Ken Nakano & the Flying Penguins

photo:jake

Discography

Wild Rice, Wild Rice, Borderless Records
Ken Nakano & the Flying Penguins "Thirsty" Borderless Records/Trip Records
In Japan: Various Artists, "NEO"
The Face, "I'm A Sad Boy/London Boy"(45rpm single)

Hometown

Karatsu, Saga, Japan

Ken Nakano grew up in a port city on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, raised on a steady musical diet of '60's & '70's British staples and the home-grown "Mentai (men-tie) Rock", named (a la Cajun) after a spicy local food. It's natural then that over a decade of changing trends and varied influences reflect in Nakano's colorful musical sensibility. Stratospheric melodies and carefully orchestrated musical embraces alternate with bare bones, sometimes dissonant, sonic parries. These provide a broad framework for lyrical themes ranging from lost love to the search for meaning in a violent world.

At age fifteen, Nakano formed The Face and quickly became a fixture in the Mentai scene. In 1984 the band released their first single and began attracting attention from farther afield. Mini-tours north to Osaka and Tokyo became routine and the following year the band was recruited to back up an established recording artist, a rock vocalist named Hakuryu.

The new role prompted other changes. The band's name became The Faith and Tokyo became their home. The musicians embarked on extensive tours throughout Japan including performances at a number of large music festivals. The Faith, on their own, began playing top-tier rock clubs of the Tokyo scene. Their song, "Jessie" got included on the "NEO" compilation album of mainstay artists appearing at "Shinjuku Loft", a Tokyo club that, not unlike CBGB's, was notorious in it's day as a breeding ground for new talent.

In 1988 the band moved to New York. The resultant changes, while pivotal for the individual members of the band, would bring to an end the eight year history of The Faith. Their final performance was at a blow-out bandathon curated by Ultra Bide backbone Hide at the now defunct East Village haunt, "Lismar Lounge". The gig had greater meaning, still, for Nakano. Two future bandmates were among the other musicians playing that day, though none of the three were more than vague aquaintances at the time. It was 1989.

In Wild Rice, Ken joined with Tada Hirano (now in Ultra Bide) and Jason Hendricks, with whom a collaborative association continues. The new band was a departure from the tight, cagey three-piece sound Nakano knew in The Faith. This was heavier and louder and it offered Ken more latitude with regards to writing and arranging. It also brought with it a flood of influences and ideas. The band would record an EP worth of material produced by Blackhearts drummer, Thommy Price. Wild Rice went through the New York club-mill more than afew times and was also seen backing up Christian Johnson, long before he and Ken became Trip Records label-mates. Nevertheless, disparate-musical-vision-syndrome plagued this band and one day, as spontaneously as it began, Wild Rice just stopped.

Ken Nakano did not, however, and two years of musical wanderlust ensued. Lengthy experiments with acoustic, hard rock, punk, even Japanese folk music landed him in numerous local groups and helped him further define his multi-faceted musical identity. It also resulted in an extensive body of material. In late 1993 he decided to record and release some of this music. His intention was not, simply, to gather together a collection of songs but to create a kind of journal that spoke of his years in New York and the music he's made there.

The work, recorded by Ken Nakano and The Flying Peguins is entitled THIRSTY. It will be released on January 30, 1996 by New York indie-upstart Borderless Records and distributed by Trip Records.

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