Frank Chickens
Encyclopedia
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, who have performed songs mainly in English from 1982.
Founder members of Frank Chickens were Kazuko Hohki and Kazumi Taguchi. Taguchi was later replaced by Atsuko Kamura and then Chika Nakagawa and others in the 1990s. Their songs are often about Japanese social conditions and constrictions, particularly for women, as well as the experience of Japanese people in England with Hohki often cracking jokes and making funny observations between songs at live gigs. They were also noted for their lightshows, costumes and audience participation in certain songs. The first two albums were produced by David Toop
David Toop
David Toop is an English musician and author, and as of 2001 was visiting Research Fellow in the Media School at London College of Communication. He was notably a member of The Flying Lizards. He was a prominent contributor to the British magazine The Face. He is a regular contributor to The Wire,...
and Steve Beresford
Steve Beresford
Steve Beresford is a British musician who graduated from the University of York. He has played a variety of instruments, including piano, trumpet, euphonium, double-bass and a wide variety of toy instruments, such as the toy piano. He has also played a wide range of music...
and featured musicians such as Dick Cuthell
Dick Cuthell
Dick Cuthell is a British musician and record producer. He plays flugelhorn, cornet, and trumpet, amongst a range of other brass instruments, including tenor horn and valve trombone. Cuthell is best known for his work with The Specials and Rico Rodriguez. He also collaborated with bands such as...
, Annie Whitehead
Annie Whitehead
Annie Whitehead is an English jazz trombone player.-Career:Annie learned trombone at school; at 14 she was already busy playing with brass bands, local dance groups and the Manchester Youth Jazz Orchestra and began her professional career at sixteen. Among her initial influences were Miles Davis,...
, Alexander Balanescu
Alexander Balanescu
Alexander Bălănescu is a violinist and founder of the Balanescu Quartet.He emigrated with his family to Israel in 1969....
and Sianed Jones. Later albums featured, amongst others, Justin Adams
Justin Adams
-Biography:The son of a diplomat, Adams grew up in the middle-east and Egypt, before settling in the UK.He began his career in music in the 1980s with the band The Impossible Dreamers...
, Sylvia Hallett, Dean Broderick and Clive Bell.
Live, they mainly performed to pre-recorded backing tapes. Later live appearances were augmented live instruments, including various Asian traditional wind instruments played by Clive Bell and keyboards and other instruments played by Dean Broderick.
The band's name is often erroneously quoted as "The Frank Chickens", but there is no definite article; the name is definitively "Frank Chickens".
Their best known song was "We Are Ninja (Not Geisha)". Versions of the track produced by Fink, Yasuharu Konishi
Yasuharu Konishi
is a Japanese musician, composer and DJ. He was a founding member of Pizzicato Five and the only founding member to stay with the group until its breakup in 2002...
and Neotropic amongst others appeared on a Ninja Tune
Ninja Tune
Ninja Tune is a London-based independent record label started by DJs Matt Black and Jonathan More, better known as Coldcut and managed by Peter Quicke. The label has a strong leaning towards mostly Electronic Music...
12" in 2000. The single "Blue Canary" was number 42 in BBC DJ John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
's 1984 Festive Fifty
Festive Fifty
The Festive Fifty was originally an annual list of the year's fifty best songs compiled at the end of the year and voted for by listeners to John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show...
, a poll of his listeners' favourite tracks of the year. They also recorded several sessions for Peel's show on BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
.
They were a part of Red Wedge
Red Wedge
Red Wedge was a collective of musicians who attempted to engage young people with politics in general, and the policies of the Labour Party in particular, during the period leading up to the 1987 general election, in the hope of ousting the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher.Fronted by...
in the 1980s and toured extensively in the UK and abroad. They were on the bill at the infamous Farewell to the GLC
Greater London Council
The Greater London Council was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council which had covered a much smaller area...
concert in 1984 and also toured with Hank Wangford
Hank Wangford
Hank Wangford is a distinguished English country and western songwriter. Hank Wangford is the stage name of Dr. Samuel Hutt, . His music is notable for its humour and cheerful irony, and occasional excursions into biting political undercurrent....
and Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg
Stephen William Bragg , better known as Billy Bragg, is an English alternative rock musician and left-wing activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, and his lyrics mostly deal with political or romantic themes...
as part of the 'Hank, Frank and Billy' tour. They also supported The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
and other major bands on a few occasions. In 1984, they were nominated for the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe
Edinburgh Fringe
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August...
.
Their numbers swelled from the original duo until there were often as many as eight or more people on stage by the late 1990s. Members throughout the years have included Kazumi Taguchi, Atsuko Kamura, Chika Nakagawa, Akiko Sato, Ricca Kawai, Yumi Hara, Tomoko Minamizaki, Kinue Kato, Tomomi Sayuda, Tomoko Komura, Nao Nagai, Yoko Nishimura, Azusa Ono, Yuko Obata, Saneyuki Owada, Tatsu Ozaki, Ray Hogan, Caitlin Hogan, Steve Nice, Stephen Eintwhistle, Ong Agr and many more.
