Founder members of Frank Chickens were Kazuko Hohki and Kazumi Taguchi. Taguchi was later replaced by Atsuko Kamura and then Chika Nakagawa and others in the 1990s. Their songs are often about Japanese social conditions and constrictions, particularly for women, as well as the experience of Japanese people in England with Hohki often cracking jokes and making funny observations between songs at live gigs. They were also noted for their lightshows, costumes and audience participation in certain songs. The first two albums were produced by David Toop and Steve Beresford and featured musicians such as Dick Cuthell, Annie Whitehead, Alexander Balanescu and Sianed Jones. Later albums featured, amongst others, Justin Adams, Sylvia Hallett, Dean Broderick and Clive Bell.
Live, they mainly performed to pre-recorded backing tapes. Later live appearances were augmented live instruments, including various Asian traditional wind instruments played by Clive Bell and keyboards and other instruments played by Dean Broderick.
The band's name is often erroneously quoted as "The Frank Chickens", but there is no definite article; the name is definitively "Frank Chickens".
Their best known song was "We Are Ninja (Not Geisha)". Versions of the track produced by Fink, Yasuharu Konishi and Neotropic amongst others appeared on a Ninja Tune 12" in 2000. The single "Blue Canary" was number 42 in BBC DJ John Peel's 1984 Festive Fifty, a poll of his listeners' favourite tracks of the year. They also recorded several sessions for Peel's show on BBC Radio 1.
They were a part of Red Wedge in the 1980s and toured extensively in the UK and abroad. They were on the bill at the infamous Farewell to the GLC concert in 1984 and also toured with Hank Wangford and Billy Bragg as part of the 'Hank, Frank and Billy' tour. They also supported The Smiths and other major bands on a few occasions. In 1984, they were nominated for the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Their numbers swelled from the original duo until there were often as many as eight or more people on stage by the late 1990s. Members throughout the years have included Kazumi Taguchi, Atsuko Kamura, Chika Nakagawa, Akiko Sato, Ricca Kawai, Yumi Hara, Tomoko Minamizaki, Kinue Kato, Tomomi Sayuda, Tomoko Komura, Nao Nagai, Yoko Nishimura, Azusa Ono, Yuko Obata, Saneyuki Owada, Tatsu Ozaki, Ray Hogan, Caitlin Hogan, Steve Nice, Stephen Eintwhistle, Ong Agr and many more.
They still make appearances as Frank Chickens. They appeared for a short performance at the Japan Matsuri Festival in Old Spitalfields Market in September 2009. Kazuko Hohki continues to perform one-woman multimedia shows in Britain. She is also a writer and theatre director.
In 2010, Frank Chickens were nominated for, and won, the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy God Award; mainly due to the efforts of comedian and opera director Stewart Lee. Lee complained that more avant garde acts such as Frank Chickens could not hope to compete with many acts on the list who currently enjoy mainstream TV exposure. He also, perhaps more importantly, criticised the whole project of using unwitting artists as promotional pawns, and the parallels with shows such as The X-Factor, the antithesis of the Fringe. Lee's erstwhile comedy partner Richard Herring took up the idea and on Twitter urged the public to vote for the band in an attempt to undermine the awards, which Lee described as "vacuous", one of the nicer things he had to say about the vote. Lee was quick to make clear that he is a Frank Chickens fan and was happy at the turn of events.
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