A couple of friends of mine are opening a restaurant with this name next month.
But, it got me thinking about the Japanese girl pop band from the 90's.

I saw them once. Their bassist was one Sean Lennon (yeah, that guy) and he was the best thing about the band -- a total freak on stage and a damn good musician, too.

Any fans?

Just picked up Viva La Woman! from Amazon.
Why not?

"sugar water" was kind of a jam.

todd, where is this restaurant? and what cuisine will they have?

I think that I may have posted about it before. (Probably did.)

But, it's gonna be in the new Wit Hotel at State & Lake.
It's gonna be all Italian-based stuff -- "Modern Italian".

LINK:
http://www.thewithotel.com/the-attracti ... -matto.cfm

The chef is Todd Stein, who was at MK, Gordon, Marché, and a few other places before this. But this is the first restaurant he's opening (in Chicago; in Minneapolis he opened a place called BANK). He and I went to H.S. together and were roommates for a while. Pretty amazing chef.

The sommelier/beverage manager is another good friend -- Josh Kaplan -- who was also at MK, and definitely knows his shit. From what I understand, he's gonna have a 4,000-bottle cellar?!?!

I'm going for my wife's b-day on opening weekend. Looking forward to it.

Funny you should mention them.

I'm going to see Miho Hatori perform her new songs in NYC this Thursday.

You should get her debut album "Ecdysisâ€

I used to work with a girl who was ADDICTED to this band for about 4 months. She would walk around saying things like

I was cruising
through Brooklyn
You know what I mean

and

Something was cooking
but it wasn't the chicken


I never heard a note of the actual music, but that shit is still stuck in my head. 25 times a fucking day. Cute girl though.

Did you allow Busty to wreck that shit?

Also: Sean Lennon gets all manner of praise, but what of Julian? Wasn't he supposed to have even more his father's ear for music?

Sean was in the band.
Julian wasn't.

However, I do remember liking his singles when I was a kid. (middle school? early H.S.?)

I remember spinning "Know Your Chicken" at the college station and enjoying it every time. "Sci-Fi Wasabi" made it on a CMJ comp that I shared around the office, and everyone hated it except one guy who suggested "it takes balls to rap in a language you apparently don't understand." It didn't sound any better live (Lilith Fair '99 side stage @ the Rose Bowl), but "Moonchild" really impressed me.

i wasn't ever a fan, and i think sean is o.k. at best with flashes of not quite brilliance. I think julian is more consistent, and a good songwriter who unfortunately looked ALOT like his dad. Julian is definitely the more talented vocalist.

I remember when viva la woman was all over college radio, I thought it was cute at first but I hated that record after a few months.

never heard the second one.

it's funny, I feel like they were so big for so long and yet, I can't recall ever hearing their music!

I'll second that "Sci-Fi Wasabi" was a jam.

And the video for "Sugar Water" had a pretty rad "Memento"/time warp feel to it.