Tokyo Panorama Mambo Boys

Let’s face it. I’ll just be very honest here and come out and say it. 

I was one of those teenage idiots who’d hit record on the VCR before realizing that I was recording Das Efx’s They want Efx, right in the middle of the Jeff Speakman action vehicle, “The Perfect Weapon.” And as luck would have it, the video started during the dojo fight when one of the bad guys yells out at Jeff, “Come on white boy! Let’s see what you got!”

So yeah, I would do that to some of my VHS tapes. Others like my beloved copy of Pump up the volume, I pulled the record tab loose so I would not be tempted to record over it. But some became a wonderfully weird cacophony or video mosaic of my brain. But I digress. (I always do.)

One day I was looking around on a tape that been interspersed with music videos and parts of odd movies that I found on satellite. One snippet was a bit of news from MTV about a Jean Michel Basquiat art exhibit in New York. It was a brief piece about his work and a man with dreads who talked like Thurston Howell. But the next part was Kurt Loder and his stoic face and dead eyes, talking about a band from Isle of Japan called, Tokyo Panorama Mambo Boys.

Gonzarez on the decks!

Comoesta on the Timbales 

Paradise can pull a car with his teeth!

Mambo Spies! 

They were a three-piece band consisting of Comoesta Yaegashi on timbales, Paradise Yamamoto on congas, and Gonzarez Suzuki who manned the decks. The interview was intercut with scenes from their videos of them running around Tokyo, and their live shows working up a frenzy and going nuts. It was so invigorating. Paradise and Comoesta were dressed like they were pulled from a time warp of Mambo Mayhem, somewhere in the Catskill Mountains in the 1950's. Gonzarez wore shades and was stone-faced throughout the interview. Comoesta did most of the talking though. He explained what kind of music they love and gave a bit of history about the band. "When we first started in Tokyo in 1987, only 5 people listened to us. But now."
"Now!" Paradise bellows, like he's cutting a promo for a wrestling match.
Comoesta starts back up. "Hundreds and thousands listen to us."
"Very famous in Japan." Gonzarez stoically says, with Paradise nodding with his eyes open wide, putting you in mind of Flavor Flave.

It ended with Loder saying, "All you foreign music lovers should get out there and start scouring those record bins right now.”

Pachinko

These guys are so amazing!

Check them duds!

The next day, I went to the three music stores in my town, Spun Doctors, Hastings, and Hot Dogs, trying to find this band and everyone I asked, looked at me like I was making it all up. I showed the clip to my friends and drove them crazy over me obsessing over them. "Please keep an eye out if you ever a cd of them, please!" This was probably about 1994 or so. When I went to New York in Nov of 95 I checked a music store for them but was let down. (I will have to talk about why I was in New York another time.) I was beginning to think that I would never be able to listen to them. I was starting to give up. 

In 1997, my best friend at the time was going to study abroad in Japan for a year and with that news,  my hopes were lifted.

I talked to the owner of Blue Meanie records and he said that I should get my friend to check Tower Records there in the city he would be living in and they would have it there.

I bugged my friend nonstop! If I talked to him on the phone, I would mention it. If I sent him a letter, I mentioned it there too. When I emailed him...well, you get the picture. I guess he got tired of me talking about them because he started making up this infamous llama incident where the group was going to play Tibet and had an accident with the llamas they were traveling on and fell off a mountain and died.

"I'm sorry man, they're dead. The llamas were over packed with mambo equipment and they couldn't take it."

But insisted and kept at him to look around every music store and find them. And finally, it paid off. I got a package from him containing A Tokyo Panorama Mambo Boys album and a single from a band called Sophia. It was postmarked 16-10-97. I was so excited! I remember it was a Saturday when I found it staring back at me in my mailbox. I went directly to the song Pachinko immediately.
"pachinko!" You hear them yell!
doko ikuno? (where r u going?) pachinko shimasho (let's play pachinko)
pachinko, pachinko shimasho.

I listened to it over and over!I did actually listen to the rest of the album that day.
A mambo version of the James Bond theme was amazing!Al Compas del Mambo was a little faster version of the original by Perez Prado.

The whole album was something that I needed in my life at that point in time.
I began a feverous obsession with mambo music soon after.

Oh, and also, another friend of mine went to Japan in 2009 and asked me if I wanted anything.
You know exactly what I said. So when she came back, she put another album by them in my hand. A two-disc album this time.

"You know I almost couldn't find this." She told me while putting it in my hand.
"I had to go to another type of music store. One for a more mature ear."
"What do you mean?" I asked her.
"Music for older people. Lame music. My boyfriend made fun of me for going in there." She said laughingly.
"Well," I said, "They don't know why they are missing."