Soul Flower Union

Soul Flower Union, also known as SFU, is a Japanese musical group that incorporates Asian styles and world music styles into a rock and roll band. They are known for their blend of psychedelic, rock, Okinawan music, Celtic music, chindon (a kind of Japanese street music), swing jazz, as well as Japanese, Chinese and Korean folk musics. Most of their songs are written and performed in Japanese, although they are fond of using phrases from a number of other languages, including English, French, Italian, Korean, Arabic and Ainu (the language of the native people of Hokkaido, Japan).

Soul Flower Union was formed in 1993 in Osaka. Two members from two different punk bands, Mescaline Drive and Newest Model, joined together to form Soul Flower Union. Takashi Nakagawa was from the group Newest Model and brought the "punk" to the group. From Mescaline Drive was Hideko Itami who brought the glam rock to the Soul Flower Union. Other members of both bands also participated in the original lineup of Soul Flower Union.

SFU have played in front of numerous crowds, with as many as 60,000 people. After the Kobe earthquake in 1995 the group began to play in the streets of the city in order to cheer people up with their music and played about 50 or 60 times during this event. Because they were in the streets they were forced to go "unplugged" and play acoustic versions of their songs, The drums were exchanged for the Korean janggu drum and they also used clarinets, chindon drums, and the accordion as well as putting Okinawan sanshins in place of the electric guitars. This acoustic unit was named Soul Flower Mononoke Summit and is still active as a side project of SFU.

During this time the song 'Mangetsu no Yube' was written (and co-written by Hiroshi Yamaguchi of the group Heatwave) for the victims of the earthquake. Since the earthquake the group has been a huge hit at summer festivals around the area. They also founded a charity fund, The Soul Flower Earthquake Fund, in order to help with the elderly and handicap victims of the earthquake.

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