An explosive double bill featuring the all-female Japanese trio from Kill Bill!

About The 5.6.7.8’s…

The 5.6.7.8’s are an all-female Japanese rockin’ garage trio band from Tokyo who play the UK every so often. The band consists of Yoshiko Fujiyama on guitar and lead vocal, Chellio Panther Omo on bass and Sachiko on drums.

The 5.6.7.8’s music draws from multiple genres of American music, including rock and roll, surf, rockabilly, doo-wop, punk rock and psychobilly. According to Yoshiko “Ronnie” Fujiyama, the band wanted to “deconstruct rock ‘n’ roll into punk music by using distortion and noise and screaming.”

The 5.6.7.8’s became known in the West after their appearance in Kill Bill Vol.1 in which they performed “I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield”, “I’m Blue” (a cover of The Ikettes’ song) and “Woo Hoo” in a Tokyo club, “The House Of Blue Leaves”. On the Special Bonus Features of the Kill Bill Volume 1 DVD, one of the specials featured a live performance which shows the 5.6.7.8’s singing “I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield” and “I’m Blue” during filming of the movie. The 5.6.7.8’s song “The Barracuda” is featured in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift soundtrack.

According to Kill Bill director Quentin Tarantino, he discovered the music of the 5.6.7.8’s after hearing it in an urban clothing store in Tokyo, hours before going to the airport. Tarantino asked if he could purchase the CD from the store, as he had no time to go to a music shop. When the shop assistant on duty refused, the manager was called. When Tarantino offered the manager double the retail price of the CD, he acquired it!

About The Masonics…

This ‘Louder Than War’ review tells us all we need to know!

“The Masonics play in Black and White on a convex screen on a three-channel television, metaphorically speaking. Their stock in trade is Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and A Kind of Loving type stories made into a series of two and a half minute songs instead of movies. Musically it’s a Beatles at the Star Club meets Bo Diddley with a bit of ’50’s balladeering, recorded in the garage adjoining the House of the Rising Sun.”

I saw them live pre-pandemic and it was one of the utterly perfect performances I’ve seen by any band. I was a latecomer to the Medway Delta bands, but once you hear them and ‘get it’, it stays in your blood. It’s about the commitment to authenticity and the blocking out of the modern day. And it’s just great music.”