A few years back, a female radio DJ in Tokyo refused to say the name "Super Butter Dog" on the air because the band's name is taken from a term used in the Japanese porn industry to a describe a practice in which - no, best leave it there. Nippop is a family web site, after all. Presumably the DJ didn't play Super Butter Dog's music on her show, which is a pity, because, silly name aside, SBD were one of the coolest groups to emerge from the J-pop scene in the late '90s. They're a good...

A few years back, a female radio DJ in Tokyo refused to say the name "Super Butter Dog" on the air because the band's name is taken from a term used in the Japanese porn industry to a describe a practice in which - no, best leave it there. Nippop is a family web site, after all. Presumably the DJ didn't play Super Butter Dog's music on her show, which is a pity, because, silly name aside, SBD were one of the coolest groups to emerge from the J-pop scene in the late '90s. They're a good example of the many Japanese bands that, while signed to a major label and developing a respectable fan base, have never really made it into the J-pop first division, probably because their funky, sophisticated music doesn't easily fit into any one stylistic category. SBD's founding members - vocalist/guitarist Takashi Nagazumi and lead guitarist Tomoyasu Takeuchi - met in 1994 at university and found they both loved the music of funk bands such as Funkadelic, Parliament and Sly and the Family Stone. Funk-rock forms the bedrock of the band's sound, but just as important are Nagazumi's songwriting skills and melodic sense. Among his musical influences he lists Carole King, Rikki Lee Jones, Yosui Inoue and - wait for it - Julie London. The template for the band was "Japanese funk, using idiomatic Japanese, with no limits." Nagazumi has one of those love-it-or-hate voices - it's a bit reedy and not terribly impressive on first listen. But his singing is subtly expressive, its light tone floating over the churning funk the band lays down. And with his slight frame, black-framed glasses and porkpie hat, Nagazumi cuts a distinct figure on stage. (SBD are a killer live band, by the way.) Nagazumi and Takeuchi recruited drummer Shuichi Sawada, keyboardist Takafumi Ikeda, bassist Tomohiko (he prefers to use a single name) and vocalist Megumi Yamaguchi (who later left the group), and Super Butter Dog was born. The band started its career by doing covers of tunes by Sly Stone and other funkmeisters, but gradually began writing original material. After getting some attention when two of its songs were included on producer S- Ken's Soup Up compilation album in 1996, Super Butter Dog were signed by Toshiba-EMI talent-spotter Keitaro Kamo, who described the band as representing a new generation of Japanese musicians who had a more "international" sound that combined club music and rock. Their first major-label release was the 1997 album Freeway, which was produced by S- Ken. The first two songs on the album show two sides of SBD's music: "Kakehiki no Judgment" is a frenzied funk workout, with Takeuchi's scintillating guitar blasting out killer riffs at a frenetic pace, while "Shuden Magiwa no Bungee Jump" is much more mellow and shows just what a master of the songwriting craft Nagazumi is. SBD released six more albums after that, their most recent being Ra, which came out in May 2002. Since then, the group's members have taken an extended break from SBD. Nagazumi has released three albums as a member of the band Hanare Gumi, while Takeuchi has been very active as a DJ, producer and support musician in concert with the Black Bottom Brass Band, among others. Ikeda has also been active as a DJ, and most recently formed a band with Kazuyoshi Nakamura called 100s (pronounced "hyaku shiki"), whose first album, Oz, was released in January 2005. Tomohiko has been keeping busy as a session bassist, DJ and CD-jacket illustrator, while Sawada is in demand as a session drummer. Hopefully SBD will be let off the leash soon.