Shonen Knife + Matt Edible & The Obtuse Angels
** Low Ticket Warning **
Screaming Tarts presents…
Shonen Knife
+ Matt Edible & The Obtuse Angels
Sunday April 23rd 2023
The New Adelphi Club, Hull.
This all-girl Japanese 3-piece punk-pop band have been performing for over 30 years, with catchy tunes coming on like a female Buzzcocks or Ramones. They were championed by the late Kurt Cobain, supported Nirvana in the States, and were personally chosen by Simpsons creator Matt Groening to play 2010’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival and by comedian Stewart Lee to play 2016’s ATP.
£14 advance from see tickets
https://www.seetickets.com/…/the-new-adelphi-club/1806875
Singing in English and Japanese, they write songs influenced by The Ramones and other early punk bands, surf music and garage bands, with catchy, sometimes silly, frivolous lyrics. They’ve written about cats, catnip, brown mushrooms, candy, sushi bars, mango juice, bison, banana chips and Barbie dolls. Their song “One Day of the Factory” appeared on a Sub Pop compilation in 1986. Early fans included Thurston Moore, legendary English DJ John Peel, and Redd Kross. Twenty alt-rock bands recorded a Shonen Knife tribute album (Every Band Has A Shonen Knife Who Loves Them) in 1989, but their American fame grew exponentially two years later.
Kurt Cobain saw Shonen Knife play in L.A. in 1991 and immediately became an enthusiastic fan. He told Melody Maker in September of that year: “We saw Shonen Knife and they were so cool. I turned into a nine-year old girl at a Beatles concert. I was crying and jumping up and down and tearing my hair out – it was amazing. I’ve never been so thrilled in my whole life. They play pop music – pop, pop, pop music.”
He asked them to open for Nirvana on their nine-date 1991 UK tour shortly before the release of Nevermind. Not many people had heard of Nirvana at that point.
In early 1993 Dave Grohl and Cobain enthused about Shonen Knife on MTV:
Dave Grohl: They went into their first song and everyone seemed sort of baffled…They won over the audience by the end of the night. Every show, people were like almost in tears.
Kurt Cobain: I was an emotional sap the whole time. I cried every night.
Dave Grohl: You couldn’t help it!