Frank Chickens: We Are Frank Chickens

I’m not sure what the origin story is for Frank Chickens, but 30 years after coming together they are still a thing; they last performed in London in September 2014 and have scheduled dates through July 2015. A comedy/cabaret act, now with a big enough roster of members to call themselves a troupe, the Chickens are mainly a London thing with founding member Kazuko Hohki at the reins. Their “We Are Ninja” was a slyly hilarious dance hit in 1984 (I first heard it on one of John Oswald’s Mystery Tapes). Here’s their out-of-print debut album on Kaz Records, plus six bonus tracks gleaned from their various 7-inch and 12-inch singles also released on Kaz in 1984-5. At times straight-up goofy (“Mothra”), personal (“Shellfish Bamboo”), and wacked-out electro-stomping (“We Are Frank Chickens”), and not afraid to put their claim on some amazingly dunderheaded examples of Western pop ditties about Asians (“Fujiyama Mama”? I mean, wow), what can you say about the Chickens except: Awesome.

Cheeba Cheeba Chimpira
Mothra
Green Banana
Madam Fatal
We Are Ninja
Yellow Detective
Shellfish Bamboo
Pikadon
We Are Frank Chickens
Sake Ballad

BONUS TRACKS:
Blue Canary
Fujiyama Mama
China Night
Japanese Rhumba
We Are Frank Chickens [single version]
We Are Ninja [extended Version]

Audio & artwork

DISCLAIMER: To the best of my knowledge, this work is out of print and not available for purchase in any format. If you are the artist and are planning a reissue, please let me know and I’ll remove it from the blog. Also please get in touch if you’ve lost your art &/or sound masters and would like to talk with me about my restoration work.