Guitar Wolf - Red Idol

NOTE: A quick preface to this piece- unlike most reviewers, I refused to simply perpetuate the underground hype surrounding this band, so I chose my words as objectively and free from hyperbole as I could.

Guitar Wolf is the greatest punk band that has ever played, and the greatest that ever will play. Ever. Any one of their artless alchemical noise experiments-gone-horribly-right is enough to make a straightjacket-bound legal deaf burst out of his restraints in song and dance, a feat of strength which has only been replicated through near-lethal doses of angel dust and/or the sight of an infant trapped under the wheel of an automobile.

The perpetrators:

Toru, aka Drum Wolf
Hobbies: beer, wearing sunglasses at night
Weapon of Choice: Pearl Maple Standard drums
Fun Fact: his favorite film is Desperado
Words of Wisdom: “Life is depending on your sense.”

Hideaki, aka Billy, aka Bass Wolf
Hobbies: beer, combing his hair
Weapon of Choice: Fender Precision bass
Fun Fact: Shares his birthday with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi and Elvis Presley
Words of Wisdom: “I’m not good at thinking about something.”

Seiji, aka Guitar Wolf
Hobbies: riding motorcycles, beer
Weapon of Choice: Epiphone SG guitar
Fun Fact: played an alien in the 1997 film Sore Losers
Words of Wisdom: “I brush my teeth with tequila.”

Guitar Wolf’s meteoric fall to fame and rise to obscurity began ostensibly in Japan in the 1,987th Year of our Lord. Its roots, however, may lie in an earlier incident back while Seiji was playing folk music by night and working as a welder by day, when he was electrocuted on the job in a near-fatal accident. After that, he said, he decided to take up the electric guitar. The world is still recovering from this decision.

The group’s exploits are best chronicled (in mildly exaggerated form) in the 2000 cult film Wild Zero, where they save the world from invading UFO zombies (”it’s a documentary,” Billy explains). Seiji, the punch-drunk pilot of the guns-blazing, dive-bombing Mitsubishi Zero that is Guitar Wolf’s live show, calls their style ‘Jett Rock,’ after his hero, Joan Jett, whom he also shares his birthday with. He’s also the first to admit that the group collectively has no conventional musical talent to speak of (”We are stupid, we are no guitar skill”). But while their technical virtuosity is perhaps matched only by their modesty (”We’re scared of our talent. It’s too great. We’re geniuses.”), the fact remains: these guys make more beautiful racket than a Wilson factory. So what is the secret to their success? In interviews (which they refuse to do unless both they and the interviewer are wasted), they’ve listed their influences as Iggy Pop, the Ramones, Link Wray, the Rolling Stones, the Sex pistols, Johnny Thunders, Booker T, and Mitch Ryder. Seiji also claims he was raised by wolves and is a ‘quarter wolf.’ That is perhaps the only explanation for their particular pastiche of fuzztone thrash punk gutter grunge, which sounds slightly less offensive than a freight train loaded with nitro derailing into a glycerin plant.

Moreover, their ‘99 album, Jet Generation, has been proclaimed the ‘loudest album ever recorded,’ and bears a warning label concerning its sound levels, which are claimed to have “exceeded the theoretical maximum volume possible on compact disc audio.” One finds, when exploring Guitar Wolf lore, that it quickly becomes difficult to separate this band’s myth from reality. This is somewhat compounded by the fact that the band sings and speaks in full blown Engrish, or ‘Jenglish,’ as they prefer to call it. So, in order to best distinguish the fact from fiction, I offer up this helpful advice: Just believe everything you hear about Guitar Wolf. It’s all true.

One thing is certain: their manic performance freak-outs have landed them on the skids with the law more than once (Billy: “You know those 24-hour surveillance shows on police watch? You see us on those a lot.”)

Sadly, right after the show where this reviewer saw them, Billy died of a massive heart attack. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean the end for the group. If there’s one thing they’ve proven, it’s that they’re survivors. And Guitar Wolf is still crazy and rocking after nearly twenty years. In fact, they just released Red Idol, a DVD hodgepodge of concert footage, documentary, and their legendary music videos. Also hitting stores is a Greatest Hits album entitled Golden Black, which to the newbie is as good a place to begin as any, featuring an overpowering onslaught of twenty-six scorchers. So just break out the High Life, toss on one of their records, and scream along to such timeless lyrics as “I got a wallet on my ass with a LOK N’ LOLL LICENSE,” and who can forget the classic “BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD EXPLODING BLOOD!”

R.I.P., Billy.
-Andy Gately, March ‘06