The West has been the center of the rock univefor so long that the genre often seems contained in a U.S.-shaped bubble -- with occasional U.K.-shaped tributaries. Europe rules electronica. Africa enjoys the polyrhythm. The East espouses both spirituals and kitsch; for every contemplative band like Ghost there are the champions of camp, like Pizzicato Five and Cibo Matto. But Japan has harbored a secret pleasure for nearly a decade: a Who-like bunch of virile garage rockers who rip through power chords like they invented them. What little the West has heard from Thee Michelle Gun Elephant sounds like an advertisement for The Second Coming of Rock: loud, fast, and full of rebel swagger.
This Tokyo-based foursome are huge in Japan, man -- having sold over 600,000 copies of last year's release, Casanova Snake (adjusted for population, that's the equivalent of approximately 1.2 million sold in the U.S.). Considering that adrenal guitar fare is primarily a Yank fetish -- the Japanese spend more of their dollars on pop -- the band's success is startling. After years of homeland acclaim, American label Alive/Disaster Records re-released 1998's Gear Blues Stateside in 2000 and will release a "Best Of" album this coming April or May.
"I was attracted to the sound, fashion and everything [about] punk rock and pub rock," guitarist/lead screamer Yusuke Chiba says. "I got a Johnny Thunders tape from a friend of mine and then I started to listen to bands such as [The] Stooges, Iggy, Clash, [The] Damned, [The] Addicts, etc. Originally I was influenced by pub rock bands in England, so I started to wear [suits onstage]." The band answers all questions with terse responses in broken English, translated by an interpreter. When Chiba says that punk rock's "solid of intensive sound" is what inspires him most, the language barrier is manifest. But there's also the chance that these uber-cool, mafioso-styled cats wearing black Pulp Fiction pin stripes (two of them in polished white shoes, two of them in polished black) -- just don't give a fuck.
TMGE (as the band's known to fans) was formed in 1988, by college mates Chiba and guitarist Futoshi Abe. The two were mutual fans of English punk, The Damned in particular. After their former bassist bought a ticket to a Damned show in Japan, he excitedly proclaimed, "It's a Michelle Gun Elephant ticket!" In proper English, it would have come out as the title of The Damned's 1979 album, Machine Gun Etiquette. The name outlived the bassist, who was asked to leave "because [his] play was clumsy," Chiba explains. "All the members have left except [myself]." In 1991, rid of all their "sloppy" members, Abe and Chiba enlisted drummer Kazuyuki Kuhara and bassist Koji Ueno. After constant rehearsals and small time gigs, they recorded their debut album in London with engineer Chris Brown (Radiohead, Elastica) in 1995. Chiba is one of those amazingly gruff frontmen whose hopelessly shredded vocals contain, at their center, pure pitch. "We do not have any measures for [preserving my voice]," he dryly asserts. "In my voice will be damaged, that's the way it goes."
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