From Wikipedia –
Hanatarash was notorious for its dangerous live shows. Some of the band’s most infamous shows included Eye cutting a dead cat in half with a machete*, strapping a circular saw to his back and almost cutting his leg off, and destroying part of a venue with a backhoe bulldozer by driving it through the back wall and onto the stage.
At a 1985 show in Tokyo’s Superloft, the audience was required to fill out waivers due to the possibility of harm caused by the show. The show was stopped due to Eye preparing to throw a lit molotov cocktail onto the stage. The performance cost ¥600,000 (approximately $9,000 US) in repairs.
After several years of the intense live shows, Hanatarash was forbidden from performing at most venues, and were only allowed to return to live performances in the 1990s without the trademark danger.
I think the guitar feedback sounds like Steve Albini’s guitar in Big Black.
I have had the opportunity to see Space Streakings and Melt-Banana live. Both shows were incredible. The guitarist from Space Streakings had a GASOLINE-POWERED guitar with spinning rotors. He didn’t strum it, he throttled it. I saw them at the Midtown Music Hall in Atlanta. The air was full of smoke. It was a face-melting, brutal display of blast beats and guitar insanity. The guitarist also had, on his back, a freight truck air horn he blasted directly at the audience. I went home damaged, destroyed.
And Melt-Banana plays some of the tightest Japanese punk ever made. I saw them in Tampa and consider it one of the best concerts I ever saw, ever, ever. If you want to get a taste of the current state of Osaka noise performance, you can go to The Bears in Namba district, Osaka.
If you ever want to see a more pure, distilled form of Japanoise, check out Masonna’s super best Jazz hands.
And Yamatsuka, who played with John Zorn, went on to work int the noise jazz supergroup Naked City. Here they are live playing the incomparably crazy Speedfreaks among other frenetic and abrasive tracks.
Yamatsuka Eye spent many years playing with the fun and chaotic group Boredoms. This is a good track, Which Dooyoo Like? My favorite album is Chocolate Synthesizer. Funny, funky, and unpredictably brilliant.
*I disapprove of messing with dead animals onstage. It’s stupid and unsanitary and demented.
Fifty State Banana 