They still make appearances as Frank Chickens. They appeared for a short performance at the Japan Matsuri Festival in Old Spitalfields Market
Old Spitalfields market
Old Spitalfields Market is a covered market in Spitalfields, just outside the City of London. It is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets....
in September 2009. Kazuko Hohki continues to perform one-woman multimedia shows in Britain. She is also a writer and theatre director.
In 2010, Frank Chickens were nominated for, and won, the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy God Award; mainly due to the efforts of comedian and opera director Stewart Lee
Stewart Lee
Stewart Lee is an English stand-up comedian, writer and director known for being one half of the 1990s comedy duo Lee and Herring, and for co-writing and directing the critically acclaimed and controversial stage show Jerry Springer - The Opera...
. Lee complained that more avant garde acts such as Frank Chickens could not hope to compete with many acts on the list who currently enjoy mainstream TV exposure. He also, perhaps more importantly, criticised the whole project of using unwitting artists as promotional pawns, and the parallels with shows such as The X-Factor
The X Factor (UK)
The X Factor is a British television music competition to find new singing talent. Created by Simon Cowell, it began in September 2004 and is contested by aspiring singers drawn from public auditions. It is the originator of the international X Factor franchise. The seven series of the show to date...
, the antithesis of the Fringe. Lee's erstwhile comedy partner Richard Herring
Richard Herring
Richard Keith Herring is a British comedian and writer, whose early work includes his involvement in the double-act, Lee and Herring...
took up the idea and on Twitter urged the public to vote for the band in an attempt to undermine the awards, which Lee described as "vacuous", one of the nicer things he had to say about the vote. Lee was quick to make clear that he is a Frank Chickens fan and was happy at the turn of events.
Discography
Singles- "We Are Ninja" / "Fujiama Mama", (Kaz 1984)
- "We Are Ninja (Not Geisha)", (Kaz 1984)
- "Blue Canary", (Kaz 1984)
- "Blue Canary" (12"), (Kaz 1984)
- "Yellow Toast", (Kaz 1987)
- "Do the Karaoke" / "Jackie Chan", (Kaz 1989)
- "Annabella" / "Different", (Eggy Pop 1996)
- "We Are Ninja Remix Collection ", (Ninja Tune 2000)
Albums
- We Are Frank ChickensWe Are Frank ChickensWe Are Frank Chickens was the first studio album by the new wave band Frank Chickens. The album was the collaboration of Kazuko Hohki, Kazumi Taguchi, Steve Beresford and David Toop. Steve Beresford and David Toop produced and helped write most of the musical material. The record spawned a major...
, (Kaz 1984) - Get Chickenized, (Kaz 1987)
- The Best of Frank Chickens, (Kaz 1987)
- Club Monkey, (1988)
- Pretty Frank Chickens, (199?) [only released in Japan]
- Yukasita - Underfloor WorldYukasita - Underfloor WorldYukasita – Underfloor World is the last full album released by Frank Chickens in 1997 . The album just bears the English title but it also known by the Japanese translation Yukasita...
, (1997)
Compilations
- The 90 Days - The Original Soundtrack, (1992) Contributed 3 tracks.
- Xen CutsXen CutsXen Cuts is a compilation album released by Ninja Tune independent record label on their tenth anniversary. The album was released in a four piece vinyl recording , as two disc CD and as a three disc CD versions, with the third disc "Xen Cuts Missed Flipped and Skipped" also released separately...
(Ninja Tune 2000), contained new version of We Are Ninja (Not Geisha). - What Would This Record Have Sounded Like If John Cale Had Had Some Setback And Cinzia La Fauci And Alberto Scotti Had Taken His Place (Snowdonia 2003), Not Right (1 track contribution to Stooges cover album)
Film appearances
- Frank Chickens appear as themselves in the Shunichi NagasakiShunichi Nagasakiis a Japanese film director and screenwriter.-Director: is a Japanese film director and screenwriter.-Director: is a Japanese film director and screenwriter.-Director::2007 Black Belt Known in Japan as Kuro-Obi【黒帯】....
1985 short film London Calling.
- Kazuko Hohki appears in the 1993 documentary The Good Wife of Tokyo, directed by Kim LonginottoKim LonginottoKim Longinotto is a British documentary film maker, well known for making films which highlight the plight of female victims of oppression or discrimination...
, which also featured fellow band member Chika Nakagawa as well as Hohki's husband, record producer Grant ShowbizGrant ShowbizGrant Showbiz is a British record producer principally known for his work with The Fall, The Smiths, and Billy Bragg plus as an artist in his own right with Moodswings. He continues his work with both Billy Bragg & The Fall to this day, having worked on more albums by both The Fall & Billy Bragg...
. The film includes footage of a Frank Chickens tour of Japan.