Japanese Sleeves

For lack of any noticeable music scene in Fukuoka, I've decided to raid the 100 yen record bins to see what I can discover about Japanese music.

Based solely on awesome cover art.

At the very least this should be visually stimulating.

A Tribute to New Rote’ka (2004)

No one can resist a creepy clown. Love em or hate em, we’re all strangely compelled by them. And so it was I was drawn to this record. I wasn’t sure what New Rote’ka was, a genre? a band? But it didn’t matter. Turns out, it’s a band. A punk band dating from as far back as 1984, seemingly now reunited, and fronted by a crazy clown. Alright, I can dig it. This album is actually a bit of a two-in-one find for me. The lively, strange, and punky sounds of New Rote’ka are pretty cool, even the somewhat poppy tracks, with a definite edge, some ska, and just the right amount of strange diversions to keep it from being too derivative. The bonus here is that it’s also a double album of covers done by current rock and punk bands including the Polysics, Potshot, Puffy, Jindou and Anarchy. Not having heard New Rote’ka before on their own, I’m pretty impressed with what they *could* sound like, but it’s hard to say how faithful these covers are and how much of what I like about some of the songs is the cover band putting their spin on it. Nevertheless, an intriguing introduction to one of Japan’s longest standing punk bands and for discovering some of the new groups born out of their influence.

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