Sense of Place: For Shonen Knife, there’s no end to the sugar rush in sight

Listening to Shonen Knife is kind of like eating a very sweet jawbreaker.

Their lyrics are about things like candy, snacks and the fun of being a girl, but they’re delivered with big, shredding guitar riffs and drums so loud they might hurt your teeth.

That contrast may have been what got Kurt Cobain so into Shonen Knife that he personally requested they join Nirvana on tour in the early ’90s. The band from Osaka, Japan, released their debut album, Burning Farm, in 1983, and they never really stopped putting out music.

Last year, they went on their 40th anniversary world tour and released a new album called Our Best Place. As part of our Sense of Place: Japan series, we talked to Naoko Yamano, the leader of Shonen Knife, and the band performed for a live audience at UrBANGUILD in Kyoto.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.