Beginning with a death...

Thee Michelle Gun Elephant's guitarist, Abe Futoshi died on July 22, 2009. He was 42. Imawano Kyoshiro, now Abe, that's a lot of solar eclipses for Japan this year.
Ironic pretext to present them...

Formed in 1991, they broke up in 2003. There's a lot of online english sources on them cause they are quite known overseas, but i reassure you, it's not another "ultra-cool kung-fu garage punk from Japan" as uninformed press usually like to qualify japanese bands (notify the quasi-systematic use of words as kung-fu, tsunami, tougher that Hiroshima, kamikaze and affiliated when talking about japanese bands). I don't don't have any starting point to qualify their music, exept than nothing filters through their steamroller-like deafening wall of sound. That's Rock and any others adjectives are superfluous. Chiba Yusuke (vocals, guitar) often seems to scream, but once you'll pass this pitfall (if this is one for you) you'll discover than a lot of their song are actually very well composed and even if they're poseurs, even if the lyrics are sometimes repetitive, this band deserve its reputation. I would like to upload the LP long version of Dany Go but i can't encode my records, so try to get Gear Blues,amazing double LP on Triad with great gatefold packaging.
This video is kind of long, but it's awesome. Thrilling footage of Abe's guitar playing (watch that with the proper material!).