The single cover for Yokubō o Sakebe!!!

It was a unnaturally sweltering day in Austin Texas when the four, 19-year-old members of Okamoto’s took the makeshift stage next to a goat pen at The Typewriter Museum. Initial impressions of how young they were or wondering how they broke into Mick Jagger’s closet to steal those matching, silk shirts dissolved the moment they struck the first chord. At the time, Okamoto’s tag line was “the spirit of the ’60s lives on in these 19-year-old Japanese rockers.” They strut around like Mick Jagger. They wind-milled like Pete Townshend. In short, they more than lived up to their tag line.

Despite hitting that free Typewriter Museum show and a set at SXSW’s Japan Nite with performances like a barrage of canon fire, Okamoto’s revealed a lack of maturity in their song-writing. There were no hooks; no catches; not much to hang your ear on. There was nothing in those performances that resembled a hit song.

Two years later we have “Yokubō o Sakebe!!!”, a song that hits your ears like a Stratocaster swinging full-force for your skull.
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