The Flower Travellin' Band plays Toronto on November 29th

by Chris MaGee

You may not know The Flower Travellin' Band by name, but if you're a fan of Takashi Miike, then trust me, you know their music. Miike took the psychedelic heavy metal band's landmark 1971 album "Satori" for the soundtrack of his 2002 yakuza film "Deadly Outlaw Rekka", in fact he learned of the album from two of the film's stars, Joe Yamanaka, lead singer of The Flower Travellin' Band, and Yûya Uchida who originally produced "Satori". Frankly, I was never a big fan of "Deadly Outlaw Rekka", but the best thing about it was the music so I was more that a bit excited to see that the reformed Flower Travellin' Band is going to be playing Toronto on November 29th here in Toronto at The Revival (783 College Street). If you're a fan of old '70's prog rock or heavy metal then you may want to check this out, but if you're a fan of "Deadly Outlaw Rekka" and singer/ actor Joe Yamanaka, who also starred as Zero in Kinji Fukasaku's 1968 film "Blackmail is My Life" then you won't want to miss this. You can give The Flower Travellin' Band a listen below and check out some old Super 8 footage of them taken in Kyoto in the early 70's. Not sure if they'll be bringing the live-sized elephant sculpture with them this time out...