Cibo Matto, The Band Who Loves To Eat
On Tuesday night I hit up Brooklyn Bowl to see one of my favorite bands, Cibo Matto, which incidentally is a group dedicated to food. Cibo Matto in fact means “crazy food,” and Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, the Japanese ladies behind the music, incorporate both ideas in their songs. For example, they played Birthday Cake, a funny song about a mom making her kid a really gross confection for his birthday. They sing, “Extra sugar, extra salt, extra oil and MSG! Shut up and eat! Too bad, no bon appetit! Shut up and eat! You know my love is sweet!” There are other songs comparing love to sugar on a spoon and obsessing about beef jerky.
A Q&A with Hatori in the Village Voice touches on how the duo (with extra memeber here and there including Sean Lennon) started singing about food back in the mid-90s.
“Yuka and I both grew up in Japan and Japan is like that, we just love food. Especially Yuka, I feel like, wow, she is really into food! But me as well. It is almost precious, for both of us. Food and music.” (read the whole thing here)
I wanted to include one of my favorite songs, Artichoke, but couldn’t find a decent version of it so linking you to another fun song (that they also played at the show), Know Your Chicken. I was so glad they decided to tour after years apart. And based on the fun, lively show, it sounded like they still cook well together. My only regret, not getting a T-shirt.
