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Shonen Knife (Photo: Supplied / additional design: Gabi Lardies)
Shonen Knife (Photo: Supplied / additional design: Gabi Lardies)

Pop CultureMarch 12, 2024

Shonen Knife brighten up the basement

Shonen Knife (Photo: Supplied / additional design: Gabi Lardies)
Shonen Knife (Photo: Supplied / additional design: Gabi Lardies)

The Japanese pop-punk band that’s been making music for 42 years ended their brief tour of New Zealand with a sweaty show at Auckland’s Whammy Bar on Saturday night. Here’s how it went.

Three Japanese women checked and tuned their instruments wearing black Shonen Knife T-shirts. Covering their legs were colourful flared pants, decorated with black and white squiggles, which we’d later learn were made by bassist and singer Atsuko Yamano. On the glittery pink guitar and also singing was Atsuko’s older sister Naoko Yamano. The newest and youngest member of the band, Risa Kawano, sat behind the drums and never stopped smiling.

Shonen Knife formed in Osaka in 1981, when two office workers, Naoko and her friend Michie Nakatani, started a band inspired by the Beatles, the Jam and the Ramones. Naoko’s younger sister Atsuko, 17 at the time, was enlisted to play the drums. It was rare at the time for a punk-rock band to have all women members, but they found that the “boy bands” were keen to have them perform at their gigs. Resistance came from the Yamano’s mum, and so the sisters would hide their instruments when leaving for gigs. Nakatani left in 1999, Atsuko took her place on the bass, and there was a revolving cast of drummers until Risa Kawano joined in 2015. 

Once they were ready, the T-shirts came off, revealing sleeveless tops matching the flares. The costumes are perhaps the first clue that through Shonen Knife you won’t be receiving the typical “pop-punk” offering. There’s something much happier, much more earnest and carefree – but it’s mixed with music and stage antics usually left for heavy, dark music. The Yamano sisters headbang, flinging their hair over their face – technically like Black Sabbath, but not like that at all, since they’re doing it in unison and smiling. When Kawano holds her drum sticks in an X I wondered if she meant it like a kiss. Atsuko and Naoko don’t hold back in throwing the devil horns out to the crowd, who are quick to return them.

I’m not sure if the innocent joyousness is a parody, or if the horns are. Is it all too sweet to be earnest? Behind me, someone said, “they’re so cute”. 

Atsuko Yamano (left), Risa Kawano (behind, centre) and Naoko Yamano on stage at Whammy 9 March 2024. (Photo: Natalie Woods)

When I bought my ticket to see a band who became cult legends when they toured with Nirvana in 1991, I was surprised to see the venue – the sticky underground pit that is Whammy. Surely this basement on Karangahape Road was too small, too dingy, too underwhelming to host a band that’s been touring around the world for over 40 years? On the same night, P!nk was performing to around 50,000 people in a stadium up the road. Sure, that’s certainly not the type of success Shonen Knife is aiming for, but… Whammy? The bar where many messy local bands book their first gigs, where you can wander in for free sometimes and get your ear-drums blasted, or where you end up hanging around outside because it’s too hot and sweaty and gross in there?

In an ideal world, I think Shonen Knife would have performed at the King’s Arms, where they played when they came here back in 2015 – but, alas, RIP. Still, when they began, the choice of venue made sense. This was an intimate show – none of the audience were further than about 8 metres from the band, and from where I was I could see the imperfect stitching on the costumes, beads of sweat forming on Atsuko Yamano’s neck, and Naoko Yamano’s ruffled hair. It was a proximity that didn’t require a “giant metal diaper” to bring them close. A big stadium show is not necessarily better than a show at a little dive bar.

Atsuko Yamano (left), Risa Kawano (behind, centre) and Naoko Yamano on stage at Whammy 9 March 2024. (Photo: Natalie Woods)

As their set progressed, the heaviness of the music built, to the point where Naoko was screaming for an impossibly long time and Kawano was thrashing the drums. But it’s odd because the subject matter is usually candy. The lyrics vary from “yum yum yum”, to “it’s a nice day”, to “afternoon snack time is three o’clock”. The crowd jumped up and down, smiling and silly. 

It’s easy to begin wondering if it’s bad for punk or punk-derivative music to be totally empty of politics. Talking on RNZ’s Music 101 before the tour, Naoko Yamano said “I don’t want to write about social problems or sad things”. Instead the aim of her songwriting is to “make people happy”. Perhaps there’s a nobility in this. Perhaps she’s subverting the subversive. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it and I should just enjoy it.

