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Listen up, I’ve throwing a Banzai Au-Go-Go party here in my pad baby and I want all you cats and kittens to come on down and get hip to the Jpop buzz and shake some action to the swinging sounds the sixties Japanese garage and pop sounds... The variety of styles these Japanese cats are cranking out is outta site. I got some hard hitting psychedelia from The Mops, some crazy pop from the likes of the Tigers, the Carnabeats and the Spiders, Some R&B from The Golden Cups and The Voltage and some heavy fuzz punk from The Out Cast and The Beavers. Once that fuzz-tone attack hits your cerebral cortex and you’re mind starts turning to cottage cheese, you are going to ask yourself where and how did this mutation of western culture take place.
 It is 1965 again, The Ventures, those instrumental surf kings have hit the Far East and have kick started the "eleki" movement. Suddenly, almost overnight, there are combos of surf playing Japanese bands. Then in 1966, there were these guys called The Beatles. You might have heard of them. Well, they play live at Buddakan and without a second to pass, there were numerous Japanese John, Paul, George and Ringos everywhere. Hordes of Japanese youths begin forming bands dubbed "Group Sounds" by the media and the authorities deemed it degenerate. Rather than just merely imitate their British and American heroes, these GS groups develop their own distinctly idiosyncrasy interpretation bursting with an energy peculiar to Japan. It is characterized by darkly dissonant oriental melodies and a tendency to go from a gentle ballad or a straight-ahead pop song into an over-the-top, fuzzed-out screaming rave-up, with bloodcurdling screams all within the same song!
 The Japanese language itself does not lend itself particularly well to rock’n’roll so when the Japanese attempt to sing in English, a phonetic interpretation often has to suffice. Take the Out Cast’s demolishing Long Tall Sally. It is brilliant! The Voltage performing James Brown’s It’s A Man’s Man’s World with the heavily accented vocal gives it an additional creepiness absent from the original. The Japanese reinterpreting Western rock is one of the great discoveries.
 Some come on in and get your mojos workin’ Asia style, feel free to cut the rug with Suki and Kyoto. Come on, I know you can’t resist doing the power stance and forming a little congo line and dance to the sounds of The Spiders- Furi Furi.
 Hey man, don’t drink too much of that sake! Since geography forbids some of you from making the Bonzai Au-Go-Go happening, don’t fret! The first five people to drop a line to scratch_pop_hiss@yahoo.com will get a 25 track soundtrack of the happening with selections pulled from the Casetta music library.
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