Cibo Matto,

A truly darling, 1990s band fronted by two Japanese American residents of the big Apple

Greetings, welcome back. Today I am reverting to the original concept of the Thursday evening (US Eastern Standard Time) video drop. Find something cool and share it.

For those wonder, yeah, i did send my Tuesday column on Monday. Ooops. It’s been that kind of week. And then tonight I realized it’s Wednesday and that means it’s time to put this in the pipeline for tomorrow. Enjoy please . . .

In the meantime . . .

Back in the late 1990s, early 2000s, when I was involved in WRPI non-commercial radio, Cibo Matto was one of my favorite bands to play on the air. They were fun, they were cool, they were very creative, and they did not take themselves too seriously and part of making it through this world is to learn when not to take things too seriously and try to relax and have some nonsensical fun. ¹

But I didn’t really see them as “Asian” in the “Asian studies” sense. I mean two young women with artistic tendencies from Japan living in New York City who for whatever reason had decided to form a band, isn’t that more of a “New York City-thing” than an “Asian studies thing”? Curiously the band caught in the USA but never hit it big in Japan.

Then I watched this video which comes from a J-Pop (Japanese pop music) related YouTube Channel and decided if they thought it was Japan related I could too and thereby share it in this column.

And you will learn a bit here and there about Asia if you watch it. I had no idea, for instance, until I watched it that the entire reason Miho Hatori became motivated to join a band was not to play to music, that developed later, but because she had fallen in love with the fliers people distributed to advertise their bands and was told that if one really wishes to create band fliers, well, one should have a band. So with fervent devotion to the newly discovered art of creating band fliers, she followed the path and went and found a band that she could be part of, played some music along the way in underground shows, and then made the band fliers —which is about the most Japanese thing I have heard of in a long time. ²

I mean, I knew Miho Hatori was cool. Anyone who can rhyme anything with the name “Miho Hatori” gets my appreciation or who sings a rock song with the refrain “extra sugar! Extra salt! Extra oil and MSG!” and makes it work, is someone whose albums are on my “must have list” for sure. [If you are wondering the line was “My name is Miho Hatori and I came here straight from purgatory!”

Check out the (You Tube Cibo Matto playlist

Cibo Matto playlists by album

Hey guys, remember how I said I was going to ask for money for doing this? Or at least ask you to ask me to do it for free?

From on here on down I put links to the YouTube playlists for all five Cibo Matto albums

Sorry!! I’m making it pay for view from here on down but it’s half price off. That means I am asking for about $2.50 each month, more or less, to support this project of mine. If you prefer to give emotional support instead of financial support to read every single word, I have to share here, you know what to do, reach out, praise me, flatter me, tell me I am great, lay it on real thick, and I will give you a free subscription so long as you keep it up.