BiSH
BiSH (Brandnew Idol Sh*t), aka Punk Rock Band Without Musical Instruments, is an all-female Japanese Punk Band.
BiSH writes most of their own songs and every member is given a chance to sing in almost every song.
BiSH has been the ultimate anti-idol group; their on stage attire, their songs, their persona are the opposite of what the idol industry promotes. Their costumes and music tends to be dark. Their songs cover a range of issues, like sexual assault, relationship between two high school girls, a post-apocalyptic world, etc. Not the sort of songs you hear on traditional J-Pop and K-Pop music
The members are Aina the End, Momoko Gumi Company, Cent (Saint) Chihiro Chicchi, Hashiyasume Atsuko, LingLing and Ayuni D
They have amazing voices, though some complain that Aina's voice is too squeaky. I disagree, I think her voice is sort of a Japanese Janis Joplin sound.
Aina is a somewhat controversial figure in the group, there are complaints on boards here in Japan about how she is ruining the group. This pretty much comes down to, Aina is extremely opinionated, strong-willed, etc. All the members have that reputation, but Aina is the leader of sorts and she is the most outspoken.
Their fan base is fiercely loyal -- one of our twins is a huge fan of BiSH. She loves the whole group, their songs and their stories. She is a proud expert on the group with a gushing admiration and love for Momoko Gumi Company and Ayuni D. Their fans can be quite rowdy, two of their appearances at concerts (that I know of) were shut down by the promoters in the middle because their fans were trashing the place -- Ahhhh... the good old days of punk from my youth
They are managed by Watanabe Junnosuke, who owns WACK Management Co. Watanabe is a bit of a douche, his promotion a few years back where a member of one of his groups had to lose x-kilos or he'd fire her drew a sharp rebuke around the world. To his credit, he apologized and has beena much better person since.
He gives the women in BiSH a lot of freedom to create their own music, their own personas, run their own lives; example: If they choose to date and make it public, he is fine with it. LingLing has done modeling, some of the members have posed naked in magazines, etc and he just lets it go.
While he probably couldn't stop them, it is still refreshingly different from the typical idol crap (or, to us the BiSH 'shit') in Japan where the company carefully crafts the images of their groups, especially the women. According to our BiSH fan twin, "He said he doesn't care what they do because they are successful. Besides, it's punk, not pop."
Good videos to see:
Stereo Future (beautiful use of black & white, costumes and color), My Landscape (a sort of dystopian future in an airplane graveyard), Distance (a beautiful use of color, scenery and costumes), and Orchestra (the favorfite of our daughter) about a relationship at a girl's high school that is broken up
BiSH is worth a listen and a few views
Will post some of their stuff later
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