Wild Tokyo punks Angel Face, are headliners of the nearly sold-out Half-Baked #2 show with The Breadmakers at The Gem in Collingwood on November 21. They’ve now added three more Victorian shows to their brief tour: November 19 at The Vineyard in St Kilda , November 20 at The Social Club in Balnarring. (a freebie) and November 21 at Old Bar with Mach Pelican and Handgrendade Hearts.
Angel Face is the latest band for Fink, guitarist and iconic figure on the Japanese garage-punk scene and formerly of the legendary Teengenerate. He’s joined by bass player Toyozo (who appeared at Half-Baked #1 with Tokyo's fuzzed-out '60s styled garage-punkers The Fadeaways), wild woman skins basher Rayco and a freak who calls himself Hercules up front (and sometimes handcuffed to the microphone.)
Angel Face has two albums on US label Slovenly Recordings - one of which is reviewed here - with a special limited edition tour LP , “Home To Roost”, being sold exclusively at shows.
The Barman cornered Fink by email this week and posed some questions. Here’s the result.
I-94 BAR: Welcome to the Bar, Fink! How many times have you been to Australia with any of your previous bands and why do you think your connection to the underground scene here is so strong?
FINK: I’ve only been to Australia once before, with Teengenerate. It was In December, 2006, when we reunited for a show at the Tote Hotel. Toshi Maeda (ED: Australian-based promoter and member of Mach Pelican) invited us. I’d been influenced by the Australian music scene since I was a kid, and I’d always wanted to go there if I ever got the chance. So I was really happy to finally make it happen.
Teengenerate in 1985. Outtake for the "Get Action" album by Masao Nakagami.
My actual connection with the Australian music scene started when I got an offer from Dave Laing at Dog Meat Records. He asked if my band at the time, American Soul Spiders (ASS) , would be interested in doing a split single with Bored!, with each band covering songs by the other. That was around 1990 or 1991, so we were communicating by fax! We actually recorded the songs, but unfortunately the idea never came to fruition.
A little later, when I’d broken up ASS in ‘92 and started Teengenerate, Dave got in touch with me again, and we released an EP called “No Time”. Around the same time, Nick from The Breadmakers contacted me. His label, Corduroy Records, was putting out a split single with Teengenerate, and he asked us to be part of it.
After that, Wallabies Records in Tokyo released a split single featuring The Breadmakers and The Puritans. From that point on, our connections with the Australian scene really started to grow.
When The Breadmakers toured Japan in 1996, Teengenerate had unfortunately already broken up. But I put together a one-off band called Tomboys, with a female singer, and joined them on that tour.
Another connection came when Teengenerate played an event called "Garage Shock" in Bellingham, Washington, a port town in the US. That’s where I met Bruce Milne from Au Go Go Records. He was putting together a compilation of Japanese bands for his label and invited us to contribute. We recorded “Johnny & Dee Dee” by The Eastern Dark, a band we’d always loved, for the compilation.
There were other connections with Australian bands too. We played with Cosmic Psychos in the US, and we also played with The Spazzys when they came to Japan.
I think the 1990s were a time when connections between underground bands across different countries grew really quickly. It was an exciting time, and I feel lucky to have been part of it.
It’s the same with Dave Laing and Nick from The Breadmakers. They all love pure rock’n’roll bands like The Real Kids and the Flamin’ Groovies. And that’s exactly the kind of good rockin’ music we love too. In a world where that kind of music is becoming harder and harder to find, I think it’s those shared values and our mutual love of rock’n’roll that have kept our bonds so strong over the years.
I-94 BAR: What do you remember of that Australian tour by Teengenerate in 2006?
FINK: One of the things I remember most is how happy I was to share the stage with Kim Salmon. He’s one of my heroes. When I was playing in a band called The Raydios, we used to cover “Last Night” by The Scientists. So it was really special to get up on stage and sing that song together with Kim. I’ll never forget it.
I-94 BAR: Many people won't be aware of Teengenerate and the band's importance to Japanese underground music, so talk about that.
FINK: I don’t think we’re particularly important in the Japanese music scene. Never. Maybe it looks that way because we released records on overseas labels and occasionally toured abroad, but that’s about it.
I-94 BAR: How is the Japanese scene now compared to the early 1990s when Teengenerate were around?
FINK: Well, the number of bands around us has dropped to just a fraction of what it was back then. But lately, I’ve been playing with more and more young bands.
Some of these young musicians grew up learning about music from their parents, who are music fans themselves. They’ve known about Radio Birdman and The Saints since they were kids. They even know all kinds of obscure punk bands that were so underground in our day that we’d never even heard of them!
Times have changed, but I’m proud that there are still young bands out there who love this kind of music and want to play it.
I-94 BAR: Australian crowds know Angel Face's bass player Toyozo from a couple of visits with The Fadeaways. Talk about the other band members, Hercules and Rayco. How did Angel Face form?
FINK: Hercules was originally a drummer. He still plays drums in a power pop band called Sensitive Lips, as well as a cool Sapporo band called The Cheaters. And he also played in Liquid Screen at one point. He’s a really good drummer. He’s originally from the Kyoto area, but moved to Tokyo about four years ago.
Back when Angel Face was a three-piece, he used to come to our shows and dance like crazy right at the front of the stage. So I told him, “If you love this band so much, why don’t you join us and sing?” That’s how he became our singer.
Rayco is the drummer in a band called Triple Junk, which she formed with her husband. After they had a child, they couldn’t really continue playing together, so the band is currently on hiatus.
When I started Ruler, I asked Rayco to join, and we’ve been playing together ever since. She’s also a really great drummer. Her husband plays in a rock’n’roll band called Broken Hearts, and they’re really cool too.
I-94 BAR: We’ve seen the critics' description of the style of music Angel Face plays as "wild" but what's yours? Who are the main influences and who writes the band's songs?
FINK: Well, I’d say Angel Face is basically a bar rock band. Nothing more, nothing less.
My influences come mainly from British, American and Australian music from the ’60s and ’70s. I listen to all kinds of music, and I also love mellow stuff. But I think I’d need another 30 years of practice before I could play jazz properly. And if I wanted to sing soul, I’d have to do 100 sit-ups every day!
So I guess simple, instinctive rock’n’roll, like the early Scientists or DMZ, is what comes most naturally to me. It’s probably the kind of music that suits me best.
As for songwriting, I write the songs, but the other members always bring their own ideas to them. So in that sense, you could say we create the songs together as a band.
I-94 BAR: Angel Face played "Gonerfest" in the USA two years ago. How long was that after the band's formation?
FINK: Well, I think the band was formed in 2021, but we played as a three-piece for a while. Hercules joined us in August 2022, so Gonerfest was about two years after we became a four-piece.
I-94 BAR: Was playing "Gonerfest "as a result of you being on Slovenly Records and who else was on that bill?
FINK: Organiser Eric got in touch with me shortly after our first album came out on Slovenly Records. Eric and I go way back. We’ve been friends since before he even started the Oblivians.
All the bands on the bill were great. I really enjoyed Derv from the Equals, too. But my favorite was probably Pull Chains, the band Greg Cartwright was playing in. They were really, really good.
I-94 BAR: Your brother and former Teengenerate and American Soul Spiders bandmate Fifi runs one of Tokyo's coolest bars in Poor Cow. He regularly asks visitors to post a selfie with a list of their Top Ten albums on Poor Cow's Instagram. The I-94 Bar is asking you to send a selfie of you doing the same.
I-94 BAR: Since we're in a bar, what are you drinking?
FINK: I always drink draft beer!
