Janis Tanaka | |
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Background information | |
Born | January 9, 1963 |
Origin | San Francisco, California, United States |
Genres | |
Occupation(s) | Musician |
Instrument(s) |
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Janis Tanaka (born January 9, 1963) is an American musician who has worked as a session bassist and on tour with a number of well-known artists including Pink, [1] Fireball Ministry, Hammers of Misfortune, Stone Fox, and L7. She was also a member of Pagan Babies, a band formed by Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland in the 1980s.
Tanaka grew up in Long Beach, California, in a family with several sisters. She took courses at UCLA for one year followed by Long Beach City College [2] and San Francisco State University. Tanaka began playing guitar, violin, and piano in elementary school. [2]
Early bands Tanaka played with include The Jackson Saints and Pagan Babies. [3]
She left Hammers of Misfortune to play with Pink. [4] In 2001, Tanaka appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno supporting Pink. [4]
She has also played in the band Winterthrall. As of 2017, Tanaka was reportedly playing in The Big Meat Combo and in the all female version of Los Angeles-based Femme Fatale. [2] [5]
Tanaka has appeared in several films as herself including L7: Pretend We're Dead, released in 2016 and directed by Sarah Price, and Fireball Ministry: Master of None, released in 2003. She has acted in the films: Live Freaky Die Freaky , Down and Out With Dolls and starred in the film The Year of My Japanese Cousin (1995). [6] She had a starring role in The Year of My Japanese Cousin and received a favorable review of her performance in the San Francisco Chronicle . [7]
Courtney Michelle Love is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actress. A figure in the alternative and grunge scenes of the 1990s, her career has spanned four decades. She rose to prominence as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989. Love has drawn public attention for her uninhibited live performances and confrontational lyrics, as well as her highly publicized personal life following her marriage to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. In 2020, NME named her one of the most influential singers in alternative culture of the last 30 years.
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer and songwriter. One of the most successful and widely known rock performers of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals, as well as her "electric" stage presence.
L7 is an American all-female rock band founded in Los Angeles, California, first active from 1985 to 2001 and re-formed in 2014. Their longest standing lineup consists of Suzi Gardner, Donita Sparks, Jennifer Finch, and Dee Plakas. L7 has released seven studio albums and has toured widely in the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, and South America. "Pretend We're Dead" was heavily played on US alternative radio and entered the top 10 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart in 1992.
Darcy Megan Stanger, better known by the pen name Dame Darcy, is an alternative cartoonist, fine artist, musician, cabaret performer, and animator/filmmaker. Her "Neo-Victorian" comic book series Meat Cake was published by Fantagraphics Books from 1993 to 2008. The Meat Cake Bible compilation was released in June 2016 and nominated for The Eisner Award July 2017. Vegan Love: Dating and Partnering for the Cruelty-Free Gal, with Fashion, Makeup & Wedding Tips, written by Maya Gottfried and illustrated by Dame Darcy, was the Silver Medalist winners of the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2018.
Patricia Theresa Schemel is an American drummer and musician who rose to prominence as the drummer of alternative rock band Hole from 1992 until 1998. Born in Los Angeles, Schemel was raised in rural Marysville, Washington, where she developed an interest in punk rock music as a teenager. She began drumming at age eleven, and while in high school, formed several bands with her brother, Larry.
Katherine Lynne Bjelland is an former American musician. She rose to prominence as the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter of the alternative rock band Babes in Toyland, which she formed in 1987. She has been noted for her unusual vocal style alternately consisting of shrill screams, whispering, and speaking in tongues, as well as for her guitar playing style, which incorporates "jagged" tones with "psychotic rockabilly rhythms".
Fireball Ministry is an American stoner metal band from Los Angeles, formed in 1999.
Jennifer Finch is an American musician, designer, and photographer most notable for being the primary bass player of the punk rock band L7. Active in L7 from 1986 to 1996, Finch also wrote music and performed with her bands OtherStarPeople and The Shocker in the interim before joining the reunited L7 in 2014.
Ramones Maniacs is a 2001 tribute album to the punk rock band the Ramones, released by Trend Is Dead! Records. The album's track list is an exact match of the band's 1988 compilation album Ramones Mania, which had been released by Sire Records. The album has 26 tracks, played by bands from across the United States, plus one from Australia and one from Canada. Ramones bassist Dee Dee Ramone plays on the track "Blitzkrieg Bop", along with the band of which he was then a member, Youth Gone Mad.
Gail Greenwood is an American musician and illustrator most notable for performing bass guitar and guitar with the bands Belly and L7.
Lynn Perko-Truell is an American musician, best known as the drummer, bass guitarist, and co-singer for the San Francisco indie rock band Imperial Teen. She is also known as the drummer for the San Francisco-based blues grunge band Sister Double Happiness, and the San Francisco version of the hardcore punk band The Dicks. Perko-Truell was an iconic figure and a pioneering female in the American hardcore punk and alternative rock movements of the 1980s and 1990s and remains active.
Hammers of Misfortune is an American heavy metal band from San Francisco, California. The band's style has varied from album to album, at times incorporating different elements of folk metal, doom metal, NWOBHM, black metal, 1970s rock, and thrash metal. It is the brainchild of guitarist John Cobbett, who serves as the band's producer and primary songwriter.
Rock for Choice was a series of benefit concerts held over the ten-year period between 1991 and 2001. The concerts were designed to allow musicians to show their support for the abortion rights movement in the United States and Canada.
Pagan Babies were an American rock band formed by Kat Bjelland and Courtney Love in 1985. Love had initially conceived the band in Portland, Oregon with Bjelland under the name Sugar Babydoll, and the group was joined by bassist Jennifer Finch upon their relocation to San Francisco. The group would go through several lineup and name changes before recording a four-track demo under the Pagan Babies name with drummer Deirdre Schletter and bassist Janis Tanaka.
Not Bad for a Girl is a documentary on women musicians of the 1990s from the indie rock music genre grunge and riot grrrl and celebrates madness, creativity, and gender play. It was written, directed, produced and shot by rock phenomenologist feminist Lisa Rose Apramian, edited, shot and co-produced by drummer Kyle C. Kyle and co-produced by Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain. A DVD, with a booklet, was available for purchase at the official website and a release date for the sequel book is still in the works as of 2019.
Shaunna Elizabeth Hall is an American composer and musician from the San Francisco Bay Area. As guitarist, she was a founding member of the band 4 Non Blondes and is currently a member of George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic.
The August Engine is the second studio album by the American progressive/heavy metal band Hammers of Misfortune. The recording of the album finished in April 2002. Initially the band had difficulties finding a record label willing to publish the album, so it did not see an official release until September 16, 2003 through Italian record label Cruz Del Sur Music. The album was later reissued in 2010 under Metal Blade Records.
The Bastard is the first album by the American progressive/heavy metal band Hammers of Misfortune, released in 2001.
This is the discography for the American rock band L7.
Janis Tanaka, bassist with local rockers Stone Fox, belonged briefly to Sugar Baby Doll and never laid eyes on Harrison