JAPAN: Fishermen at port near Tokyo mix fish meat with rock'n roll music to promote Japan's traditional fish eating culture

Record ID: 464634

  • Title: JAPAN: Fishermen at port near Tokyo mix fish meat with rock'n roll music to promote Japan's traditional fish eating culture
  • Date: 20th July 2006
  • Summary: VARIOUS FILM LOCATION (FILE) (UNIVERSAL MUSIC JAPAN HANDOUT) FILM CLIP FROM MUSIC VIDEO IN WHICH GYOKO PERFORMS "TUNA"
  • Embargoed: 4th August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Entertainment,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVACVHH0SZ4Y3QKM5KORW99Y3SVJ
  • Story Text: With a huge painted flag decorated with a tuna fish hanging on the wall and paper lanterns stands at both ends of the stage, a small Tokyo nightclub rather looks like a Sushi bar when man on a stage starts cutting up tuna in front of the audience.
    Tsurizao Morita, a vocal and frontman of three-piece rock band "Gyoko", which means fishing port in Japanese, shouts "Tuna ! Tuna ! Tuna !" or "Bonito ! Bonito ! Bonito !" at the top of his lungs along to rock'n roll and hip hop tunes in its gig held every two weeks in Tokyo's nightclub.
    The titles of all 7 songs he sang on Saturday (July 8) were named after marine life such as tuna, bonito and catfish. In almost all of them, he sang about just eating fish and fishing.
    At the end of every performance, Morita reappears on a stage wearing a fresh tuna head. He then cut up the tuna head and made Sashimi (sliced raw fish) to share with screaming fans.
    "If I were attacked by Greenpeace in a pub in UK, you must follow me," Morita said jokingly when presenting tuna meat to fans.
    "Guys in these years are spineless. But when I saw Gyoko for the first time, I thought that I finally found a long-absent real Japanese man," said 35-year-old fan.
    "I think they are very serious and great musicians even though sometimes misunderstood as fishy character," added 28-year-old fan who attends almost all of the band's gigs around Tokyo since the band started performing in 2000.
    32-year-old Morita works for a local fish market near Tokyo. He became a fisherman at 20 following in his father and grandfather's footsteps while continuing to pursue his dream of a music career. He says that, for him, to sing and cut up tuna at Tokyo's nightclub is nothing but a good opportunity to encourage young Japanese to buy and eat more fish because they tend to favor fast food or snack food rather than traditional food using fish.
    "My performance tends to be considered as a joke due to a sort of unusual style. But what I really want to say through the performance is we want to bring Japan's traditional food culture back," Morita told reuters at a fish market.
    "My objective is not only promoting to eat more and more fish but also to appreciate fish more properly. If we continue polluting the sea or catching too many fish, we would not be able to have fish anymore in future. We should not forget that thanks to fish, we can keep alive," Morita added.
    Morita said his dream is to have a world concert tour in which he performs at every fishing port of the world. But he firmly insisted even if the band goes mainstream, he will never quit his other job at a local fishing port.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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