Named after an Osaka love hotel, Otoboke Beaver is an exuberant four-piece punk band from Kyoto, Japan.
The band kicked off their 2024 North American tour back in February, and will perform at Carrboro’s legendary Cat’s Cradle March 26.
If you’re not familiar with Otoboke Beaver (a crime, honestly), there’s still time. This totally rocking band will make for an unforgettable concert experience.
Wild Garage Rock
Self-described as a “Japanese girls ‘knock out or pound cake’ band,” Otoboke Beaver formed in 2009 after the members met at a college music society.
They released their first demo album in 2011 and a live album in 2012, both of which gained traction among Japanese audiences.
Otoboke Beaver began touring internationally in 2016, and have since garnered critical acclaim from numerous sources, including Dave Grohl, Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano, Tom Moreno, and numerous others.
Otoboke Beaver’s garage punk style regularly flirts with madness. However, amid discordant arrangements of guitar and vocals, there’s a perceptible grand design.
Spontaneity is controlled and masterfully cultivated to create a pervading sense of unity among the band’s members.
The band’s description of “knock out or pound cake” is surprisingly apt; their sound constantly alternates between vicious, unbridled energy and idyllic ebullience.
Subject matter comes directly from the band members themselves, drawing from romantic misadventures, grievances with chauvinism, sexual desire and the monotony of the daily grind.
I have no time to spend for you
seeking for a one-night stand, old fart has come
abso-f–king-lutely you’re out of question
so full-of-yourself old dirty fartshut up
“Dirty old fart is waiting for my reaction” – Otoboke Beaver
shut up
shut up and Don’t look down on me!
While the band doesn’t consider themselves to be distinctly feminist, a group of Japanese women loudly and irreverently declaring their desires in a white and male-dominated genre is nothing short of groundbreaking.
Otoboke Beaver’s latest album, “Super Champon,” came out in 2022, and all I have to say is this: if the band’s setlist draws at all from this release, audiences are in for a riotous time.
