Do you remember them like this (note guitarist with Firebird):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLhF2ptc3fI&feature=relatedInitially with only a German label contract in the late seventies their first album saw them launched as a New York Dolls/Hanoi Rocks type outfit, more in a glam hard rock vein though they already had funk influences. But they also still had balls, something their later stuff would painfully lack. That is not to say their New Romantic electronica is without merit (the bass playing was always interesting and pleasantly off the wall), but I can't really listen to more than a couple of songs from them before I need something a bit more "rawk!" (even Roxy Music in their eighties phase rocked more than latter day Japan).
Oh, they made a version of the vid for Fräulein Rommel too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KPofwnTTSs&feature=relatedUwe
