by T. Mikawa (1-3) & Jojo Hiroshige (4-7)
The inside story of Japan's longest-running and most legendary (if not the most prolific) noise group, Hijokaidan, was serialized in G-Modern between 1992 and 1995. The story was begun by long-standing member, Incapacitant and Japan's leading noise collector, T. Mikawa, and continued by founding member, Alchemy boss, and expert on Japanese baseball trading cards, Jojo Hiroshige. The story is still incomplete, though Jojo promises to continue it someday.
Translated by Alan Cummings.
The origins of Hijokaidan can be traced back to a free improv guitar duo formed by Yoshiyuki Hiroshige (aka Jojo) and guitarist Naoki Zushi. The duo played at a now defunct live space in Kyoto called the Drugstore (commonly known as Drug, Dorayan, Do etc.), where Jojo used to work. Jojo, who at that time was also a member of a group called Rasenkaidan (Spiral Staircase) used the Drugstore as the base for his live activities. To Rasenkaidan's sound, which can be thought of as being influenced to a large extent by its leader Ken'ichi Takayama (aka Idiot. Idiot also worked at the Drugstore, and after dissolving Rasenkaidan he formed Riradan and then Idiot O'Clock, with whom he still plays), Jojo added his own leanings towards something more "out". Jojo would later say that he had been inspired to start Hijokaidan by listening to the LAFMS super noise orchestra Airway, however I feel that the influence of Fushitsusha was the greater. Many people have remarked that this is evident in the vocal style that Jojo adopted.
At their first rehearsal Hijokaidan consisted of Jojo, Zushi and Idiot, and they recorded practice tracks such as "Messerschimdt." Their first live performance took place at the Drugstore, and they played five songs - "Masako", "Stuffing", "Wall", "Black", and "Blue". Since there were so few people in the audience, and since space restrictions at the Drugstore meant that they were only able to use a very small amp, it is hard to avoid feeling that this performance was substandard. However, since the group themselves felt that it had sufficiently lived up to their expectations, we can only conclude that it was actually a good show.
If the author's memory is to be relied upon, there was only one other live performance by this version of Hijokaidan (though there may have been other shows at the Drugstore that have slipped my mind). The second performance was at the Eve Festival at Doshisha University in Osaka, and on this occasion the group also included Naohiko Hachita on synthesizer. They presented a sublime world of noise to the audience, but after this performance Zushi's interests moved away from free improvisation and this brought a natural and unavoidable end to this line-up of Hijokaidan.
For the group's reappearance we would have to wait until June of the next year (1980). After his project with Zushi disintegrated Jojo called together his old friends Toshiyuki Oka (aka Oka), Katsuhiro Nakajima (aka Zuke), Masako Shigesugi (aka Mako), and the author, whom he had met at the Drugstore. This new project was one that he had long had in mind - a band called Fushoku no Marie (Corroded Marie) that would be like a combination of Hawkwind (Jojo's dream band) and the previously mentioned Airway. At the time we used to rehearse a lot at Jujiya Studio in Kyoto. This studio had a glass wall that faced out onto a main road, and passersby would stare in at us in astonishment. Fushoku no Marie's first live performance was at the now-defunct Osaka live space Crusade. This space was in a suburb of Osaka, but because the location was so bad it never managed to attract any regular customers and eventually it had to close. At this time though, things hadn't yet got that bad, and at least we managed to attract a countable number of customers.
Here's a little more information about Crusade - booking was handled by Inu's third guitarist Shinichi Kitada, and at that time he had a very relaxed policy. Because of this, Yasushi Machita and Kimiko Suyama, as well as Inu's second guitarist Keita Koma used to hang out there. I seem to recall that Kimiko Suyama was in the audience at Fushoku no Marie's debut gig.
