TANZBAR TAUSEND BERLIN: Do, 3.12.09 und Sa, 5.12.09 SPECIAL FUNK EXPERIENCE FROM JAPAN
LIVE: オーサカ=モノレール OSAKA MONAURAIL

In spring 2007, Osaka Monaurail will celebrate thier 15th anniversary. The wheels are very much still turning on the funk-i-est band that Japan has to offer.
After 15 years the aim of the group still remains the same; that is to play just - plain - funk.
Leader Nakata often says in interviews 'we've been working very hard for 15 years only to find a way to play funk music.'

Formed in 1992 when Nakata was a university student, they were named after the 1975 funk classic, It's The JBs Monaurail by the J.B.'s. (misspelling intentional.) The band originally had more than 20 people including many horn players, as well as the rhythm section. Most of them were from the same jazz club at the college, and the first tune they rehearsed was I Got The Feeling, a James Brown 1968 funk classic.
Soon the band shaped itself up into a 13 piece group. After a couple of school concerts, the first live show off college was at Bustle Hall, Osaka, in 1993. The personnel at the time was: Nakata Ryo (vocal and keys), Matsunaga Hiroaki and Yamamoto Nobuki (trumpets), Terada Hiroichi (co-vocal and trombone), Hiraishi Katsutoshi (trombone), Nakamoto Goji (alto saxophone), Hibino Norihiko (tenor saxophone), Takegai Tomoki (baritone saxophone), Kikuchi Hiroshi and Ichinose Takayuki (guitars), Yatabe Teruyuki (bass), Suetsugu Toshimitu (percussion) and Igarashi Shuichi (drums).


http://www.osakamonaurail.com/
http://www.tausendberlin.com/contact.html