I first saw JAPANTHER during an opening in front of DEITCH PROJECTS a few years ago. They played this really frenetic set, out of the back of a small truck, which I coined as “Hard-Core Sing-Along” - since a lot of the kids in the audience sang along … I don’t remember the art show they played at, (it was Swoon), - but I’ll never forget their rock-on, fuck-on performance. The songs were short, fast, catchy, and full of NICK CAVE guttural screams .. into … their signature, handmade microphones-manipulated-from-old telephone handsets.
All this is caught seamlessly on their newly released CD - Skuffed Up My Huffy. My favorite songs are the johnny rebel ones, like: Challenge, River Phoenix, and Tender…. but, all of the songs have a low-fi hard-core charm that is undeniable.
So, all you never-die teenagers, grab this CD, a case of beer, and have a wild, arms akimbo party,
. . . singing . . . Fuck-ON!, JAPANTHER.
Artwork: by JAPANTHER / IAN VANEK (drums & vocals) & MATT REILLY (guitar & vocals)
. . .”we are an in-house art directed band” - I.V.
JAPANTHER, Skuffed Up My Huffy/MENLO PARK RECORDINGS RELEASE/SEPT 11/2007
www.myspace.com/official Japanther page
artlovers archival photo/IAN VANEK/2004
artlovers archival photos: IAN VANEK & MATT REILLY at AU BAR/SPRING 2005
(you can see a red telephone handset/microphone, just above IAN VANEK’S head
in this 2005 photo of him, at the drums, at Au BAR, in the WEST VILLAGE.)