Hot Toasters – “Fish and Doctor” 7”
Drag City, 1994
Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, 2008
Price: $.25
Hot Toasters hail from Japan and they are very clearly insane.
In the best way. Japan is a strange and fascinating place. How would you feel
if your country lived in isolation from the rest of the world up until 200 some
odd years ago? You would probably be weird too. Over the years, I have had
Japanese music and culture ruined for me by some really insufferable
Japanophiles and I have only recently opened up my borders for things Japanese
(i.e. Sushi, Haruki Murakami, anime, Japanese Baseball (which is fascinating
and way more grueling than the American Pastime by the way)). I’ve always loved
the great Japanese filmmakers, but that was always the exception (and Guitar
Wolf, but Guitar Wolf sort of transcend national heritage). Still, my intake of
Japanese music is very very limited. The “Fish and Doctor” 7” was Hot Toasters’
sole release, and it’s really a crying shame that they didn’t do more because
this 7” is drop dead awesome. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a band navigate
multiple genres within the same song with such ease. “Fish and Doctor” mostly
plays like a jaunty, almost folksy pop song that devolves into guttural, sludgy
metal halfway through before returning to the sweet, jet setting pop and then
blending the two together in a really fun way by the end. It’s fun, it’s silly,
it’s great music. “YUKIWATARI” has a bit of a ska flavor to it provided by
trumpet/saxophone/accordion, and while it’s more straightforward than “Fish and
Doctor,” with more lighthearted pop verses and punky choruses until the whole
fucking thing melts down at the end in a wash of guitars, bass and skronky
saxophones and horse-like screams. Awesome. The other b-side, “Milk,” rolls out
the metal chops once more and once more blends them with the various elements
that comprise the 7”s other tracks. There’s a weird sax solo in the directly
after a minute of pummeling metal chords before the song morphs into a big,
catchy indie rock song. It’s unselfconscious genre bending, which is really the
only kind of genre bending I can appreciate, and after listening to this 7” a
few times I’m legitimately sad that this is all the Hot Toasters I’m ever gonna
get.
"Yukiwatari"
Ian, THANK YOU. The EP is still available from Drag City for $8. I'm tempted to buy it. I could have sworn I downloaded the longer FISH+DOCTOR album from which this is excerpted. I was in NYC in '96 and went to a DEFUNKT show at some underground club. I was a big DEFUNKT fan and loved the show, but the small venue was almost empty, and I was disappointed that they were not getting the respect they deserved. But among the few attendees I made friends with a trio of Japanese folks, and with their broken English and my worse Japanese we decided to go out drinking in the East Village, and we drank all night, until the bar closed around 4 am. We had a great time! And a few weeks later, what should arrive in the mail but a handmade copy of FISH+DOCTOR on cassette tape! It had, I think, 6 or 7 tracks on it, including all three that are on the EP. I listened to it regularly for years, and it remains one of my favorite albums, for all of the reasons you state. I just searched and found their live show from 2018, it looks like all of the original cuts that are on the cassette. The mix is unfortunate, but the music, with all of the band's fun and enthusiasm, comes through. Thanks Ian!
ReplyDeleteabsolutely love this band. the songs on this 7” come from their 1993 album “Creek Dust”, which was recently reissued on CD alongside a new album of 1991-2001 recordings called “felucca”. both albums are just -super super super- good, though i think felucca takes the cake. Summer Kingdom” (夏の王国) and “Nobody Knows” (理由は誰も知らない) are particular favorites.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtube.com/watch?v=qQaaO5j2tbc
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TelCbVfVTUU
https://www.discogs.com/artist/1225534-Hot-Toasters
HOT TOASTERS are associates of another, similarly incredible and genre-destroying band, Coaltar of the Deepers, and COTD’s frontman NARASAKI runs the label that reissued the two albums. for some reason they aren’t available on streaming, but can both be picked up on CDJapan or amazon.co.jp (the latter has an English option and can ship globally!)
but yeah. fuckin’ love these dudes so much. they’re on twitter @hottoastersjap and have been active the past few years and into the future!