Advertisement
Sunday, May 5, Cinco de Mayo7pm doors/8pm show
$15 advance/$20 at the door
18 + W/ I.D. (No I.D. = No Show)
Kaiju-themed surf rock from Texas
Daikaiju www.facebook.com/godaikaiju http://daikaiju.org https://daikaiju.bandcamp.com www.instagram.com/teamdaikaiju
Nervous Tick and the Zipper Lips https://nervoustick.bandcamp.com
The Evil Things www.facebook.com/evilthings https://soundcloud.com/theevilthings https://www.instagram.com/evilthangs
Daikaiju (die-kie-joo) Who is the Daikaiju??? Premium action heroes deliver most high rocket music! Special reverb skill combo for full impact! Loud sonic boom for earful pleasure! Beautiful radiation of hyper-dimensional springy sound creates divine psychic wind for your special protection. Worship Psycho-surf band Daikaiju daily for good luck and health!
Daikaiju is a mysterious chimera of sound and imagery that was first sighted in the winter of 1999. Entities of sonic mayhem, Daikaiju takes the sound of waves crashing and shrieking atomic lizards and makes it rock in a way that instills shock and awe in all who experience their shows-a highly interactive and confrontational performance that literally draws the audience into the massive vortex of sound generated by the band. Concealed behind masks, this troupe of mystery men create a mutant style of epic, high energy instrumental rock that seamlessly incorporates a wide variety of musical styles including surf, punk, noise, metal, psychedelic and progressive rock.
Like its namesake, the music of Daikaiju is a great, mysterious beast. Compelling melodies, hard-hitting riffs and shifting dynamics fuse together to create songs that dare the listener to experience the secret history of the universe-a fantastic reality of giant monsters, super humans, and extraterrestrial invasions that unfolds like the soundtrack of the greatest monster movie never made.
During the early years of the 21st century, Daikaiju's constant touring in support of their first EP, Monster Surf, built-up a substantial following throughout the southeastern U.S. They expanded their roadwork to the rest of the country as well as overseas with a tour of the Netherlands in November 2001, followed by a lengthier European stay in 2002. In February 2002, the band released their second EP, The Phasing Spider Menace which won them many new fans via liberal airplay on college radio and on a number of podcasts including Escape Pod (www.escapepod.org)-- a weekly podcast of science fiction and fantasy shorts. The band has also been featured on a number of U.S. and European compilations as well as on Kaiju Big Battel (www.kaiju.com) video productions. In 2005, the band released its debut full-length album on Reptile Records. The self-titled record garnered rave reviews from a wide variety of music publications including music pundits Pitchfork Media (www.pitchforkmedia.com) who hailed Daikaiju as one of the greatest instrumental surf bands currently in existence. In September 2010, the band released its second full-length album-Phase 2-on DingDong Records. The long-awaited album became a huge crossover critical success that got recognized in various annual Top 10 lists for surf, heavy metal and progressive rock releases. The band embarked on a whirlwind tour of the continental U.S. in support of the album playing well over 200 shows in 2011. In 2012, the band embarked on two European tours and continued their lengthy roadwork throughout the U.S. In 2013, the band toured the Far East for its first shows in China, South Korea, and Japan. Daikaiju tied Public Image Ltd. as the 'Best show by a foreign touring act' in Time Out Beijing's "Year's end roundup: the best of Beijing music" for 2013. Their latest album, Phase 3, was released in early 2023.
Their August 2022 show at Mohawk is legendary. You don't want to miss this one...
“Somewhere along the line, surf music ceased to have anything to do with actual surfing and migrated to kitsch. Dick Dale had "Pipeline", the Surfaris had "Wipe-Out!", and Man...or Astroman? had..."You Can't Get Good Riblets in Space". But although shuddering tremolo bars fit the image of a guy in floral print trunks, the music is mostly instrumental and as such essentially abstract, so you can make it mean anything you want it to. Even early surf rockers like the Ventures and the Tornados realized this and began to incorporate the astronautical, lounge, and kitsch elements that color most efforts in the genre these days.
So the term "surf" as it relates to music today basically just refers to music with lots of reverb and crazy guitar playing, which is fine-- you can acknowledge the roots without trying to turn them into branches. I can say pretty categorically that Croatia's Bambi Molesters are the best surf band in the world today, but given Man...or Astroman?'s long silence, Daikaiju certainly have a claim to the #2 spot. Much like fellow modern surf-rockers Los Straightjackets, the men of Daikaiju keep their identities secret, each represented by a mask in the band's press releases, which also feature a lot of fake Japanese-to-English translations like "Kabuki men deliver most high rocket impact!"
Students of Godzilla, Mothra, and Gamera know that Daikaiju is Japanese for "giant monster," and the Huntsville, Ala., quartet are obviously enamored with the most conspicuous aspects of Japanese popular culture, though they refrain from sticking soundclips from Mechagodzilla sequels all over their albums the way so many other surf groups recently have. They instead opt to let the music speak for itself, and when it does, it's impressive, to say the least. Though their sound is closer to Man...or Astroman? than anything else (it's of course possible that there are members of that band hiding out in their ranks) there's a certain degree of prog muscle behind all that reverbed shredding…” - Pitchfork
"This is what you need to know about Daikaiju: They're loud. They're all instrumental (duh). And they're the band to see if you want to experience surf rock at its most offensive." - The Informer
Live!:
Advertisement
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
47 E Mohawk St, Buffalo, NY, United States, New York 14203
Tickets