Browse by Artist: JOKERS

Artist:	JOKERS
Title:	Jokers
Label:	FADING SUNSHINE (SPAIN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	FS 001CD

"Hailing from Tehran, Iran, the Jokers were one of Iran's heavy underground rock groups during the early '70s. Having visited the UK for a short period, Vaheed, the lead singer and guitarist of Jokers returned to Iran with new ideas and influences. After hearing groups like MC5 & Cream, the Jokers decided to pursue this type of sound, and subsequently recorded a heavy psychedelic blues album in a garage circa 1972 using nothing more than a reel to reel and two microphones. Filled with heavy fuzz, loud wah guitars and screaming vocals, the album sounds unlike any rock artifact unearthed from Iran so far. Sadly no record label would release their album, so they continued to perform at local venues, and even managed to get a performance at the German Embassy before disbanding. Here for the first time ever is a limited edition pressing taken directly from the reels they recorded in 1972. Fully licensed, this is a one-time pressing only. The numbered edition of 1000 CD version comes in paste-on mini-LP jackets with inner sleeves."

Artist:	JOKERS
Title:	Jokers
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 149CD

Hiroshi Nar: (vocals, guitar, organ, chorus); Yohkai Takahashi: (bass, chorus); Toshi Ishizuka: (drums, percussion, chorus). "Accelerated senility, inspired lunacy, and grotesque rock-pranks from a trio of Japanese underground veterans who should really know 'better'. If meaningful Pete Frame musical histories are what you're after, then this trio has it in spades. Ritalin-huffing vocalist and smeary-fingered guitarist Hiroshi Na was a member of both acid-goth mystery group Les Rallizes Denudes and seminal anarcho-folk-punkers Zuno Keisatsu during their heaviest periods in the seventies. Hairy, speaker-shaking bassist Yokai Takahashi was in a bunch of no-wave carcrash groups like Bunretsu before serving a lengthy stint in Rallizes during the eighties and nineties. More recently he's been a central plank in Gyaatees, which throws mentally-challenged priests together with hoary rock improvisers to chaotic ends. Wildman drummer Toshi Ishizuka was a founder member of Zuno Keisatsu and Vajra, a constant presence behind folk legends Kazuki Tomokawa and Kan Mikami, as well as leading his own group Cinorama. But instead of a full-frontal assault, the Jokers have decided to tunnel under the gates of perception with an arsenal of rhythmic pratfalls, riffing slapstick and spluttering vocal raspberries. Theirs is an indescribably freaky but endearingly unaffected universe, where village idiot vocalizations happily rub up against stop-start rhythmic Morse code and some very wild and fuzzy guitar soloing. Against all the odds, this convinces, entertains and thrills. Adult rock from a group who never grew up." -- Alan Cummings

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