Osaka psychedelic/garage pioneers Mescaline Drive, formed in 1982, was the predecessor of the more widely known Soul Flower Union.  The band, all women, got together when guitarist Hideko Itami, bassist Kate, and bilingual vocalist Yoko Utsumi met at the end of 1984.  At the time, the band's sound was heavily informed by glam rock like T-Rex and New York Dolls, but Itami gradually steered Mescaline Drive in the direction of New York punk and 60s garage and psychedelic.  At odds...

Osaka psychedelic/garage pioneers Mescaline Drive, formed in 1982, was the predecessor of the more widely known Soul Flower Union.  The band, all women, got together when guitarist Hideko Itami, bassist Kate, and bilingual vocalist Yoko Utsumi met at the end of 1984.  At the time, the band's sound was heavily informed by glam rock like T-Rex and New York Dolls, but Itami gradually steered Mescaline Drive in the direction of New York punk and 60s garage and psychedelic.  At odds with the sounds of the "band boom" that was happening at the time, Utsumi's husky vocal style and Itami's fuzzed out guitar sound wasn't anything that would get them to the top of the charts, but did help them achieve a large cult following.  Around 1986, the band was collaborating frequently with Newest Model, another indie band on the scene at the time, and in 1988 they jointly launched the Soul Flower Records label, although previously in the year they had released their debut, Deep Morning Glow, on an indie label.  Mescaline Drive's second record, Spoony Selfish Animals, was the first record released on the new label.  It was on this record that the band started to shift away from the all-English lyrics of their earlier work to include Japanese, mainly penned by Itami.  The third record, Ideology Cooking, was heavily assisted by the members of Newest Model, and marked the full emergence of Itami as the driving force in the group.  Now far past the simpler punk themes of their earlier work, Itami's lyrics touched on issues such as the Ainu tribe in Japan and the relevance of the Emperor in Japan.  At the same time, the band was covering an eclectic range of music, including Silverhead's "Hello New York", Patti Smith's "Rock N Roll Nigger", Bob Dylan's "Absolutely Sweet Marie", The Smiths' "Ask" and many more, many of which appeared in a 2009 compilation called Early Soul Flower Singles.  The in its original incarnation called it quites in August 1993 after several high profile dates, closing out a 9 year career and merging with Newest Model to move forward as Soul Flower Union.