cheech

Sadistic Mika band was one of the first Japanese "new wave" whatever bands that I came across when I was growing up, that and The Plastics... Unfortunately I've only ever found a smattering of songs by the Sadistc Mika band.

When, three years ago, he formed a rock band, Kazuhiko Katoh ran into more than a little local opposition: the locality being Tokyo - the world's largest and most technologically advanced urban complex, simultaneously one of the most resistant to changes of attitude. The Japanese music business didn't appreciate Kazuhiko's move, not only beacause he was abandoning his position as one of the country's biggest solo stars, but also because a rock band was not considered a viable proposition in itself - it was suicidal, they said, to complete with Western rock 'n' roll on its own terms.
Which was precisely what Kazuhiko intended to do: no mere duplication of Western nabds - which in Tokyo would have been a safer bet commercially - but an original style of music. He sought out four of the most accomplished musicians in the country and together they began writing and rehearsing their own material, evolving an individual brand of music. It was bona-fide rock 'n' roll; it was also distinctly Japanese.

They became the Sadistic Mika Band. The name remains a mystery. Any explanation offered is likely to hide the truth; the Japanese after all are ultra-polite. (Certainly Tokyo is the world capital of S. & M., bondage and other arcane leisure activities). Anyway, Mika joined the band, as singer, odalisque and iconoclast. Beautiful, extrovert and unpredictable (by Japanese standards a total eccentric), she completed the band's line-up and clinched its distinctive identity: both musically and visually, original, sophisticated and bizarre.