Bop Records Proudly Presents

TEENGENERATE ?The Kings of Tokyo Garage Punk

Thursday 28th Dec @Tote Hotel, Collingwood
w/Spazzys, Mach Pelican, Kamikaze Trio and Breadmakers (In Cobra)

Friday 29 Dec @Tote Hotel, Collingwood
w/Spencer P Jones & the Escape Committee, Kim Salmon, Onyas and Eddy Current Suppression Ring (In Cobra)

"You’ve seen Guitar Wolf, you know The 5678s, you heard about The Gimmies, now you can get the real action. Bop Records and The Tote announce two exclusive Australian shows of the true kings of Tokyo Garage Punk, Teengenerate. The Tokyo quartet were at the spearhead of the mid 90s Japanese Garage Rock Craze. Although they only existed between 1993 and 1995, their impact on rock 'n' roll was enormous: garage rock would not be what it is now without them.

Centered around long term musical collaborators (& brothers) Fink & Fifi, together with Sammy and Shoe, Teengenerate recorded everything in the red - the fuzz became a fifth member. Far from a gimmick, as their stand out long player Get Action suggests, (along with a hoard of 7 inches, split singles and comps), these guys were wild and tight. Their records have also included covers of Radio Birdman's "Burn My Eye", The Eastern Dark's "Johnny and Dee Dee", "Savage" by The Fun Things and "All I Want" by the Dirty Lovers. Following the demise of Teengenerate, members continued playing in other name droppers, including Firestarter, Supersnazz, and most recently the reformed Raydios.

After recently reforming to play Billy Bass Wolf’s memorial gig, Teengenerate have now agreed to take the trip down under to pay their respects to the Australian music that so influential in creating their sound.

Your only chance to catch Teengenerate live is at The Tote on Thursday 28th December and Friday 29th December. To celebrate this visit, Bop Records are releasing the "Live At The Shelter" album to coincide with the tour. Tickets are $30 + bf and available at The Tote Front Bar (3 9419 5320), Missing Link, Polyester and the Corner Box Office (www.cornerhotel.com). "

More info
http://www.boprecords.net/
www.myspace.com/teengeneratemusic

Contact – Toshi Maeda (Bop Records)
info@boprecords.net

"Okay you guys. Get all your shopping done early so you can join us for our last show of the year (and that's NOT last show forever like some Oregon band we know and love, and I think we know who I'm talking about, have recently done that's made us all bummed out). The Tacoma Mall is going to be nuts then anyway. Never shop on the last weekend before Christmas. You'd be crazy to do anything but come to Hell's Kitchen at 5 PM. We're playing with some really great young Tacoma bands that will probably kick our old asses.

So we'll hope to see you all there."

Your friends,

Bon and Girl Trouble

I’ll be glad to see the back of 2006. Not that I expect a great upswing in “the year of the great seventh number” but I’m sort of presuming that it can’t suck worse. This past week has seen flood and pestilence in Bonnie Scotchland. Not that your reporter has been adversely affected by the former. I made it home before they started closing roads and all that palaver. An ongoing, not life-threatening but uncomfortable ailment meant a stint at the local infirmary on Thursday. Bring on the results. Most likely the main thrust will be that it’s wear and tear through getting auld. You never know though. Am I concerned? No but thanks for asking. One gets used to situations even if they don’t understand them.

My ongoing tussles with keeping a myspace connection continue apace. I try to reply to mails but it generally ends up crashing. I am stoked however to have been added by JTFF today and can’t stop playing that video over and over. Going into myspace has the same kind of affect that going into one of those giant diy stores on me. I do want to dress up my page and all but the actuality of doing so sucks the will to live out of me.

There was a power cut here on Friday for acouple of hours. But, what if there was no power, no internet (ever!), the expectation that everything will work always is at best daft. Some supposedly higher power is quite feasibly fucking with us. Isn’t that what such entities do? Anyway, I’d like very much not to get perturbed when such bollocks but I haven’t mastered that level of understanding. Nope, all the toys get thrown outta the pram. Despite appearances, I is only - er - human...

Yesterday I left the bunker early and headed for Glasgow. Systematically managed to bodyswerve the shoppers and achieve what I set out to do. Mainly to hit up Volcanic Tongue to get my mitts on the only known available output of an SF phenom called Wooden Shjips. Yeah, with a J. Mr Hesske brought them to my attention earlier in the week and their sonic arsenal seemed to speak directly to my predicament in a ramalamafafafa meets Mac Rebennack’s "Storm Warning" backwards kinda way. More about them later but you can check out the YouTube clip that hooked me in the first instance. You can get it from VT here in the UK and I’ll sort out info for the US in due course.

Also went to see Stranger Than Fiction in one of those Multplex places. It takes a wee while to percolate but all in all it’s a decent way to spend just under 2 hours. There’s an irritating computer graphic effect involved toward the beginning but that soon passes. I’ve never been sure about Will Ferrell but he’s good in this and there’s a particularly pertinent use of a song that will strike a literal chord with hardcore NBT readers. It’ll hit you harder if I don’t tell you. It had quite an effect on Maggie Gyllenhaal's character - Ana, evidently a woman of taste. The soundtrack was put together by former Redd Kross man, Brian Reitzell.

Kudos to Mr Tom Morton who managed to get two Hello Saferide mentions into his Sunday Herald column this morning. Whilst we're on the subject - check out this version of "The Quiz", live from London.

And that’s about it. Time to get in about some music and I may be back this way again later today. Can’t say for sure.