They probably have a lot of memory-loss issues, but the Black Lips haven't forgotten the Birthday Suits. The druggy Georgia garage-rockers played with the Twin Cities' resident Japanese punk duo at 7th Street Entry many moons ago when they were just a hungry, struggling band. Now that they're full and flourishing, the Black Lips picked the Birthday Suits as one of the lesser-known acts to be profiled by the Vice Records-affiliated music videography site Noisey.com.
The Noisey crew churned out a seven-minute mini-movie on the Suits, which just posted today. Among the footage are scenes of them performing at 7th Street Entry, shopping at Treehouse Records and doing what most punk-rockers do by day, walking around Lake Harriet. There's still a little ice on the lake and snow on the ground, which suggests the footage was probably just shot a few weeks ago.
There are a few revealing moments in the montage. For starters, anyone who's never been in 7th Street Entry's "backstage area" (the basement) can see why most bands who play there can usually be spotted hanging out in the club instead. We also get to see the Birthday Suits' tour vehicle, a mini-van with 210,000 miles on it and without most of its door handles: "Japanese made," singer/guitarist Hideo Takahashi boasts.
Maybe most revealing of all, Takahashi also addresses the fact that the duo never uses its foreign status as a gimmick or selling point: "I never felt like we're a Japanese band: We should wear Mt. Fuji T-shirts and rock out," he says. You can see from the footage why they don't need to do that.
