Pop Music Review : Japan’s Pizzicato Five Does Some Kitsch-Plucking Live

When a foreign-language song makes it on rock radio in Los Angeles, you can bet something’s up. That something is the Japanese group the Pizzicato Five, which performed Tuesday at the Roxy. This is Asia’s closest equivalent to hip-hop.

Has there been any single piece of pop in the last six months more exhilarating than their KROQ hit “Twiggy Twiggy Twiggy vs. James Bond”? With its liberal samplings of ‘60s soundtrack iconography--including a key drum riff from “Hawaii Five-0”--topped by an innocent female Japanese chirp, the song presents kitsch in a way that gives you a rush.

The Pizzicato Five’s show was a solid hour of feedback--that is, a nonstop audiovisual collage that had the trio feeding U.S. pop culture back on an epic scale.

Some of their stuff didn’t cut it live. Most of the music was on tape, and frontwoman Maki Nomiya is more accomplished as a fashion plate than a singer.

They’re versatile enough to successfully evoke Petula Clark as well as proto-disco and hip-hop. But significantly, as his counterparts were doing the twist on “Twiggy Twiggy” and other numbers, guitarist Bravo was going nuts on the whammy bar, making it more like rock ‘n’ roll than anyone could’ve predicted.