Biography
"At the end of the '80s, singer-songwriter Kenichi Asai 浅井 健一 was reportedly worrying whether to continue his motorcycle gang or start a rock band. If he hadn't decided on the latter, the motorcycle world would have been the beneficiary, but Japan would never have met one of its quintessential rebel heroes.
Moving to Tokyo from his native Aichi Prefecture, Asai would eventually become one of Japan's best-known rock 'n' roll bad-boys. He founded influential garage rock unit Blankey Jet City in 1990, and after an eight-year run, left to form first the Sherbets, then all-star band Ajico (with brooding soul singer UA), and now Jude (pronounced "yuh-dah"). After the larger ensembles of the Sherbets and Ajico, Jude marks a return to the barebones rock trio format of Blankey Jet City.
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While Asai is already onto his third band since Blankey Jet City broke up at the end of the '90s, his distinctive imprint is stamped on all three projects. A listen to Jude -formed only this March with bassist Keiichi Watanabe and drummer Junji Ikehata -reveals much of the same reverb-drenched guitar work and reedy, quavering vocals that informed his work with the Sherbets and Ajico.
In only six months of Jude's existence, Asai's prolific songwriting produced a body of new material large enough to support two albums. So Asai's independent record label Sexy Stones did exactly that, simultaneously releasing Dirty Animal and Charming Bloody Tuesday this October.
The albums show an Asai in a number of his favorite guises, variously appearing as greasy biker and sinewy lover-boy. It's the latter incarnation that he adopts for the oddly likeable song "Silvet," the video for which is currently on rotation on MTV. But it's only one of the many poses the inexhaustible Asai strikes. His bag of tricks also includes a repertoire that runs from country and western to psychobilly to Jon Spencer-style skronk-rock.
Like Bob Dylan's voice, Asai's thin vibrato is undoubtedly an acquired taste, but if you stick around in Japan long enough, as with Dylan, you may find this peculiar figure beginning to grow on you."
taken from Metropolis Japan Today
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.