TAKESHI TERAUCHI& THE BUNNYS
Despite their cute and cuddly name, the Bunnys weren’t a band to be messed with. You can see that right there on the cover of their debut LP from 1966, Let’s Go Terry, with the Bunnys lined up all snotty and full of attitude, in their matching jet-black punk outfits, the older Terry standing out in the middle like a lumberjack fronting the Music Machine. And they’re all lined up like they’re ready to rumble or something, arms crossed, in front of a big brick warehouse, where you can just tell they’ve either got some sort of underground Fight Club going on, or hundreds of naked geisha girls just waiting to service the band when they’re finished with the photo shoot. Hey, they’re Bunnys, which means they f*** like Bunnys too. Now, inside this formidable jacket, where lesser albums might break down, well, that’s where Let’s Go Terry gets even better. You ever see those Spiders albums, or Golden Cups records? Decked out in their psychedelic finery, with Fillmore West fonts and day-glo colors – yet when you actually get to spinning the record – y’know, the reason you actually buy these things – it’s nothing but lame Motown covers in irreparably broken English. Well, thank God, I’m happy to report that Let’s Go Terry is the same inside as it is outside. This little licorice pizza is the very essence of garage surf madness. This is Quentin Tarantino’s wet dream, a Kill Bill-like collision of 60’s punk recklessness and more twangy whammy bar hotwired electric guitar than a half dozen Ventures albums hopped up on sake. The brilliant “Black Carnation” shoulda been playing during O-Ren Ishii’s big fight scene, no offense to the 5.6.7.8s of course. But this is, after all, the real deal, the genuine article – 100% authentic Japanese garage surf with Terry’s shudder guitar ripping out Crazy 88 entrails with each new riff, while a reedy teen combo band organ mops up the blood left on the floor from Sofie Fatale’s severed arm. I can’t imagine any other GS group willing to actually follow these guys on stage. Or clean up their mess.
“Burning, Burning” is a pretty good way to describe their sound, and this twangy garage punk rave-up really picks up midway when someone in the band starts shouting out orders. “Come on Rico! Terry! Aaaarrrrgggggggghhh!” as he lets loose a deafening guttural scream that means either a) he’s trying to kick start these kids into high gear, or b) Uma Thurman’s just plunged a Hanso sword into the base of his spine. Either way, the band lurches forward into another crazed slab of Japanese surf punk, and it leaves you wondering just who in the band is named “Rico”? But of course, Terry’s mantra – his legendary masterpiece and the B-side of his first single with the Bunnys – is the absolutely incendiary mindf**k “Test Driver,” which appears on Let’s Go Terry in all its hotwired, string-bending, skull-crushing majesty. If the rest of Let’s Go Terry is where surf and garage music get married, then “Test Driver” is where they finally f***, and do so in every position, in every room, and on every countertop and sink in the house. Over a cool rumbling Peter Gunn like bassline, Terry lets loose with great tsunamis of bendy-note freakbeat surf guitar, like hanging ten off Godzilla’s wake. This is a rave-up for the ages, the pinnacle of Japanese surf punk, not that that was a high mountain anyway but you get the point. Julian Cope called “Test Driver” a “legendary mind death riffothon,” and he’s insane. Great minds think alike.
Cool mix of instrumental & vocal garage/surf tunes '66 shogun style. 掘る!!!
