Peelander-Z is something akin to a pornographic Teletubbies/Ramones encounter, enacted live in a late-’90s lower Manhattan gallery, with audience participation encouraged, nay, mandatory. Which is to say, a Peelander-Z show is craft, spectacle, critique and a power-pop party, like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.
Central Arkansans should be psyched that tonight, straight off of a headlining stint at Austin-based South by Southwest (SXSW), Peelander-Z is playing in Hot Springs for the Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival.
Over the years, the lineup has shifted, as founding Peelanders Blue and Red have been replaced with Green (Akihiko Naruse, drums), Black (Tetsuya Hayakawa, guitar) and Pink (Yumiko Kanazaki, vocals). There’s also Purple (name unknown, since their publicist’s policy is not to give out particulars) on bass. Blue hopped another spaceship to take over the monarchy of the home planet (or perhaps he got married and had to stop touring), and Red quit the band to teach full time at Ninja High School. The only founding member left is Peelander Yellow (Kengo Hioki, lead guitar and vocals), but all of that’s back story and none of it matters.(Disclaimer: We’ve come by all Peelander names through hearsay, and no Peelander is willing to confirm that these are, indeed, their proper names.)
What matters is making tonight’s show. If you do, this is what you can expect: flashing strobes, dancing dinosaurs and sea creatures (that might be lions or lizards -it’s unclear) in huge headdresses; cue cards with song titles (because the more you read, the more you know); being pulled on stage and ridiculed for your glasses, kissed on the lips, or given a pot to bang with a drumstick; jumping rope, farcical football, bowling with a human head (that happens to be attached to Peelander Yellow) and lots and lots of dancing.
The presentation is so overwhelming, it’s easy to overlook the music, but as lo-fi, upbeat punk, Peelander-Z’s songs stand alone. They sound like something straight from the ’90s do-it-yourself scene. They could come from Southern California or Bloomington, Ind., or Gainesville, Fla., playing house shows and wheat pasting hand drawn, Xeroxed fliers. But instead, they come from some strange variation of a dreamy, Little Tokyo video-game diaspora. Their pastiche is a hobbled parody of art-school sensibility and regurgitated cultures. It’s a punk circus sideshow, fueled by rainbow blood and some sort of genuine, performative angst. (When Yellow ran headfirst into a dozen or so bowling pins, there was visible, immediate swelling, a few moments of stumbling, and then, another punchy guitar riff. Several years ago, during a New Mexico show, Yellow jumped off a two-story balcony and broke his foot.)
It’s part of the appeal. We’re never sure what’s real here, or if there is an objective beyond the grandest of stage shows. In interviews the Peelanders are vague and fantastic, never giving anything away. Is their football sketch a critique of Western culture? Are they punk rock vegans singing about steak because it’s stupid? Or, like Cibo Matto, those other Japanese indie pop transplants in 1990s New York (of whom they remind me, even though the connection seems superficial at best), do they sing about food simply because those are the English words they know best? Is the whole broken English thing affected, just part of the show?
Whatever it is, someone is buying it. Beyond multiple SXSW appearances, Peelander-Z has played at Bonnaroo and New York’s CMJ Music Marathon. They’ve been on VH-1, Comedy Central and Spike TV. They regularly make appearances at anime and comic conventions.
Peelander-Z is the real deal. It’s just, no one is sure what deal that is. But that’s OK. That’s marvelous, actually. It’s much more exciting this way.
Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival
Artists: Peelander-Z, Galaxy Express, My Gold Mask, Pallbearer, Pinkish Black, The Royal Heist
6 p.m (doors), 7 p.m. (music) today, Low Key Arts, 118 Arbor, Hot Springs
Admission: $7 valleyofthevapors.com (501) 282-9056
Style, Pages 29 on 03/19/2013