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MULTIMEDIA Video:  Raw power: Go Yuki packs a sensual punch

Part of the fun of being a music writer is that every once in a very long while you stumble upon something completely new and exciting, a song, group or singer that makes you just smile and say, “Wow!”

Go Yuki, a Boston-based band that performs Saturday night, Oct. 21, at Bourbon’s downstairs at the Muddy River Smokehouse, is just such a band.

Trolling through the Portsmouth-related pages at Myspace.com I came across a very provocative photo of Josephine Doroja, of Exeter, the lead singer of Go Yuki. In the photo, Josephine (or Yuki as she goes by on stage) is wearing only strategically placed bright yellow “Caution” tape over her, umm, private parts. Other than that, she’s just got on a pair of knee-high leather boots while holding open her coat in a “flashing” pose.

Sure, the photo of the beautiful, yet scantily clad Yuki caught my eye, but more importantly it was her music, specifically the cheeky raw power of her song “Man With No Balls,” that caught my ear. When I saw that Go Yuki was scheduled to play live in Portsmouth this weekend I knew I had to write about this band and help get the word out about this gig. Check out their Myspace Web site and the Go Yuki Web site where you can hear and download some songs, as well as view the video to “Timecard” which we also have linked to this article. The songs are personal, sexual, funny and full of angst.

“Timecard” is a song about a sex worker doing what she has to do to survive. The lyrics are based on the experiences of a friend she knew in another country, Yuki says in a telephone interview. “What she did to survive and feed her family is also being done in this country, in Boston, everyday,” she says. “It’s not critical, not judgemental, just reality.” Shot by Boston filmmaker Douglas Gordon, the video is both gorgeous and shocking.

Yuki, who prefers to not reveal her age beyond “I’m old enough, and I’m young enough,” was born and raised in the Philippines. She came to the United States five years ago to join family in Brookline, Mass. She credits her mother, who she said sings in the style of Aretha Franklin “with a really, really gorgeous range,” as being her earliest musical influence. When she was 6 years old she first picked up the microphone to sing karaoke, which she describes as the national pastime in the Philippines. “I don’t know if I was good or bad, I just sang every day because it’s part of the culture,” says Yuki.

“There’s a karaoke system in everybody’s house,” she adds. “If you don’t have a karaoke machine you’re not a Filipino. Everybody sings, maybe not well, but they sing.”

She remembers singing both traditional Filipino music as well as popular hits from the U.S. by such artists as Patsy Cline and The Carpenters. “When I turned a little older I started singing in a club,” she says. “All the standards of the old days, and popular songs by people like Madonna.”

In Boston she started auditioning for bands that posted “wanted” notices on Craigslist.com. “I had never sang with a band before, just what we call minus-one tapes, which are different than karaoke because those still have vocals,” she recalls. “I tried out for two bands in one day because I really wanted to get into a band and I thought, well, one of them will hire me — but then they both hired me and I was, like wow!”

Those bands were Slideshow, a punk-jazz combo, and the R&B band Point of Pleasure.

In 2004 she moved to Exeter where she went to work as a banker and simultaneously started taking guitar lessons from longtime Seacoast area musician Curt Bessette at Daddy’s Junky Music. “Curt actually told me that I was his favorite student,” Yuki says with a prideful laugh. “But I think he says that to all his students.”

In 2005, still shuttling back and forth to Boston, she began writing songs and with the help of legendary Boston rocker David Minehan of The Neighborhoods, she laid down her first tracks. “With Curt’s help I had basically six chords I could play and I wrote 'Timecard' using two chords,” Yuki says. “One day I was with David and I played him the song and he really liked it so he said we’re going to record it. So I’m thinking, great I’ll have David playing guitar and he says, ‘No, you’re going to play six tracks of guitar and I’ll play the rest. He gave me the confidence to play guitar on my first recording. Then I was like, wow, now I’m a musician, not just a singer.”

Later that year Yuki placed her own ad on Craigslist for a guitar player to form a band and Berklee College of Music grad Eric Cordell responded. The two hit it off immediately, she said, and began writing the bulk of what has become the group’s popular set list for live shows. A few months later they placed ads for drum and bass. Louis Ochoa, who was born and raised in the Philippines and was another recent Berklee grad called first.

“We started talking Filipino on the phone and I just knew he had to be in the band right away,” she said. “Turns out he’s really fantastic. Everybody who comes to our shows is just mesmerized by the guy.” Drummer Alix Jakson, a refugee from New Orleans, rounded out the group. “I gave him a few songs to listen to and when we played them the first time it was like he’d been playing them forever,” says Yuki.

Go Yuki started performing live in January and has already performed more than 30 gigs, including a stint at the infamous CBGB rock club in Manhattan, the birth place of punk which will close its doors forever on Halloween. “That was really cool to just be playing on the same stage as all the great bands that have played there before,” says Yuki. “And people really liked us, that was a big deal for us.”

Locally, the band has played at Bourbon’s, Dover Brickhouse and The Barley Pub. The group is trying to raise enough cash to go into the recording studio, and she encourages anyone who’d like to bankroll the record to drop her an e-mail at yuki@goyuki.com (serious inquiries only).

Fans who post messages on Myspace rave about the band’s live act, and about Yuki’s sexual personae on stage. “People are saying that it’s like something they’ve never seen before in a live performance,” she says. “As a group, yes, it’s alternative rock, but it’s just something different. For me, every time we play it’s like it’s the only day we’ve got to play in our whole lives. I give 100, no 1,000-percent. It’s just my passion, but the act is entertainment, it’s a show. We don’t plan it, it just grows.

Go Yuki opens for Soup Bone Throne and the Lourds at 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21, downstairs at the Muddy River Smokehouse. Get there early or you might miss them this time around.

Michael Keating is managing editor/ features at Seacoast Media Group. He can be reached by e-mail at mkeating@seacoastonline.com.