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Listen to Don Matsuo list the influences that make his band the Zoobombs tick, and you'll be tempted to yawn and roll your eyes.
"We like blues, soul, rock-bands like the Rolling Stones and James
Brown," says the Japanese musician through an interpreter. Sound
familiar? Perhaps, but their American debut, Welcome Back,
Zoobombs! (Emperor Norton), is anything but. Marked by an
unselfconscious sense of fun that's all but missing in most western
bands, the album is a genuinely thrilling discovery. Imagine Jon
Spencer without the irony -- or with a hint of Beck's slacker
alchemy -- and you have some approximation of what the Tokyo-based
quartet achieves.
Matsuo says the band's sound has roots in the Japanese way of
looking at music. "There are no distinctions made between American
or Swedish or African music," he explains. Given this blurring of
genres, it's no wonder that his songs show no compunction about
playing a distorted blues guitar against a bubblegum organ
("Jumbo") or coupling a screaming techno chorus onto a brooding
instrumental verse ("The Swamp"). Even his more straight-ahead
tunes, such as "Parking Rock" and "Midnight '69," are played with
an energy and innocence that translates as charm. "We're so far
removed from the styles in Japan, we have no idea of what's right
or wrong [musically], so we just play whatever sounds good."
After years of only seeing America on TV and the movies, Zoobombs
made their first visit to the States last spring, wowing crowds in
Los Angeles and at the South by Southwest music conference in
Austin. While Matsuo was impressed by the directness of the people
he met ("They came right up to us after the shows and told us how
much they like us. People would never do that in Japan"), he was
less pleased by American record stores and radio stations, both of
which he says give short shrift to the international market. "Very
few people are interested in what's going on outside their own
country," he says.
While he insists there's no connection, Matsuo is starting to write
songs for the next Zoobombs album in English (With the exception of
"Midnight '69," most of Welcome Back is comprised of a
high-octane hybrid of Japanese and English). "[English] just sounds
good," he says. "Even in Japan, no one really listens to the
words."
The band will be back in America this fall, and Matsuo is already
making plans. "I want to see Graceland and Sun Studio in Memphis,
and go to a real blues club in Chicago, and spend some time in New
York." Asked if there's anything else he wants to see, he pauses
for a moment before answering. "I just want to see America."
Who knows what he might come back with once he's had a closer
look.
STEVE MIRKIN