They Are The Plastics: Haiku Goo Joob

They Are The Plastics: Haiku Goo Joob

DETROIT—Wait, I don’t know if they’re The Plastics or just Plastics. And small wonder, since I don’t really care. I think they’re just Plastics, though, so that’s what I’ll call ’em.

As for the inscrutable facts, then: Plastics are the hottest group west of the once-decimated U.S. Naval Station at Pearl Harbor and are the only group from Shogunia with an American record deal (Island Records —get it?). Plastics are a dance band/spike hairoid bunch who are uniformly skinny and wear goofy clothes. Three of their five members “sort of” speak English...I mean, get these convoluted song titles from their debut album, Plastics: “Cards,” “Ignore,” “Copy,” and “Park.” Whew, those two-syllable titles are a real puzzler, I wanna tell you. Not to forget the tonguetwisting “Good,” which—to everyone’s great surprise—has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of their Americanese.

What else? Oh yeah, their LP sold something like 130,000 copies in Nippon, which means (in music business parlance) it went transistor. Plastics are real polite and smile a lot, but for all I know they’re setting up a puppet radio station in Manchuko or something. Best fact of all: they don’t have a drummer. Instead, they’ve got this machine called a Roland TR808 —I’m told you can’t even buy one over here—that-is pleased to make many interesting drum noises, thank you.

Now, as if all of this isn’t enough to make me bitterly regret Nagasaki, they’re also a great interview! By “great,” I mean unintelligible, which is the best thing to happen to hack writers since the concept of

getting your check on time. Let’s face it: you don’t really want to understand these plunkers and whiners, do you? I don’t mean Plastics, I mean the whole bunch of ’em. Wouldn’t it be more fun to try to dribble a cat?

As a public service to musicians everywhere, I therefore offer these samples from a conversation I had with Hajime Tochiban and Toshi Nakanishi, gesundheit. Haj and Toshe write most of Plastics’ tunes and also play guitar for the hottest group in the nation that sanctions the ruthless and wholesale slaughter of whales, animals regarded by any marine biologist as the most intelligent and harmless creatures on earth.

Me.Who did you used to listen to when you started out?

Hajime: I used to listen to Hip Jones and we used to play...

Me: Who??

» Hajime: Hip Jongs.

Me.Oh, hit songs!

☆ ☆ ☆

Me.How many bands in Japan play original material?

Hajime: Ah.. .so many.

Me.There’s “so many?”

Hajime: Yes. So Many.

☆ ☆ ☆

Me.You see, the American government is making the Japanese auto companies build here. Just like they’re gonna make you move here.

Hajime: I heard a rumor that when you’re walking down the street when you’re Japanese, someone throw tomato. Ha ha. ☆ ☆ ☆

Me.Who do you like—bands that are playing now?

Toshi: Bands?

Me.Bands. Uh...musical groups.. People with instruments.

☆ ☆ ☆

Me.You guys are not very politicallyminded.

Toshi (to Hajime): Nopostik.

Hajime: I can understand both of them.

Me.Both of who??

Hajime: But I can’t change the world. Yes. If we want to change society, in Japan, uh— we have to be, uh, ritzchizen.

Me.You have to be what?

Toshi: Pahritlcian (You know, like Reagan-san.)

☆ ☆☆

Now it’s pretty obvious that when you’re talking to these guys the key words are who?, what? and huh?; oddly enough, these are the exact mumbles I wanna use when I talk to any musician. Most of the other ones I’ve met don’t make any sense either, except they don’t make it in English, which can be hell when you’re trying to transcribe a tape. You just never know when they’ll slip in a sensible comment, the rascals, so you’ve gotta be listening reed hard all the time.

Fortunately, Plastics have transcended all this and threaten to reach the same rarefied state onstage, where they still make a little sense. Don’t worry, though, I think they’re working on it. Haj and Toshe play guitar with the novel twist that you can hear neither of them! Most of the noise is made by button-pushers Takemi Shima and Ma-Chan Sakuma while Japanese Chica Sato stands around looking like they just lost the war or something, chirping on on vulnerable vocals. I figure the next logical step is to just program the dartnned machines and eliminate the band altoget*ther! I mean, you want Plastic...

What the hell, I guess I’m willing to meet them Midway, though. But on/y if they have a couple of Hip Jones.

J. “Banzai” Kordosh