A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.
My record collection
[368] Shonen Knife - Genki Shock (CD)
Dean guesting on one track on the always wonderful Shonen Knife’s 2006 album Genki Shock might have easily slipped me by…
… fortunately video of Dean recording his vocal while Luna were in Japan on their final tour was one of the ‘deleted scenes’ clips on the DVD of Tell Me Do You Miss Me
The next bit of this post is lifted from a Substack article from last year so apologies if it seems familiar!
Shockingly, for a band as long-established as Shonen Knife I only got to see them live when they played in Sunderland last year. I’m genuinely surprised that in that all of those years living in London and seeing multiple gigs a week that they and I had somehow managed to avoid each other. So, it was quite important that I took the opportunity to fill that gap.
I can honestly say that I have never seen a band enjoy themselves as much as Shonen Knife seem to. They’ve been on this tour for months, and are still the smiley-est band I’ve ever seen… they also rock, much harder than I expected. I mean they were, at times, so close to a metal band that I started to regret my lack of hair. They threw poses, they did the sign of the horns, they came to the front of the stage and head-banged. OK… Raven and Saxon and Girlschool didn’t sing songs about Banana Chips, or Cookie Day, or the power of sweet candy, but the way it made me feel was the same!
They played an hour or so of this beautiful, relentless, power-pop-punk-metal, finished with their lovely cover of The Carpenters Top of the World and left us to go and smile on Glasgow.
Now, they were all so smiley … but not equally so… Risa, played an hour of full-on rock drumming, including occasionally while on her feet, sang a couple of songs, and never stopped looking like she couldn’t believe how wonderful everything is! When she became a member of Shonen Knife 10 years ago she wrote on Facebook that she’d “like to play the drums powerfully and cheerfully with a smile” - achievement unlocked!
Shonen Knife, BMX Bandits, and The Cords
Extra love for Shonen Knife because they still do proper blogging while on tour - here’re the two posts about the Sunderland show:
- Saturday June 7 Sunderland, UK 🇬🇧 POP RECS (Atsuko)
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/175
- Artist: Shonen Knife
- Title: Genki Shock
- Format: CD
- Bought from a Discogs seller for £5