Ever seen The Wanderers? It was a '70s flick about a group of '50s high school teens that included a line that any martial arts fan should know: "Don't fuck with the Wongs." Okay, some of you might have missed it, but in a nutshell, there were gangs from other high schools and when they fought the Wanderers, The Wongs joined in and backed up the locals. Wearing all black and pompadour cuts, these guys could have had their own sequel. They used martial arts and looked cool doing it. They put fear into everyone at their high school. The closest thing to The Wongs has to be the hard-working rockers from Tokyo, Guitar Wolf. Almost always clad in black and wearing sunglasses (which lead man Seiji Anno says is welded to his head), the trio either look like the Wongs or those dorks who used to do their rockabilly dancing in Yoyogi park on the weekends. I've been told that the members of Guitar Wolf used to do that stuff in front of tourists, but when I asked Anno three different times about it, he denied it. He says that he now works construction in high-rise buildings, and once worked at a thrift store. Sitting in their modest tour van, Anno is a tall and lanky dude wearing a white t-shirt and black pants. His English is a little raw, but he says that Giant Robot is cool a few times and says that he knows it. With a rock-star poise, he'll answer any question effortlessly, sometimes with answers you won't understand, since he makes references to aliens, kung fu, and rock and roll. When a question gets tough, his favorite answer is "I just want to play rock n roll." Guitar Wolf started off tiny like most bands do. Coming from Tokyo, where the scene sometimes copies America, Guitar Wolf first made their mark in Memphis, which Anno calls his second home. Releasing their first music on Goner records, a Memphis label done by Eric Mast from the Oblivions, they always visit that town as if it's home. It's strange to find visitors from Japan who don't give a shit about the big cities and trade it in for the place that Jarmusch's Mystery Train uses as a backdrop. But these guys are for real. Live, the black leather-clad band gives out the highest energy levels, which goes with their sound. Anno's vocals are throaty and hard while they thrash to their mix of garage and punk. And when every two- or three-minute song ends, they bust out the combs to fix their hair. The garage craze got drowned out by every boy band, rap act, pop punk, and ska troupe. And Matador records seems to concentrate more on Belle and Sebastian and Yo La Tengo, since they're hot. But Anno's blend of kung fu, Shaggs humor, and Ramones energy leads me to think that he was a Wong, and that he helped the Wanderers kick ass.