Excerpts from Grudge For Life: A Book About Ramleh

I don’t have the book itself, I got these from excerpts of it; I don’t know if this is all there is.

The first excerpt comes from the interviews with Gary Mundy, pages 69-70, while the second one comes from the brief interview on page 130.

Juntaro Yamanouchi of The Gerogerigegege released Grudge For Life in 1990. How did this come about?

Juntaro used to write me. Then he started phoning me, which was an experirence as he speaks no English and I speak no Japanese. He would phone me and ask me questions by using a phrase book or a dictionary. I would have to try and cobble together what he was asking. I would reply and he obviously wouldn’t understand my reply. I used to spend most of the call saying “write me a letter!”. He was very sweet, though, and somehow we managed to arrange for him to release the record. I liked the idea of it being a Japanese only release. It meant that we could test the water without too much of a spotlight on the record. I have no idea what Juntaro thought when he heard it but he put it out so I guess he liked it! I was expecting a storm of abuse when it came out, but it went down surprisingly well. I think it’s our best-selling record. As with everything I do, I still like some of it and other things I would like to change, but a record is what it is. Once it’s out there, it’s not really your concern anymore. It has its own life and some people will love it and some will loathe it, and that’s probably how it should be.

Juntaro’s something of an odd character. When I released the ‘Life Documents’ 7” by him, he once sent me a really angry letter caked in what looked like blood because he thought I’d not sent him his royalty copies (I had, but by surface mail, as it was cheaper, but obviously his lack of patience got the better of him!). This put me off working with him again, even though he got a mouthful back from me which resulted in him apologising. Why did you expect this storm of abuse after Grudge For Life was released, though?

Everyone seems to have their Juntaro stories. Are you sure that was just blood? I expected abuse as it was such a huge change, even from Hole in the Heart and, of course, the Ramleh music with Skullflower on hadn’t been released. At the time I thought it was a fairly straight rock record but, listening now, it’s pretty weird. Enough people got it, although as ever with Ramleh, it’s far more popular now than at the time!

Juntaro Yamanouchi

Known mostly for his work as The Gerogerigegege, which resumed activities in 2016 after a fifteen-year hiatus, Juntaro has been a key figure on the Japanese noise circuit since the 1980s. His music blends junk electronics, punk, lo-fi noise, field recordings, onanistic grunts, textures and even covers of songs by The Ramones, The Cure and The Rolling Stones which amount to little more than a shouted counting in for each ‘song’. Combined with performance art that featured an older man masturbating, The Gerogerigegege certainly sometimes courted controversy when playing live. Since the late 1980s Juntaro has also operated Vis A Vis Audio Arts, releasing not only much of his own music, but also cassettes, records and CDs by The Haters, S.B.O.T.H.I., Smell & Quim and others, besides Ramleh’s Grudge For Life LP in 1990. Presently, Juntaro seems mostly dedicated to a prolific series of limited edition, archive or sometimes art-related releases by The Gerogerigegege mostly aimed at the more serious (or obsessed) collectors of his work. Even a comparatively more widely available compilation CD, Senzuri Champion Revised, released in 2018 once again on his own imprint, already seems almost impossible to get hold of without paying a high price. Since then, more cassettes and suchlike have appeared, with Piss Shower Girlfriend, the very latest album, having been released on Italy’s F.O.A.D. label (usually given to the worlds of hardcore punk and thrash, etc.) in conjunction with Vis-a-Vis in March 2020.

Do you still sometimes listen to Ramleh? Do you follow their new work? What do you think of it?

Many times, especially the live cassettes. Blowhole, Homeless and Boeing. I also enjoy Circular Time as well as Kleistwahr’s This World is Not My Home. I can feel the work is more and more sophisticated, as is the sense of transparency. Kleistwahr’s This World is Not My Home is, I think, a masterpiece of Gary Mundy’s music.

What do you think of the ‘80s underground cassette network now? What did it mean to you? Why was it important?

I was also able to be involved in the network during that time of the cassette scene and it was an honour combining handwriting, handmade cassettes, catalogues and devised music. I was excited about all of it. I sent a copy to many of the labels and the artists who I liked when I made the first LP by The Gerogerigegege in 1987. I got a very good reaction. This then became the cornerstone of my activities.