Musical Discovery: Hanatarash

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This band is totally insane – make sure to watch all the videos I’ve embedded. I came across them when I looked into a noise-rock/classical sub-genre ominously titled ‘dangerous music’.

In 1984, before fronting Boredoms, Eye Yamantaka was the driving force behind ultra-abrasive, experimental noise band Hanatarash. Founded in 1984 in Osaka, Japan, the band used a range of unusual items to create the heavy industrial sounds on some of their recordings. But power drills, machinery and tape manipulation was not what set this band apart.

They quickly gained underground notoriety and cred for their electric and incredibly dangerous gigs where no one was safe – to the point of having audience members sign a waiver recognising the possibility and probability of sustaining injury during the show.

Eye weathered a serious leg injury after strapping a circular saw to his back, cut a dead cat in half with a machete and managed to rack up a ¥600,000 (around 7,500AUD) bill on one particularly crazy night during a gig in a Tokyo superloft. That gig had to be called off due to Eye threatening to throw a lit petrol bomb into the audience.

Check out these insane videos of Eye strutting around the stage hurling large plates of glass at the camera and off stage, as well as a legendary slideshow of by far the bands most hardcore gig where Eye drove a bulldozer through the back wall and onto the stage!