Blending Japanese and American cultures and musical styles, four Americans, one Japanese-American and one newly transplanted Japanese youth came together to form a new kind of ska-funk band called Pocket Face.
Pocket Face is composed of lead vocalist/guitarist Munch, bassist/vocalist Rei Mastrogiovanni, trumpeter Taylor Morden, trombonist/keyboardist Tony Case, saxophonist Dave Myrick and Japanese drummer Nao “The Samurai” Horota. All are students at the University except Munch, who will graduate from high school in the next few weeks. Horota plans to attend Lane Community College in the fall.
Squeezing into the small rehearsal and recording studio built in Munch’s garage, the band rips out deafening power chords and lyrics. Once the members of Pocket Face begin playing, their feet refuse to stay grounded. They bounce in time to the music with inexhaustible energy.
“We like jumping,” Morden said.
Pocket Face will jump over the Pacific Ocean for a month and a half-long tour in Japan this summer. Mastrogiovanni said they will perform with other Japanese bands at festivals of up to 3,000 people and smaller club venues of 200 people.
“You never hear of an American band in Japan for a month and a half,” Mastrogiovanni translates for Horota. “Usually they only stay for three or four days, then they go home,” because there are only four major cities in Japan.
He said indie groups have the option to play smaller venues in more cities.
Mastrogiovanni said their tour will include Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kyoto, Kumagaya, Nagoya and Hiroshima. He hopes the band will at least “break even” on the tour, but even if they don’t, he said it will be a great vacation.
In January 2002, the sextet each jumped from their own bands to play in the newly formed Pocket Face. Horota, the former drummer for the Japanese ska band, P Up Area, heard his friend Mastrogiovanni was forming a new band in America, so he decided to quit his jobs in accounting, merchandising and Web design and fly to the United States to live in a storage closet in Mastrogiovanni’s house.
“This band was worth it,” he said.
He said he is moving into a real room next month.
Horota and Mastrogiovanni’s previous experiences in the Japanese music scene has helped them maintain contacts with their Japanese label, “All in One Record,” that helped make the Japan tour possible.
Ska hit the Japanese clubs in the mid-1990s, inciting a surge of copycat ska bands that reached their peak popularity about two years ago, according to Horota. Although America experienced a similar phenomenon, he said ska was more popular in Japan than in America.
Mastrogiovanni said one major difference between the two countries is that Japanese audiences want to be involved in the shows.
“They want to participate,” he said. “If you raise your hand up, everyone raises their hands up. Japanese kids are very active, and they jump whenever you do.”
And Pocket Face does a lot of jumping.
Although Pocket Face’s music does not fit any current rages in Japan, Mastrogiovanni said he hopes they will start a new ska-funk trend with what they call “a new international horn-blasted, power-pop, funky-punky style.” When music crosses international and cultural borders, the dash becomes a band’s best friend.
Once Pocket Face formed, Horota said they realized they had less genre limits, which allowed them to branch out from the traditional ska beat. He said they were then introduced to the new genre of “power pop.”
“That’s not a genre,” Morden interrupted.
Classifying a band invariably leads to a debate on what genre best fits the band’s style of music, and each band member has a slightly different opinion on that point.
“It’s a feeling — a power-pop feeling,” Mastrogiovanni compromised.
“We’re not pop,” Morden insisted. “Pop is like Britney Spears; we’re not Britney Spears.”
“We’re like power-Britney Spears,” Mastrogiovanni said.
Though Morden still looked doubtful, Horota settled the debate by informing the others that the term “power pop” is used in Japan.
As a send-off for the Japanese tour, Pocket Face will perform at a show called “Icky-Ma-Show, Vol. 2” June 20 at the Wild Duck with four or five other bands to be announced nearer the performance date. Tickets for the show will be $2 at the door. Their CD, “Many Faces,” is set for release in the United States in September.