This is my favorite band of the next five minutes:
Poni-Camp is led by former guitarist for the all-girl punk band Lolita No. 18 who now goes by ENAPOu, formerly ENAZOu, really just "Ena." They practice that particular brand of upbeat, poppy and uniquely Japanese punk that's about 70% Ramones and 30% cotton candy but that still manages to be closer to the real thing than most modern American bands could ever aspire to. Ena's well-known for having a crazy voice that makes her sound about 30 years younger than she is (even when she talks). Here's a sample of them covering a Snuff tune on the recently released (in Japan) Yowavinalaaaafincha? - A Tribute To Snuff:
Enapou rocks. Here she is in a couple of earlier Lolita No. 18 videos:
Crawl
Rockaway Beach
That is actually Joey Ramone in the video for "Rockaway Beach" - he produced that album for them, shortly before his death. He was a fan.
Actually, the first time I saw Enazou was on this video for a punked-up cover of the 1980's Japanese pop song Nantettatte Idol helping out her friends Ami and Yumi of Puffy. I was interested to learn that that's actually Puffy covering Lolita No. 18 covering Kyoko Koizumi! Lolita No. 18's version is pretty much the same, but with Masayo's acquired taste of a voice subbing for Ami and Yumi's more straightforward vocals.
Enazou left Lolita No. 18 in 2001, seems to have basically taken four years off, then formed Poni-Camp in 2005 and changed her name. She's been around for close to 20 years now. Poni-Camp stuff is kind of hard to find, but - and I can't believe I'm saying this - thank god for MySpace, which has five songs you can listen to. All of them rock! She sings in English, and she sounds really natural doing it.
Some indie record label here has got to pick these guys up.
No comments:
Post a Comment