

I figured there was either a Dave Fridmann or a Number Girl connection and Eric confirmed that both hypotheses were correct. I only knew of Number Girl through Eric having played sax on one of their records and from the Superchunk documentary, but had a pretty good sense that they were huge in the East. Number Girl broke up a couple years ago and singer Mukai Shutoku initially tried a solo acoustic route before getting the Zazen Boys off the ground. The band has always had an improvisational direction but has bounced around genre-wise over the ten or eleven releases they've managed since 2004. That's what you call a work ethic. It was a half-filled, mostly Japanese room at Mercury when the men (Boys) showed and I figured that I'd have a drink and demur early. Little did I know that Zazen Boys would blow my mind.

It's kind of hard to articulate what the Zazen Boys do. I guess the easiest description would be a Japanese Dismemberment Plan. It's got some dance elements, some jazz, some rock but all quality, paired with some of the most awesome stop/start arrangements you'll ever hear. There are chops for days in the Zazen Boys franchise, but it never degenerates into noise or wankery. There are lots of odd meters against different odd meters yet I defy you to not shake your ass. Such a good time and an awesome surprise. I hear that they were recording with Fridmann before they made it to town, so look out for new material soon. I couldn't tell you where to get any of their material outside of torrent sites, but I would go out of my way to see or hear them as soon as possible. Check their web presence here

Gotta get me over to Japan!

R