After this show, Fushoku no Marie were asked to appear on the bill at the "Tengoku Chusha no Yoru" (Heavenly Injection Night) event to commemorate the first issue of the magazine Heaven. We were invited by Tori Kudo who sometimes came to the Drugstore. This performance was to prove to be a turning point for the band. Possibly through a misunderstanding on Kudo's part, the band was billed not as Fushoku no Marie, but as Hijokaidan. Jojo took this in his stride and calmly changed the name of the band to Hijokaidan (from his point of view it was probably like taking the band back to its roots). Also at this time, the band played a gig in Tokyo as Fushoku no Marie at the ACB Hall in Shinjuku. Afterwards the band was included on a compilation released on an independent label called Unbalance Records, which was run by an old friend of mine called Naoto Hayashi (he is now the guitarist and vocalist in Auschwitz). This compilation, "Shumatsu Shorijo" (Final Disposal Site), was the second release on Unbalance. Also on the compilation were NG and JuraJumu; the sleeve notes were written by Chinami Shinafushi. The first release on Unbalance had been an EP limited to 50 copies by YOU (ie Yu Koyama). At this time Hijokaidan also included an old friend of Oka's, the late Ichiguchi.
After we returned to Osaka, Mako left the band, so we added the saxophonist Koichiro Kami (aka Kami), and also Hiroko Onishi (aka Semimaru) as an additional vocalist. It was decided that we would play at the Cicade gig organized by Takashi Koshi from the band Nashi. This gig took place at another defunct Osaka venue called Sozo Doba, and Kazuo Fujimoto (aka Geso) from Daigoretsu, along with Keiko Nakatsuka (aka Yasei no Kyoi [Wild Miracle], aka Yasei) appeared with us as special guest performers. We used Faust's famous track "It's a rainy day, Sunshine Girl" as a motif for the performance. A guy called Fukuzaki who worked at Sozo Doba pulled the plug on us, and this brought the performance to an abrupt end. I believe that this show was the closest we ever came to sounding like Airway. I played audio generator, lead guitar and effects. We wired the effects (an assembly of fuzz, distortion, flanger, autowah etc) between the PA mixer and the speakers, and thus were able to control the whole sound. This was the first and last time that Hijokaidan used this kind of set-up in all our years of playing.
Our next live performance took place less than a month later when we were again added to the bill at Doshisha University's Eve Festival. The band consisted of the six permanent members who had played at Sozo Doba, minus Geso and Yasei. It was at this performance that Oka and Zuke began to show their violent side. The author and Kami knew nothing at all about their plans and we were totally taken aback, but I recall that we continued with a fiery performance nonetheless. The Eve Festival was organized by a student group called Doshisha Productions, and also on the bill were famous bands like Youth in Asia, Rose Tea Ceremony, Hoburakin, and Mada. The author also made a guest appearance with Youth in Asia (euthanasia). This festival was Hoburakin's debut performance, and their leader Aoki's meager drum kit was heavily praised by Heaven magazine. I believe that Aoki now works at Sakai Prison, and it was him who wrote all that obscure stuff at the bottom of the Zero Records advertisements.
That was the end of Hijokaidan's plans for that year, and the next time the band appeared in public was on January 4th of the following year (1981) at the now defunct Studio Ahiru in Terada-cho. The event was called Answer '81, and was organized by the late Nishimori of Up-Maker. The line-up was Jojo, Oka, Kami, the author, and new members Tomoko Kaiho (aka Woo) and Takeshi Ishida (aka Ishida-kun). Woo played bass, and Ishida-kun handled the drums. Previously Ishida had played together with Jojo in a hard-rock band called The Ishida Band. Woo was the publisher of a new-wave fanzine called "GIG", and she had played at Crusade with a band called Juo (this performance was later issued as a split flexidisc with Rasen on the first pressing of the Red Lizard "Keshi no hana" LP by the City Rockers). She was also a member of a unit called Annon that consisted of the author and Naoto Hayashi. This time the performance was a relatively quiet one, beginning and ending with Kami's sax. There was none of the chaos of the Eve Festival, mainly because Zuke was unable to appear - it was as though he had cried out once and then fallen into endless silence. Jojo had prepared two guitars but he smashed up both of them, so when there were calls for an encore after our set he went out on stage and said, "Sorry. I've managed to break both my guitars so we can't play any more. Uh, we've also got a record out, so buy it and listen to it at home." His solid salesmanship invited gales of laughter from the audience. Jerry, Auschwitz, Up-Maker, and Zelda also appeared on the same bill.