BLANKEY JET CITY

At the end of the 80's Kenichi Asai questioned himself: Is it okay to just be with a motorcycle gang or would it be a better idea to form a rock band? Obviously the old, furyô' (bad boy) decided to be a rocker.

He moved to Tokyo and met Tatsuya Nakamura who was a drummer and played for several punkrock bands before. With his friend Terui Toshiyuki they formed Blankey Jet City in 1990.
In the same year they joined a newcomer-contest which was presented by the TV-show Ikasu Band Tengoku and made first place.

With this success, the career of the band moved fast forward into a bigger league and then soon signed a major contract.

Despite their privileges as a major band they prefered the club-tours instead of playing in the big venues. At this time, their style was in the same genre as The Yellow Monkeys or Three Michelle Gun Elephant and would never really change. They had regular single and album releases, their stage-presence was continuous with countless Japanese Rock Festivals featuring the band.

Like the previously mentiond bands, the popularity of BJC grew bigger and gave them the possibility to introduce their music to an international audience and in 1994 they played their first show outside of Japan in London.

In 1995 they came back to the UK and toured Leicester, Tunbridge, Wells, Exeter, Portsmouth and London. In the year afterward they finally made it to the US and played two shows; one in New York City and the other in Los Angeles.

After 16 LP's and 15 singles the band decided to close the chapter of Blankey Jet City. Each member of the band wanted to move forward into solo-projects and played their last concert at the Fuji Rock Festival 2000.

Kenichi Asai founded the Sherbets and after this project he moved on to the rock'n'roll band JUDE and started a solo career. Terui Toshiyuki formed Jim Spider but is in ROSSO now. And finally Tatsuya Nakamura moved on with the group Love Shop Losalios.