Rebel Lounge<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cI remember the scenery (in Arizona) was very beautiful,\u201d says Yamano when asked if she remembered the last time the band came through Phoenix.<\/p>\n
For Yamano, though, the idea of doing Shonen Knife for over forty years or there being a three-decade gap between visits to Phoenix is a bit mind-boggling.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ShonenKnife_3_credit_Tomoko-Ota.jpg\")
The poppy punk power of Shonen Knife.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we started, I didn\u2019t think about a longtime future at all. I was just playing in bands and thinking about nothing else. I was always thinking, maybe, six months or a year into the future, but now, I\u2019m getting old (laughs). So, I am thinking (I\u2019m) doing my best\u2026having the best purpose for me,\u201d Naomo says. <\/p>\n
Yamano got her start being a fan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just loved American and British punk rock bands, and I wanted to play like them. After I played music for an audience and the audience seemed happy and people are smiling, I got happy. So now my purpose is I would like it if people were happy because of our music,\u201d says Yamano.<\/p>\n
Most recently, the band released \u201cOur Best Place\u201d\u2018 in 2023, and the band will have an expanded version available for sale at the show, but over two dozen Shonen Knife records are floating around out there, albeit the majority of those are difficult to find in the U.S. \u201cOur Best Place\u201d is a really nice way to spend your time and the song, \u201cVamos Taquitos\u201d foreshadows one of Yamanos biggest goals for this tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is our first time touring the US in six years, so I would like to enjoy food. I like fish tacos a lot. I am also looking forward to seeing all the friendly faces. The audience in the US is always very energetic and friendly,\u201d says Yamano.<\/p>\n
Back in the mid-1980s, Hawthorne, California\u2019s Redd Kross helped introduce Shonen Knife to American audiences after introducing Bill Bartell of Gasatanka Records to the band. The late Bartell (formerly of White Flag) put out a compilation called \u201cEvery Band Has A Shonen Knife Who Loves Them\u201d in 1989 and then the self-titled Shonen Knife record in 1990.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201c(Redd Kross founders) Jeff and Steve McDonald and Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth made an all-star band called Tater Totz, and we played our first overseas show with them in 1989 (in Los Angeles). Jeff took us sightseeing, too. I had a chance to see the Redd Kross show, and it was so fun. I became a big fan of theirs, and some years later, Redd Kross came to Osaka, and I was able to host them at that time,\u201d says Yamano.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s safe to say the crowd on a Monday night in Phoenix will have a few local musicians in it, as well. Bands like Shonen Knife serve such an important purpose for music fans and musicians alike in how positively joyous their approach to music is while also creating some of the most well-crafted pop punk music you will find anywhere. The band, however, sometimes has a hard time deciding just what songs to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe released too many albums,\u201d says Yamano with a laugh before adding, \u201cso it\u2019s very difficult to make a set list. We can play about 100 songs, so I maybe pick one from each album and play songs from our latest album, \u201cOur Best Place,\u201d and also, we will play songs from our very early album called \u201cMinna Tanoshiku.\u201d Its meaning is the same as the tour title, \u2018Everybody Happy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Smiles will not be hard to find at the Rebel Lounge when Shonen Knife takes the stage.<\/p>\n
Shonen Knife plays the Rebel Lounge on Monday, October 13, 2025. The Pack A.D. opens at 8 p.m., doors at 7 p.m. Tickets are available <\/strong>here <\/strong><\/a>for the 21+ show.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is no secret that the world needs all the happiness it can get. While the previous statement…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":286638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,132130,1589,4185,132131,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-286637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-concert-previews","12":"tag-phoenix","13":"tag-rock-music","14":"tag-touring-artists","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115338837016834148","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}