THE SPITFIRES - 2011 JAPAN TOUR w/ The Stately DJ WAYNE MANOR

As some of you might remember, THE SPITFIRES from Perth, Australia came to Japan way back in December, 2011 for a Japan tour including a couple Xmas parties in the Tokyo Yokohama area and a week of Xmas hangover shows down to Nagoya, Hamamatsu and Osaka.  


(THE SPITFIRES - SHALLOW GRAVE PV, featuring highlights of the 2011 Japan Tour)

Yours truly organized a fateful Friday nite of indie garage goodness at Orange County Brothers in Yokohama, the Friday before Xmas with special guests including VIVIAN BOYS, DEAD BAMBIES, THE PHANTASMS, ANDROID BEACH PARTY & HOWLING GUITAR!


(THE PHANTASMS in Holiday Regal at Orange County Bros.)

 
(DEAD BAMBIES Going Christmas Crazy at Orange County Bros.)

Christmas Eve was a real wild Xmas bash called "Chiki Chiki Cherry Bomb Vol.41," thrown by CHERRY TIMES, the cutest, kookiest garage zine in Tokyo, run by a bunch of nutty Japanese girls into the current retro garage punk sounds around town. They graciously invited THE SPITFIRES to play and yours truly to deejay some rare & unknown Christmas jingles. Girls-in-the-garage-influenced MELVINS opened & THE FADEAWAYS played an EASY BEATS cover for our Aussie friends. THEEE BAT made a ruckus and the infamous JET BOYS started a riot! KUSOKURAE (aka Fuck You!) made some wild noise & THE IMPACTS, special guests from Kobe went wild. And that's how THE SPITFIRES experienced their first real Japan show at SHINJUKU JAM! It was all documented in a special edition of CHERRY TIMES!

 
 (THE IMPACTS at CHIKI CHIKI CHERRY BOMB Xmas Party at SHINJUKU JAM!)

On Sunday, everyone came out for "Christmas with THE SPITFIRES" at HOUSE of MYSTERY! Yours truly, The Stately DJ Wayne Manor, threw a party that went down in the annals of HEAVY SICK history! Heavy Sick being the club where I have my HQ and delight in entertaining guests with numerous indie bands, special burlesque performances and, for Xmas, present giveaways! This year we had bunch of bands play their classic sets but with some Xmas covers thrown in; the line-up included THE HARPY'S, the STOMPIN' RIFF RAFFS, ED WOODS & THE FLY & HIS ONE MAN GARBAGE! There was a short intermission for COCO FLAME to give SENIOR SANTA a very special dance before he had to go on his merry way back to Mexico! Both COCO & SANTA reappeared on stage and raffled of some very special presents from the bands to customers! The lovable, lucky MASAKO got a real gone boomerang from THE SPITFIRES themselves!


(SENIOR SANTA gets a special dance from Tokyo burlesque queen COCO FLAME!)

Loaded up on goodies and good-times, feeling the Christmas hangover, THE SPITFIRES & WAYNE MANOR embarked on a bullet train ride to Hamamatsu where we met TAKUMiX from the punk label MODERNEDGE. He drove us to the next gig, Monday nite in Nagoya at SONSET STRIP for "THE BOOT UP Vol.8" with some crazy punks like RADiXTAR, SUGAR BOYZ, TAKAO ISHIDA (THE 4-MATION) & TAKUMiX himself with his mates! I DJed with a hip Nagoya mods selector by the name of FUJJY. Then we headed on back to our hotels in Hamamtsu for some much needed resting.


(SHOCKTROOPS cranking it out at G-SIDE in HAMAMATSU!)

TAKUMiX hosted "THE BOOT UP Vol.9" at G-SIDE in HAMAMATSU, a very cool venue which also houses the MODERNEDGE HQ and TAKUMiX's new mods/punks/skins shop. This show was a riot of underground music featuring cali-style punks RADiXTAR, TAKAO ISHIDA from THE 4-MATION, garage-blues influenced skinhead group SHOCK TROOPS, hard-rockers KILLER-Q & TAKUMiX MITSUDER-MAN & MATES with special guest vocalist PeCo Baby (a very lovely artist and model) doing roots ska and enough slick punk to make any neo-mod swing a bit. THE SPITFIRES really got the crowd roaring at this one!


(THE SPITFIRES saying good bye to TAKUMiX at HAMAMATSU Station)  

Sadly we said our good-byes to the Hamamatsu/Nagoya scene and got on a trainful of mishaps that took us to Osaka just in time for sound check at NAMBA MELE! There we checked into our hostel, more like a beatnik trap for wandering artists, and headed to the club where we met WONDER 3 who hosted the Wednesday party titled "HIGH NUMBER!!" which was the final night of THE SPITFIRES Japan tour. Yours truly handled MC duties as well as spinning a mix of classic garage/mods tunes. Opening was a Kansai noise trio called 鹿鳴館 giving us a glimpse at local flavor. THE CADILLACS rustled out some alternative rock for the kids and THE OOH-MELS gave me what my Tokyo-garage-garage-lovin'-ass need to get me through the last leg! After THE SPITFIRES got the crowd going, The WONDER 3 rousted up some comedic suit-wearing mod RnR to end the night!

The rest, well, let's say we all got safely back to where we needed to be and my girlfriend & I met up with SPITFIRES vocalist Sean and his girlfriend Ellie back in Tokyo for some drinks and final good byes before the calling of the New Year! From meeting THE SPITFIRES at the SWANK Rockin' Yule Xmas party to the last day of the tour they were mates! They have since relocated to Aussie indie rock centre Melbourne and I hope to see them back in Japan sometime soon!