WITH Shonen Knife, it's always the "cute" issue. Despite almost 30 years in music, the c-word has been wielded on the Osaka, Japan–based band like a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's a kitschy compliment in the rock world. On the other, it's a socially sanctioned put-down, an easy out for listeners and especially music critics who never really got them.

Because the truth is, no matter how cute Shonen Knife may actually be—and honestly, they make Bambi look like a piece of crap—they've proved over and over again that they're so much more. They arrive at the Blank Club on Friday, Oct. 30, on the heels of their new album, Supergroup, and songs like "BBQ Party" and "Evil Birds" make it clear that the Shonen Knife trifecta of food, parties and animals are in fine form. Vocalist and guitarist Naoko Yamano admits some 60 percent of their songs are about one of those three topics.

"Forty percent are not so much," she says. "Basically I don't like to write very serious songs. My philosophy for music is 'music should be fun.'"

And with Shonen Knife, it always is. But what the cute-sayers fail to acknowledge is how the band has created its own strange musical universe. Their knock on Shonen Knife is "it may be fun, but the music's not that great." Real fans, however, will tell you that it is—in fact, there's nothing quite like it. As the band has evolved musically, and changed members, its music has developed real chops. Now, when they play a song about a giant kitty, it's a giant-kitty song that rocks your ass.

"Early Shonen Knife is primitive, and now we became powerful," says Yamano. "I like both."

Interestingly, this development has made their live show, which is awash in arena-rock fixtures like crossed guitar necks and windmills, seem less tongue in cheek. How funny it is to them, Yamano isn't saying.

"Of course it helps with the rocking," she says. "I like theatric bands very much. I like KISS, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Motorhead and so on. For entertain the audience, it is necessary. I hope we can play at arena someday!"

The first bands to really wrap their minds around Shonen Knife in the United States caught on pretty quick to the weird and wonderful Shonen Knife worldview. On the tribute album Every Band Has a Shonen Knife Who Loves Them, Sonic Youth covered "Burning Farm," one of the band's strangest—and decidedly not cute—songs. Kurt Cobain was a huge fan who took Yamano and company on a U.K. tour in 1991.

Like their heroes the Ramones, who they saluted on their last album in the ungodly catchy "Ramones Forever"—and whose songs they've covered often, including as an alter ego "The Osaka Ramones"—Shonen Knife hold tight to their aesthetic even as their style evolves. By 1997's Brand New Knife, songs like "Explosion!" could and should have been on alt-rock radio, and their Carpenters' cover "Top of the World" has probably been as widely heard as their fan favorites like "Redd Kross" (about the L.A. indie band Red Kross) and "I Wanna Eat Choco Bars" (about wanting to eat choco bars). But though their cult has grown immensely over the years, they've never quite broken through to the mainstream here, or even in their native country.

"I think our American following is bigger than that of Japan," says Yamano. "I'm influenced by American and British rock music, not by Japanese music. It must be one of the reasons."

However, most of Shonen Knife's songs continue to be released in both English and Japanese versions, sometimes arriving in this country much later. The double-workload isn't always easy for Yamano.

"Translating is very difficult," she says. "Especially to translate from Japanese to English is difficult. I don't have a rich vocabulary of English. Some Japanese fans like Japanese version, that's why I write in Japanese. I actually prefer English."

Why? However cute she may sound singing it, Yamano finds authenticity in the sound of her adopted language, the kind of authenticity that Shonen Knife doesn't seem to get the proper credit for.

"English," she says, "is a language of rock music for me."

SHONEN KNIFE performs Friday, Oct. 30, at the Blank Club, 44 S. Almaden Ave., San Jose (408.29.BLANK)

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