Record Shopping With the Go! Team Issue #34

The band beats up on the weak American dollar

By Eugenia Williamson
Published: December 1st, 2007 | 1:46pm

The plummeting value of the U.S. dollar makes Chicago a shopping Valhalla for Europeans who pass through. This is just as true for sightseers as it is for Brighton-based rockers on the first stop of a national tour in October. My trip to Dusty Groove America with the Go! Team was delayed because their glamorous lead singer, Ninja, made a pre-sound check pilgrimage to Sephora for some makeup. As we waited, guitarist Kaori Tsuchida discussed her plans to buy a laptop with our photographer while Chi Fukami Taylor, who had recently purchased a new digital camera, set up her drums. The ladies of the Team were in town in support of their critically lauded record, Proof of Youth, at a sold-out show at the Double Door, a venue made famous by Jack Black’s cringe-worthy rendition of “Let’s Get It On” in High Fidelity.

Before they could transcend that performance, the ladies had the chance to spend 50 of Venus Zine’s smackers on the CDs of their choice. They took to Dusty Groove’s stacks with vigor, plunging into myriad piles of ’70s funk (Ninja), ’60s French pop (Kaori), and current Japanese imports (Chi) while disparaging American Thai food (Conclusion? “That’s not curry!”). Ninja paused on a vintage Jermaine Jackson LP. “It’s the hair,” she gasped, marveling at his mighty fro and pink trousers. Ninja was so taken with the cover art of Jermaine and his funky contemporaries that she started photographing albums as we photographed her.

Each of the girls accrued large stacks of CDs before winnowing down their choices to one each on the Venus Zine tab (total cost: $53.38; see sidebar for their selections). After we made the official purchase, Ninja, Tsuchida, and Taylor bought more CDs on their own dime. “Change is called pence,” Ninja informed the record store clerk, explaining the difference between English and American currency. As Chi debated whether to buy one or two additional CDs, Ninja illustrated another difference. “Get both,” she advised. “Fifty dollars is nothing.”

THE WINNING SHOPPING LIST
• Afro Rock
by John Cameron and Alan Parker
The sight of this Ninja-picked reissue sitting atop the counter provoked enthusiastic nods from several patrons and one Dusty Groove employee. “I’m really into World Music at the moment, and this one’s got really dirty African beats,” she remarked, casting aside a CD of “erotic soul” with pictures of naked people on it.

• Lupin the 3rd: Remixes & Covers 2
by various artists
It came as little surprise when Chi, who spent most of her time browsing Japanese titles in the New Grooves section, chose an album filled with remixes of music from an animé series written by someone named Monkey Punch. This record beat out a collection of Japanese TV themes, her favorite of which was a ’70s cop show whose title can be translated loosely to Bark at the Sun. “The first time I heard the Go! Team I thought of that [theme] song,” she admitted.

• Universal Sounds of America
by various artists
After searching unsuccessfully for an offering by a long-forgotten French girl band called, er, the French Girls, Kaori selected a compilation of ’70s American independent soul jazz. “We get offered to play the DJ sometimes, and I don’t know too much funk and soul, so I’m trying to collect as much as I can,” she said.