Grab a cup of o-cha and sit down with me. I wanna tell you about Margaret Drawers aka Magazuro aka Margaret Rose; a Japanese band nearly as multi-monikered as our bonnie prince. You know how I’ve studied Japanese on & off for six years now? Well, go to the bottom of the next paragraph and read it backwards.

.weak my Choukai .point strong my as reading of think I Yet .question the of understanding my to crucial be will words those of some and ,of meanings the know won’t I words fifteen least at contain will text each worse matters make To .Sunday next exam my for hour one in them about questions comprehension complicated answer and one this like text of pieces eight read to have I .practice years’ six after Japanese reading like it’s what is This

Magazuro, which is a katakana-ization of their English name Margaret Drawers romajified, are guitar/bass/drums. You know how when you multiply a negative by a negative you get a positive? Does that actually make any logical sense or did you just accept what your math teacher told you and dumbly go about answering the problems? The answer is Margaret Drawers. The problems are the awful bar bands you have to sit through when waiting to see them live. Every time I see them live, there’ll be at least two besuited five-pieces sporting brass. The indie bands really like the Devo/Beatles uniform thing in Tokyo.

A friend first introduced me to Magrose via “Koucha no Uta,” (the Tea Song). It’s a little ditty all about wanting to quell her uneasiness on the first date. Masaya Hirai’s plangent voice yearns and curls its way around his lo-fi jangle. He often puts his voice into a scratchy solo when the words run out. Good of him to enunciate his syllables in this song so clearly. I’ve met a few Japanese who told me they learned English through song lyrics. I’m working on my choukai by listening to Magazuro. Damn fine way to study a foreign language. Then again a song like “Yoakemae” (Before Daybreak) proves that language is redundant in a choice piece of muppet pop.

Live, Magazuro are a much more riotous proposition. Hirai-san, the lead singer is Kermit the Frog incarnate, constantly flipping his right leg with each downward plunge of his pick. They have far more fun than the respectful audience, swapping instruments and solos. They bounce sonic-wise like three kids on a trampoline. Their pop veers like a pre-teen driver, from nervy stalling to brakeless accident-waiting-to-happen anarchabilly.

In my reckoning they’re a band whose referential melodic arcs tangentially intersect the DIY aesthetic of early Clean with the jittery punk of the Violent Femmes. I wonder if we could say the Clean are a Kiwi Magazuro given that Nippon time (like many things conceptually Japanese) possibly flows in reverse to the West.

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