Blankey Jet City started rocking in Tokyo circa February 1990, and haven't stopped since. Think of the Pixies' [Surfer Rosa] with more surf and Japanese instead of Spanish, and magnify that over a decade. Get the idea? Super-duper white-hot rock explosion.

I first came across this tight trio late in the game, due to casual [M.C. Sister] fashion-magazine reading (one of the few Japanese magazines the Berkeley Library gets). [Harlem Jets] was that issue's highlighted album, and it sounded swell enough that I picked it up the next time I was in Japantown SF.

That was almost a year ago, and since then Blankey Jet City have been one of my top 20 carry-around CDs, never ceasing to please with the high-energy singing by Kenichi Asai, not to mention his excellent guitar work which puts a satisfying twist to US surf-rockabilly-punk-pop.

[Harlem Jets] is by far one of the best records in my collection, and even though it's primarily sung in Japanese, I see no reason why anyone couldn't enjoy it immensely. If you want stick your ears in the jets, by all means start here.

That said, the real prize-package is the massive two CD set, from Toshiba-EMI and Polydor (BJC's two record labels), which spans their decade long career with 36 amazing songs (primarily singles, with 4 previously unreleased tracks). I'm partial to their Polydor years, but that's largely because I haven't scooped up their earlier albums yet.

Like I said before, I'm new to the Blanket Jet City party, and over the next couple of months I'll be collecting as much information and links as I can, for posting here. If you know BJC better than I, which is most likely, then please send some info my way.

Kenichi Asai also plays guitar for Ajico and the Sherbets, two excellent bands if there ever were some.