eX-Girl Hypnotize . . .
With Their Fancy Clothes and Flashy Ways

Attired in spacesuit silver frocks and foam frog-shrine headgear the Japanese girl-band eX-Girl danced onto the stage of the Great American Music Hall and began to baffle the audience with robotically precise art punk blended with Nina Hagen style operatic vocals, angry chipmunk-like yelps, yodels and choral chants.

This brand of jerky and quirky stage presentation has not been seen in rock since Devo taught America how to "whip it good" in the early 80's. The bleach blonde drummer Fuzuki stared hypnotically into the lights as she majestically raised her drum stick above her head and landed it on the skins over and over in perfect syncopation, her idiosyncratic intensity bringing to mind the enigma of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust. While Fuzuki played the part of the tombstone-faced taskmaster Kirilo (bass and Casio Tone) and Chihiro (guitar) bopped and smiled like perky waitresses at a Tokyo Friday's. A gigantic sound exuded from their petite frames, building in intensity and expanding into a grandiose progressive rock soundscape decorated by bizarre vocal contortions.

Their surrealistic lyrics matched their costumes in the theme of outer space fantasy, although the group's thick accents will make most listeners refer to the lyric sheet of their new album, Back to the Mono Kero! In Zero Gravity the band sang about their flight through space: "Look at the light of the planet / We have tripped to get all peace pladance / It's time to forget Flamingo / Break up barriers through the coaster / Oh my god! Look! ThereÕs a Big Group of Meteorite! / Shoot them all, shoot them & smash & crush!"

"Kero Kero means ribbit ribbit," eX-Girl informed the crowd. "We are from the planet Kero Kero. We want to take you there. Do you want to go to outer space?" Eager to take the journey the crowd roared approval. "Okay! Let's go to outer space!" They then blasted into the soaring song-rocket Sasuke. The psyches of the audiences were magically lifted by a lily pad as the band chanted what sounded like "Icku-buya" over a psychedelic blend of intense guitar distortions.

"Beyond being human / beyond age and time / Beyond borders and gender / Come and go freely / Come and go," they sang. Their words come across as the philosophical discovery of their otherworldly journey; a Japanese answer to the Force. Yoda does resemble a frog, come to think of it.

Although their lyrics are almost entirely in English, eX-Girl speak it just enough to get through a show. An email interview was required to avoid any misunderstanding of their otherworldly origins. "It's basically an elongated triangular pyramid we three live at the respective corners forming the smallest triangle and The Frog King's throne is at the pointiest apex," they explained. "Its interlocking dodecahedral orbit is a result of being located in a constellation of 12 stars. As for why we arrived in Japan, we did not really choose Japan the Warp Drive did. Not really sure why except that maybe it was easier since Japan is not quite on earth itself or maybe it was just an identity thing where the Warp drive chose a Warped destination,"

The accuracy of these origins is unconfirmed, but their press release reveals that the group made their debut in 1998 with the album. Heppoco Pou, followed up in 1999 with Kero! Kero! Kero! -- an album that charted on KUSF at No. 1 for three weeks. Then they released Big When Far, Small When Close, their first a cappella work. While this album was a bit rough on the edges the eX-Girls have now perfected their vocal work and effectively distributed the a cappella numbers in between their rock songs during the concert. They are now signed to the Bay Area based, Ipecac Records, who put out their new album. Ipecac is owned by Mike Patton of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle. He signed the group after hearing them on radio.

Having started with little experience in 1997 eX-Girl have been described as amateurish but their presentation at the American Music Hall was one of seasoned professionals. Their tour manager confirmed their reputation for being amateurs is a bit of a misconception and band has had professional musical training. Also professional are the group's marketing techniques. They worked their audience for an hour after the show, posing for photographs, signing autographs, selling T-shirts and CDs and having fans fill out a lengthy questionnaire.

Long live eX-Girl and their frog king!

eX-Girl Website