Shonen Knife

I think there's a great comic book to be made about Shonen Knife. The story would start in an Osaka office building in 1981, where twenty-somethings Michie Nakatani, Atsuko Yamano, and Naoko Yamano decided to start a band as an antidote to their dull clerkships. They started a power-chord pop band, but kept it mostly secret from their family and co-workers until 1982, when they played their first show and released their first album on cassette-only. Their American cross-over first really took hold when they were included on a 1986 Sub Pop compilation, and Olympia's K Records released a new version of their debut album Burning Farm to underground and alternative rock fans in the US. The major-label pique was with Capitol, with one of their best-known albums, Let's Knife, were on MTV rotation, and toured with Nirvana right before their release of Nevermind (Kurt Cobain said seeing Shonen Knife live transformed him "into a hysterical nine-year-old girl at a Beatles concert.")

Is punk dead? Who cares – give these bands a listen anyway.