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The Best God Damn Band in Wyoming

from 1975 by No-No Boy

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  • Vinyl LP
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Standard weight and standard color vinyl LP in slip sleeve jacket with liner notes insert. [Note that the photo is a mock-up image[

    Includes unlimited streaming of 1975 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Compact disc in digipak packaging with liner notes insert. [note: photo of product is a mock-up image]. All US orders will be shipped USPS media mail.

    Includes unlimited streaming of 1975 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 10 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $16.98 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

lyrics

The flyer read, “Musicians needed!”
So young Yone grabbed his silver mouthpiece
Tracked down a kid who brought a trumpet to Pomona
Let Yone have it on a free two-year lease

Joy Teraoka née Takeshita
Went to the tryout, she was only 16
With some girlfriends to cheer her on, their club was called the Radelles
Mom said, “If you keep up with school, Joy, you can sing.”

George Igawa, OG Nisei
He toured up the coast and even played Japan
Before the war, they ripped up the Florida Ballroom
Man, don’t sleep on those Sho-Tokyans

Under starlight they danced behind barbed wire
Under the mountain, it meant something to sing
Stuck between two countries in a fire
The best god damn band in Wyoming

Little Tets Bessho rep’d the Kardiacs gang
The clarinet kid, the “Nisei Artie Shaw,”
Dropped by rehearsal in a tar paper barrack
Once he joined up, sister, it was on

They practiced daily, gigged on the weekend
Stirring up those dusty mess halls
Teenage bodies unchained from their parents
Man, them old folks, they really lost it all

The only swing band left in Wyoming
That got ʼem out some nights until dawn
War bond drives in Powell, Mormons dancing in Lovell
A bunch of “Japs” playing jazz at the Thermopolis prom

Under machine guns they danced behind barbed wire
At below zero, it meant something to sing
Angelenos mixing up with farm kids in the choir
The best god damn band in Wyoming

George Igawa, he split for Chicago
With Kimiko in the fall of ’44
He left the band to Tets, Joy went with her family to DC.
As for Yone, he had to join the war

And that’s the story from old Heart Mountain
And the best band you never did see
Locked up in prison camps for no fuckin’ reason
But they still found a reason to sing

The best god damn band in Wyoming . . .

credits

from 1975, released April 2, 2021

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No-No Boy image

No-No Boy Portland, Oregon

Nashville-born, Oregon musician & scholar. New album "Empire Electric out on Smithsonian Folkways fall 2023.

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