Sieg Heil                       

                                                                LINK                                                   Fukuoka - Japan

            Hakata city. Back in 1982 there came the culture of hardcore punk--fashion and sound--caught the kids and put them into the chaotic fever. The scenery around the venue is the first thing I remember whenever I think of the old days, Kids were making small groups, having places on the corners, threatening/warning each others. The tension was about to explode. My band "Swankys" used to be one of those kids. Sometimes there was a fight, sometimes just looking daggers [sic]… Even though in such situation full of enmity, sometimes I found to get along with (laughter).

I personally liked the electric atmosphere on those days. The venue was like a battlefront that seems far away from the peaceful air nowadays. The kids had no wired sort of cozy fellowships since all the groups were so small and diverse. I would say there was no other Hardcore band except us, the Swankys. There were some copycats and posers but definitely not a Hardcore Punk.

During that time I met the group of T.V.'s [from Sieg Heil]. These punks were still in junior high and remarkably notorious for their fearless attitude and great sense of fashion. We found ourselves as kindred spirits as soon as we met. We used to talk about how we could change the fucking situation around here. We always attacked the poser bands since they dressed like a shit and doing terrible gigs! (Laughter) It was so fun to throw as many things as possible to crash their stage! By acting naughty I was helping to see better Hardcore Punk bands, and I guess T.V. was thinking the same. He must have thought he could do a better gig than these posers who'd been crashed by us. And one day after a while I found a writing on T.V.'s leather jacket--"Sieg Heil."Oh yes, finally he formed the band!

--Written by Loods

I remember it was around '83… I started "Jiiku Hairo" [Sieg Heil] in springtime, shortly after I got the first grade of the high school. Before that, I was in the band copying songs from the Sex Pistols, Damned, Clash and so on…in the meantime I got to know the members of Swankys, the record stores in Hakata city began selling the UK Hardcore records--well, they blew me out! Discharge was really a knockout. (Laughter) Then the zines started to show the people from Tokyo's HC scene so I got inspired to begin making songs. At that time the Swankys changed the name into GAI and I went to see their gig. Well, their sound also changed me, but then to become the first hardcore band in the city.

Soon after that I started to rehearse songs, changing members time to time, and then the band got into shape and finally could do the gig with GAI. One day at a gig, a member from Confuse came over to see us play. They had no stable line up so they hadn't begun the live act yet. Well we went out for eating after the gig and the talk went about the sound of Confuse, like saying "Hey, your guitar sounds like Disorder or Chaos UK" (laughter) Until that time the guitar sound of GAI and Jiiku Hairu were not that noisy--it was more with distortion and overdrive at the same time and sometimes footing the delay box. (laughter) Oh, it was so silly as I recall.

Then the guy from Confuse said "Hey why don't you guys use the equalizer box, ah, easy makin' the guitar sings wheeze-wheeze!" Well it was really a culture shock to me! I hasted my way to home and and tried just the way he told me and got the sound. "FUZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" I like it-bai*!! After this, not only Confuse, but GAI and Jiiku Hairu became noisily ever after!

Well then again, we were in poor looking, comparing to the other bands since we were still going to school that's why we couldn't make ourselves in loud shape (laughter). Among with the others, GAI members looked so gorgeous…Watch and Loods both had cool Trojan Mohawk! Confuse guys were in tall spiky hair with London-studs (at that time it was impossible to obtain the London corn studs unless you pulled them off from the stud belts, and not to mention the punk t-shirts, they were not selling in Hakata city). Well, at least I wanted to have something uncommon with me as my advantage for them (laughter) and I found it is just to play as fast as I could…just, more speed. I say we were playing really fast at that time! Those songs are not contained to this album though… So we had a couple of slow songs-ken* that made the fast songs more impressive. We were in the '70s taste clothes…then some stores in the town nearby began import numerous studs from London! Well I felt like I got a little closer to London town…still, neither the studded jacket like the one in the cover of "Punk and Disorderly" nor the Martin boots were obtainable. So we put on the rubber soles (they were available at the Rockabilly store). We reformed the rider jackets by ourselves - some made the collar double, others made it single, or paint one sleeve in blue, put the leopard fake fur on the collar…Well, varieties of styles started to come out! NO CUT came to Hakata from Saga city in that times I recall. Well, the scene in Hakata became so distinctive in many meanings…

But the problems always happened at the gigs, Broken equipments, crowds throwing the seats--the venue started to refuse the hardcore bands to play. Until those days the "beat" scene people had long been ruling the Hakata area even though the ashes were really the assholes and cowards (laughter). Hardly found the real bands like "the Rockers" [sic]. Roosters. Eventually some sell-out bands that turned out to be the big star showed up on the "beat" fest in Hakata--it really made me sick. Well we were only the teenage punks and the "beat" people were adults…Anyway, Watch started the label named "Violent Party" and released the first cassette demo of GAI. And the second release was Jiiku Hairu. Well, here it is (laughter). We entered the recording studio and played just once like a blast! (laughter) Then set the two cassette decks to do the quick dubbing into approx 50 tapes--adding one song during the dubbing (laughter). I remember the last song was made before we turned to noise core. The cover was made by patching and Xerox! I still believe this was is the best…it is far better than clicking pixels at the PC.

We preferred not to put credit title the line-up. Said just put it as VO, B, G, DR (laughter) The drummer from this session became a member of GEDON and then joined Lydia Cats. I heard the guitar player joined the Spunky Boys after few years past. And me--Watch invited me saying "You play bass in GAI-ya*?" and I gave him a straight "OK!" Then I became a member of GAI (Swankys) but then band broke up in less than one-year time, with only ten gigs played…(I heard the second EP was released by drummer…actually I don't remember well…did I forget?)

I was surely confident in myself being a member of Hakata's #1 band "GAI" and I thought I could do freely just as I like! I was enjoying the situation since it was so different in many ways from Jiiku Hairu, which I had decide everything about the band.

Well now that the old recordings got the chance to be released in vinyl format, and the sound got much better with samplings…it is still poor compared to bands nowadays and in fact there were many nonsense approaches although we were serious with lots of trials and errors at that time to add the originality of the songs. I like how to record the voice part or footing overdrive box to the bass part…ya'll may find our efforts when you listen to them.

--Written by T.V.