DAGGY MUSIC OF THE WEEK hi-standard

Another regular blog reader, who shall be known only as "Ben", has written in with this week's daggy music confession...

"As far as I was concerned So-Cal punk bands were the only ones creating music in the mid to late nineties. Pennywise, NOFX, No Fun At All, No Doubt and, of course, the 63rd top Japanese artist of all time (according to HMV)...


"...none other than Hi-Standard.


"The stand-out for me was Hi-Standard's 1997 long player Angry Fist. This involved band members Akihiro Nanba, Ken Yokoyama and Akira Tsuneoka producing 35 minutes of nonsensical ‘sound’. Ken sung in English but it was sounded all Greek to me.


"The LP featured 11 originals, including 'Fighting Fists', 'Angry Song', 'Shy Boy' and 'My Sweet Dog'. It still amazes me that they could go from singing about smacking someone’s face in to singing 'Good morning my sweet dog, you are such a good dog let’s go for a nice walk in the park' WTF???


"The album also featured four covers, including The Who’s ‘The Kids are Alright’, Fogerty’s ‘Have you ever senz ze rain’ and hidden track the Pink Panther theme. These were the highlights for me as at least I knew the originals so could understand what they were singing about. 


"I liked the band because at the time I was in a band and thought if these non-English speaking Japanese punks could make it - why couldn’t I? But mostly I just laughed at their ridiculous accents.


"However, easily the hi-light for me was buying tickets to see them live at Dee Why beach as part of a punk festival in 2008. There I was getting ready to see them live when Fat Mike from NOFX comes on stage to say that singer Ken had broken his arm and so they wouldn’t be able to play.


"...but the Japanese punk gods were smiling on my face that day. I spotted the bass player Akira in the crowd and my friends and I proceeded to hang out with him for the rest of the day - even getting a signed t-shirt by day's end.


"Unfortunately Hi-Standard broke up in 2000 but not before a HMV poll rated them the 63rd best artist in Japanese music...yeah!"


Thanks for sharing your hidden secret with us Ben. Hope you feel better now you have made your confession.