Their third EP finds Brooklyn’s favorite clown-birthed band asking the listener to “put [them] in your mouth”
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Brooklyn’s first president of japan describes themselves as the byproduct of “what happens when a clown starts a punk band”—an origin story that implies, depending on one’s personal clown feelings/fears/fetishes, a certain degree of hilarity, horror and/or horniness. Big tents and tiny cars. Pom poms and pointy hats. Juggling and Juggalos. And a soundtrack along the lines of duh duh duhduhduhduh duh duh duhduh.
But I’m going to need you to abandon those clown cliches, Mister, and take that red-nosed, floppy-shoed stereotype for a spin in a Bushwick blender. What’s churned out is fishnets and ferocity, neon hair and underwear, howls through the mic, shouts through the megaphone, crowdsurfing interspersed by crowd work (occasionally about eggs).
So, a penchant for the bizarre. But more importantly: sheer showmanship.
That said, while FPOJ is the first to admit that they’re a band you gotta see live, they haven’t been sacrificing the studio for the stage. After dropping two EPs, the band is releasing their third this week—and a day ahead of its release, I’m psyched to premiere it here!
From FPOJ, this is Your Recommended Daily Intake Of first president of japan!
It must be noted that even the circus has substance, and the madness delivered by FPOJ is at the service, not the expense, of the music itself. What affords frontperson (and aforementioned clown) Non Kuramoto the freedom to get weird with it is the skill and the energy of the bandmates (guitarist Akifumi Nagae; bassist Yoko Sawai; keys player Duncan Lockard; drummer Zeev Banks; Mark Benjamin as swing and videographer; and Dave Strawn, who filled in during Aki’s absence) backing her up. These are not verses and choruses composed of empty calories. This is art made with intention, a creative weight that satiates—
An analogy that segues quite nicely into the theme of the EP, as described below by Non:
“The third installation of first president of japan EPs that implore you to put us in your mouth, Your Recommended Daily Intake Of first president of japan takes the leap from food (EP 1 – breakfast, EP 2 – cake) to nutritional supplements. We still want to live in the visceral, carnal moistness in your mouth and between your teeth. But now we have more questions about artifice, simulations, and overcompensation. Our food system is so broken that essential nutrients are resold to us piecemeal, as pills pretending to be candy. Can we truly grieve, feel pleasure, and everything in between, if we keep giving ourselves up to convenience?”
Questions to consider as you take today’s dose. Listen while learning more about the six songs that comprise the EP, which explore human feelings and animal behaviors, pulling inspiration from allergy frustration and salamander migration, whale screams and frog dreams, grief in the limbo of an airport hotel and the worrisome things and ways that we worship.
Your Recommended Daily Intake Of first president of japan—TRACK BY TRACK:
“My house isn’t made of bread, cake, or sugar.”
“Duncan came in with the opening riff of the song inspired by a poetry writing prompt about things left unfinished. My object permanence is kind of iffy, or as my mom says, ‘your vision is swiss cheese’ or as my roommates say, ‘please stop leaving scissors on the couch.'”
“KAYUI”
“‘Aki was trapped in Japan for a year (such fun immigration processes!) and Dave Strawn filled in on guitar. I told Dave I wanted a song ‘That makes people want to fight but also want to fuck??’ and he said ‘I want this song to be in Japanese.’ How did we do? It’s about nature and dirt and bugs (horny) and how I’m allergic to everything (violent).”
“I Took a Walk”
“This is our twee-est song yet! I spent a week in the woods alone last year (as one must). After reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s description of spotted salamanders’ spring migration in Braiding Sweetgrass, I had a dream I was a frog that got hit by a car. “
“WHALE SONG”
“These are the liner notes I wrote for the zine I made for the single:
‘There seems to be an assumption that ‘serene’ is the tandem adjective for these giants. Whales are increasingly beaching themselves instead of living out their life cycle into whale fall. When they throw their bodies onto land, they do not get to simply die and decompose. Their massive bodies and long lives equal a massive capacity to accumulate toxins, debris, pollutants that we dump into the ocean. A beached whale is toxic industrial waste with a waning pulse, using their last breaths to stare right at us. An oxygen breathing mammal must live under water. Mythologized, because they are wonderful or because overexploitation made them rare? Their charisma turns them into both symbols of nature conservation and distractions from less glamorous endangered ecosystems. We project serenity onto them and then take it for granted. Drunk on illusions of infinity. Pulled apart picked apart cut up melted crushed cooked skinned fucked and fucked and fucked. Why would a whale’s song not be a blood curdling scream.'”
“Itami (ITM)”
“Last summer my grandpa passed and I flew to Japan to attend his funeral. I had work and shows so I dropped in for the 30 hours of funeral proceedings, not enough time to stay anywhere other than the hotel inside Osaka Itami Airport. The weird purgatory of grieving while commuting to his cremation on a monorail. From a business hotel. I was just holding my grandpa’s skeleton between chopsticks. Now I’m lying in a twin bed facing a gray wall under the brightest white fluorescent lights. I’m grateful that I was able to make it, but it’s also so unnatural that a grieving ritual gets contained, both in time and space. Funny that Itami is a homonym for the word for ‘pain.’”
“Millions”
“Aki brought this riff into rehearsal proclaiming he wrote the guitar riff that will make us millions. I’m still waiting for the millions. Hah. Operation Migration was a project that attempted to save endangered Whooping Cranes using ultralight aircrafts to ‘teach’ new generations of the cranes their migration paths. Okay I’m just now realizing this EP is animal-behavior heavy. Well, the ways we try to play god by ‘trying to fix’ nature problems we created in any other way than DO LESS does keep me up at night. What we worship and how it’s hurting us gets clearer and clearer when we pay attention to these ironies. After all, we’re just animals too!”
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The circus is hitting the road (tell your friends!), and you can catch the crew back in Brooklyn when they hit the stage at The Gutter on April 18th.
Grab your tix here. And get to know the band better via THE RIDER, where back in December they shared a Top 10 featuring backseat karaoke, Japanese dad jokes and their “strange but perfect” astrological breakdown.
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Follow the band at @firstpresidentofjapan, buy music on Bandcamp and add the songs to your Spotify playlists now!
Feature image (provided by the band): Michelle LoBianco