DAISUKE & PROSTITUTE
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
DAISUKE AND PROSTITUTE - ??? (1981)
Got this one off Mutant Sounds, and it’s ben in my head for weeks now. A fierce Japanese No Wave-style band that I know next to nothing about, but it’s killer stuff, and after having just found some info on it, lo and behold, it’s got a killer backstory as well. Jrawk.com sez:
There are few careers that have swerved as severely as the career of Daisuke Yoshino. Starting off as a Yokohama folkie, Yoshino put out two well received albums that fit firmly in the Happy End/Buffalo Springfield mold under his own name…thing is, in early 70s Japan, there was no shortage of stuff like this. Yoshino’s story might have ended with him being just another folkie, a name in a very, very long list of artists who enjoy respect from a core of devoted Jfolk followers, but who tend to blend in to anyone outside the faithful. That didn’t happen.
Hindsight is 20/20, but there was a slightly rougher edge to Yoshino’s outlook than the average acoustic strummer. There was a bit more stress, as well as an occasional tinge of the ghostly, almost country rock that Neil Young was exploring at the same time. But darker edge or no, Yoshino’s fans couldn’t have possibly been prepared for the album that broke the six year silence.
The name is only the first clue. Daisuck & Prostitute hardly invokes lazy, sunny days with acoustic guitars. Yoshino had discovered No New York, or at least the Tokyo version of it: the Tokyo Rockers scene was in full swing in when their second album was unleashed, and one can only assume that Yoshino had been more than a little inspired by the acidic, confrontational sound of Friction, among others. So much for folk clubs. While the Rockers/No New York crowd might have been about the deconstruction and recontextualizing of rock’s building blocks, Daisuck & Prostitute just plug in and kick ass.