At the end, Kawano tied up her hair, got up and joined hands with the other two. They bowed. Many “arigato”s were exchanged between the band and the excited audience. When they disappeared behind the curtain at the side of the stage, people began clapping and chanting for an encore. I’d forgotten about this strange ritual – I reckon it hasn’t happened at Whammy for a while. The three returned to the stage, looking sweaty and dishevelled. They thanked that audience for being so polite, and played two more songs. Afterwards, the ritual was repeated. Naoko Yamano returned to the stage first, breathless. She held up her index finger. They were tired, but they happily played one last song – their famous cover of The Carpenters’ ‘Top of the World’ – to finish their New Zealand tour. 

‘Help keep The Spinoff funny, smart, tall and handsome – become a member today.’
Gabi Lardies
— Staff writer
Keep going!
Kate Winslet stars in The Regime (Photo: Supplied)
Kate Winslet stars in The Regime (Photo: Supplied)

Pop CultureMarch 11, 2024

Review: Kate Winslet steals the show in HBO’s darkly comic The Regime

Kate Winslet stars in The Regime (Photo: Supplied)
Kate Winslet stars in The Regime (Photo: Supplied)

Tara Ward reveals why Neon’s new political satire will fill the Succession-shaped hole in your heart.

This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. 

What’s all this then? 

The Regime is Neon’s dark new HBO political satire that stars Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Hugh Grant and Martha Shrimpton. It’s the latest in a series of memorable TV roles for Winslet, who plays Chancellor Elena Vernham, the authoritarian leader of a fictitious country somewhere in “Middle Europe”. Vernham rules with an intimidating iron fist, but she’s also a paranoid hypochondriac who hasn’t left the palace in years, and keeps the rotting corpse of her dead father in a glass coffin in the basement. So far, so normal.

Vernham lives in authoritarian Europe’s version of Premier House, and she’s convinced the run-down palace is making her sick. She hires a soldier known as “The Butcher” whose sole purpose is to walk in front of her holding a machine that reads moisture levels, and Corporal Zubak soon becomes Vernham’s unlikely confidant. As Zubak’s anti-authoritarian influence over the chancellor grows, Vernham’s grasp on power becomes more precarious.

This bleakly comedic six-part series takes place over one year as both the regime and Vernham begin to unravel. As well as Winslet, there’s plenty of other impressive talent involved in the show:  it was created and written by Will Tracy (The Menu, Succession) and directed by New Zealander Jessica Hobbs (The Crown) and Stephen Frears (The Queen, Philomena).

What’s good?

First of all, The Regime is gorgeous. It’s like The Crown meets The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Grand Budapest Hotel, with rich colourful sets, a quirky vibe and a whole lot of well-dressed people desperate to cling on to whatever power they have. There’s also an uneasy air to every scene, which fits a show about a woman whose dead dad is slowly decaying several floors below where she sleeps.

Winslet, as you would expect, is fantastic. This is a very different role compared to her other HBO shows Mare of Easttown and Mildred Pierce, but she’s hugely charismatic as the messy and unpredictable autocrat. One minute Vernham is slapping Zabek for embarrassing her in public, the next she’s busting out a terrible rendition of Chicago’s ‘If You Leave me Now’ to a room full of international dignitaries. She’s an intriguing character, to say the least, and Winslet’s comedic performance elevates the show completely.

Like Succession, The Regime pokes fun at the ways power and ambition can corrupt people. I’m guessing that as the series unfolds and Vernham’s life starts to spin out of control, The Regime will lean in harder to being more of a dark, twisted drama, allowing Winslet to really shine.

What’s not so good?

The Regime is billed as a satire, but it’s not laugh out loud comedy. The humour here is dark but uneven, and I wasn’t always sure who the show was taking the piss out of. Sometimes there’s a welcome whiff of The Thick of It in scenes featuring Vernham’s staff and colleagues, who are equally repulsed and terrified by her. Maybe if there was more of a focus on the people at the whim of her ridiculous demands, the show’s satirical insights might have landed a little sharper and harder.

The verdict

If you’re a fan of quirky political satire or you thought Succession needed more scenes in damp European palaces, you’ll enjoy this. Despite the bumpy humour, it’s a beautifully made show and Winslet steals every scene she’s in.

The Regime streams on Neon. 

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