The Molice -- FATEMA

 

I heard last night on CNN that there were going to be a number of elections in the United States today including the mayoral ones in Atlanta, New York City and Buffalo. Well, in the last several months, Buffalo, New York has kept reminding me of this Japanese band, but first in keeping with the tradition when it comes to an article about The Molice, I will provide another memory of a Buffalo-based television show from my childhood.

Looking at this wonderful rewind video of "The Commander Tom Show" through the YouTube channel "Forgotten Buffalo Tour", I hadn't realized that: 1) it started on WKBW-TV in 1965, the year of my birth (I'd thought it was around a whole lot longer), and 2) it was once called "The Superman Show". And sure enough, Commander Tom was how I was first introduced to The Man of Steel via the 1950s show "Adventures of Superman" in both its black-and-white and colour versions with its star being George Reeves.

"The Commander Tom Show" was an afternoon show so I saw it after racing home from school, and it along with the morning "Rocketship 7" made for my Buffalo children's TV tandem. The handsome WKBW weather forecaster Tom Jolls (reminded me of The Professor from "Gilligan's Island") was the host of the show. I never knew about the human characters that had popped up early there; to me, the Commander's buddies were the puppets such as Dustmop the Dog. Of course, being the callow not-so-little boy at the time, I had always wondered why he appeared later in the evening on "Eyewitness News" out of his red uniform and giving out those numbers called temperatures.

And once again, we're back here to introduce another raucous number and accompanying super-trippy music video by rock band The Molice. I'm still unsure whether vocalist Rinko, guitarist Yuzuru Takeda and drummer Hirofumi “Paro” Katsumoto have been able to get back to Buffalo from Japan, but considering that a translating colleague is finally going to be able to make her way back from that country to Toronto very soon, I'm pretty hopeful that the band will also be able to head over to Western New York once more as well.

"FATEMA" is a track from The Molice's 2012 album "Neugravity" and apparently this Fatema is one of the most influential folks around since Rinko sings about wanting to join them on their adventures worldwide. The guys rock out as usual and the melody is fun and easy to follow just like it is with following Fatema. Plus the video is something that is weirdly wacky enough to have its slot in my old "City Limits" late-night show of the musically strange.