OSHIRIPENPENZ

Dancing Jellyfish Shrieks About The Beatles

The Oshiripenpenz are probably a bit like marmite or natto; you either love them or hate them. Being greeted by a man in red wearing a giant jellyfish head seemed weird enough on less than 4 hours sleep, but when the hat came off the singer decided that the snug confines of the Naeba Shokudo tent were far too restrictive and so he clambered up the side of the tent and sat on the roof yelling at the crowd until someone passed him microphone. It was difficult to know whether I was going to find this insufferable or highly entertaining.

The Oshiripenpenz’ style is rather difficult to pin down – grimy, lo-fi, comical punk? That being said, the musicians cannot be faulted, despite the apparent simplicity of what they were doing, being that crude is quite hard to do well. As a backing to non-sensical ramblings about gorillas, the drums and guitar added not only an unexpected funk element, but a good deal of comedy. Shrieks and random screaming, in addition to songs which seemed to stop mid-flow, challenged a few members of the crowd, who wandered off looking bemused and irritated, but plenty of people stuck around to laugh at the antics going on.

When the jellyfish headdress came back on and then there was some ranting about The Beatles: “The Beatles are easy to listen to/ The Beatles are easy to remember” and then there were some more animal shrieking numbers and then I got a bit fed up and called it a night.

I’m still not sure whether I liked this Osaka band, but had I been in a more receptive mood and a bit more tanked up on booze, this would have been great fun. I’d recommend seeing them live, but I reckon you might be risking limbs in a confined space with them. Bring your jellyfish helmets.