Ever lean back, close your eyes for few minutes, and while drifting off, you wonder: "Is there somewhere on this earth a garage band playing blistering surf songs, and maybe they're from Japan, and maybe there's some girls in the band, and maybe they're wearing hula skirts, and ???"

HEY! WAKE UP!!! THE WHYs ARE HERE!

The Whys - Who???

Surf Opera The Whys are a trio playing raw instrumental surf music, heavy on the garage, even heavier on the reverb. "The Reverb Princess Diamond Arm" Ruiko (b. '79) on guitar, "Surfin' Muse Scorpion Head" Naomi (b. '78) on bass and "Stardust Beat Galaxy" Yuta (b. '79) on drums.

Guitarist Ruiko, Inspired by seminal garage rockers The Trashmen met bassist Naomi, a big fan of the "King of the Surf Guitar" Dick Dale, and with another girl started the band in 1999 in their home town of Fukuoka, Japan. Yuta joined in 2003 on drums- originally he dressed in drag, but then found that the band attracted a larger audience when he drummed shirtless. The WHYs first recorded appearance was on a compilation released by the Sazanami label. This led to the release of their first self-produced CD, "Surf Opera".

The fact that Fukuoka (the big city on the southern island Kyushu) is far removed from the more cosmopolitan tastes of Tokyo- Fukuoka is closer to Korea (70 miles) than Tokyo (550 miles)- hasn't stopped the band from touring extensively, playing no less than 60 shows per year. It was on their summer tour in 2005 that the manager of The Surf Coasters, Japan's most popular surf band, saw the The Whys and offered them a contract. In November of 2005 The Surf Coasters decided to take an extended break and The WHYs became the priority for manager and producer Masa Sakuma.

San Jyo The band entered the studio earlier this year and recorded "San Jyo" (this means "To Arrive" in Japanese). The band drove from Fukouka to Tokyo (16 hours) then spent 24 hours straight recording the music. The Whys were exhausted. Luckily, Shigeo Naka, guitarist for The Surf Coasters showed up with lots of cream puffs and coffee, and then also played rhythm guitar on much of the album. Shigeo also loaned Ruiko one of his guitar amps for the recording when her's blew up after the long trip from Fukuoka. San Jyo and has been released this summer on Japan's 99999 (Five Nine) label.

The Whys hope that their USA tour will lead to much bigger things, but while in America they look forward to meeting the people, walking the streets, shopping and seeing the night view of Las Vegas. Yuta has never been here, Ruiko visited once when she was in High School, and Naomi has only made it as far as Hawaii. After this tour, The Whys will record another CD, take a tour of Europe, and are already looking forward to another trip to the USA.

Location: Tokyo Garden, 1711 Fulton Street, Fresno
Starts: 2006 Nov 8 - 8:00pm
Ends: 2006 Nov 8 - 8:00pm
Website: http://www.poprecords.com/whys