Ron Lessard's experiences with Juntaro

Remember those RRRecords and Stomach Ache releases? This is how it went. I’d only like to mention that Juntaro has advertised this RRR box. We don’t really know his side of the story.

This text comes from America’s Greatest Noise by Frans De Waard, pages 75-76.

For the Bruitiste compilation, I asked four artists that were already established in Europe, but without a record in the USA. I liked all of these artists, and it sold really well, all 1,000 copies were gone quickly, and I wanted to follow it up with a Japanese version of that. If I remember correctly, I invited the Boredoms, the Gerogerigegege, Solmania, and Hijokaidan. I already had done a Merzbow record so there was no need to invite him. Plus, I was more interested in documenting the guitar-oriented Japanese noise artists than the full-on electronic artists. Sexual perversion was a prevalent theme with a lot of the Japanese noise ar tists at the time so calling it Anal Onanie seemed like a good idea. Merzbow was heavily into bondage, the Gerogerigegege were all about masturbation, every song on the first Hanatarash LP had the word cock in it, and the first Boredoms LP was called Onanie Bombs Meets The Sex Pistols, their first 7“ was called Anal By Anal, so Anal Onanie seemed a very appropriate title. I invited all four and… got no response at all. After a few months, I received four masters sent by the Gerogerigegege, containing music by Masonna, Violent Onsen Geisha, Nihilist Surfin’ Group (a side project from the Gerogerigegege), and a fourth one I can’t remember. I listened to all four masters and I only liked the first two. The others I didn’t care for at all. I decided to put out a split LP by Masonna and Violent Onsen Geisha, and mailed off the masters, and when I got test pressings, I mailed them off to those bands. They both replied withh, “What the fuck is this? Nobody told us about this, why are you putting this out?” I told them that I invited the Gerogerigegege for a double-LP project, and he sent these masters, and I assumed it was OK with you guys. Apparently Juntaro Yamanouchi of the Gerogerigegege never asked those guys about sending me their masters. After they heard the test pressings, they approved it and the LP was released. I later found out that Hijokaidan, Boredoms, and Solmania didn’t want to be on the double-LP set because I invited the Gerogerigegege, and apparently Juntaro had a bad reputation in Japan and nobody wanted to be on an LP with them.

I have another story about the Gerogerigegege. Juntaro released some CDs by his band and asked if I wanted some for distribution, and I said sure, “Why don’t you send me 20 of each.” He wrote back saying that if I buy 100 of each, that he would use that money to press a 7“ record in an edition of 100 copies only, he would mail all copies to me, and I could do a limited-edition box set of the two CDs and the 7“. I would have the exclusive rights and I loved that idea. I paid for 200 CDs and they showed up, and I put them in storage for later use, as I knew it would take a few months to do the 7“. I didn’t worry about it. After a few months with no word, I wrote to him asking what’s the status of the 7“. I didn’t hear back, so I wrote again and still no answer. I asked some of my Japanese contacts if they knew what was going on with Juntaro, and was told he was notorious for pulling a fast one, and it dawned on me that he had ripped me off. He took my money and didn’t follow through with what he said he would do. Oh man, that really pissed me off. I took the CDs, made a paper wrapper, called it the Gerogerigegege Absolute Butt Fuck A Go Go, and released them as a double CD. But I was still angry, so I decided to release a the Gerogerigegege bootleg 7“ just to fuck with the guy. I took two songs from the master of the Nihilist Surfin’ Group that he sent of him doing disco covers of Whitehouse. I called it William Bennett Is My Dick. I later did another 7“ by the Gerogerigegege called All My Best To You, With Love Juntaro, just to fuck with the guy even more. One day I was shopping in a Cambodian food market and on the counter I saw this box of cassettes of Cambodian music. I picked one that looked great, with some cute girls on the cover, and brought it home and it was indeed pleasant Cambodian pop music. I took two songs off that cassette and put that out as the 7“. Oh, the stupid stuff I do sometimes. Juntaro took my money under false pretences so that gave me full permission to fuck with him all I wanted.