Exactly 15 days ago, David Best quit his day job. He had been working data entry in Brighton, England, for years, repeatedly typing the answers to computerized "yes/no?" questions.
But his electronic dance-and-rock trio, Fujiya Miyagi, recently started to get so big that he could stop "The next records, we were thinking: 'How are we going to fit this in?'" he says by phone during his band's first-ever trip to the States. "But now, it gives us time to do that and come to places like here.
And also knock off early if we want to." Contrary to popular belief and cultural spelling assumptions, Fujiya Miyagi are not from Japan, and their music has no Japanese influence. ("Fujiya" is a brand of record player, and "Miyagi" is even less highbrow - Pat Morita's character in the "Karate Kid" movies.
) They're three guys from England in their early 30s who crank up repetitive funk beats on their synthesizers, strum it with her, not kick it with you." The effect is slowed-down Talking Heads or Best, the trio's singer and lyricist, met synthesizer specialist Steve Lewis during a five-on-five soccer game about five years ago. They were on the same team - "I can't remember who won, but probably not us," the amiable, chatty Best says with a laugh from a tour stop in San Francisco.
And when they started talking, they realized they shared a love of experimental German electronic music, such as Can and Kraftwerk. At first, the band followed Lewis, who thought traditional choruses were corny, and put out 2002's dense-and-more-difficult "electro karaoke." Then, they shifted slowly to songs.
For last year's follow-up "Transparent Things," named for a Vladimir Nabokov book, the band added bassist Matt Hainsby, maintained the repetitive, "We kind of morphed into this band that wasn't scared of choruses, and we wanted to entertain people," says Best, whose band performs Sunday and Tuesday at Manhattan's Mercury Lounge and Monday uptown at Barnard College. "And the music of my late teens sort of came back, like David Bowie and Roxy Music and the early Eno albums. It was a natural progression.
" Best is the chatty member of Fujiya Miyagi. Lewis occasionally sits in sentences. "I think it's mainly, whether rightly or wrongly, a lot of interviewers end up talking about the lyrics," Best says.
"But if they want to talk to him about his keyboards, or maybe take him out to a day at Radio Shack, I'm sure he'd be up for it." Fujiya Miyagi play Sunday and Tuesday at Mercury Lounge, 217 E. Houston St.
, Manhattan, 212-260-4700. Doors open Sunday at 7:30 p.m.
and Tuesday at at 9:45 p.m. Both shows sold out.
The band plays Barnard College Monday at the McIntosh Building, Barnard Campus, 117th Street and Broadway. Doors open at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $5. Visit wbar.org for more info.
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