Only three of the six members of band Transnoodle have made it out to Friday night practice in the small Causeway Bay band room. Not that it really matters. The band are rarely ever fully together – often half of them will meet one day, the other half the next. They mainly just gig, explains guitarist and chief creative force John Saeki. He’s only half joking but the band can belt out original tunes that at least sound tight, which might be a testament to talent. But they say they’re just in it to enjoy the music – which in their case is ska. Sort of.

“Everything is sort of something,” says Saeki, a 36-year-old ‘Japanese Yorkshireman’ who spends his days as a graphic designer. “We’ve got sort-of-bossa, we’ve got sort-of-samba, and everything else is sort-of-ska.” And their subject matter is only sort of serious, as illustrated by Spicy Island, a dirge about heartbreak and Indian cuisine. “It’s about someone who lost his love and regrets it,” says Saeki. “In a curry house,” chimes in curly-haired guitarist Andrew Parkinson with an Australian twang. So the chorus goes,
“Since you’ve been gone /
I’ve been missing all the curries that we used to have /
in the Spicy Island.”
Saeki and Parkinson, a teacher, formed the nucleus of the band after meeting for a “guitar date” in June last year.
Parkinson was impressed with Saeki’s songs. “I was really pleasantly surprised to discover the music he was writing was challenging, it was fresh musically and it was danceable.” The songs had no lyrics, but Saeki had named them according to landmarks, buildings and restaurants on Lamma, where he has lived for the past seven years. Since that fateful first date, Transnoodle – which takes its name from a Lamma takeaway noodle joint – has acquired a healthy repertoire of 13 songs – with lyrics – and four other bandmates: Marcus Norberg, a stout Swede, on drums; long-haired American Kevin Voight on bass; ebullient Josh O’Connor, also an American, on vocals; and trumpeter Sam Bruce, a Brit, who joins the band for half its songs.

Though only fully active since July this year, the lads already have a number of gigs behind them, including the semi-finals of the recent Battle of the Bands. Next up are the Lamma Fun Day and Lamma music festival, Dickstock. The schedule is hectic, says drummer Norberg, but they’d still like more. Ultimate success would be to record their material and play a string of regular gigs over a six-month period. “So if someone’s grandmother has a
birthday party coming up, let us know,” Andy quips.

Indeed, audiences could stand to learn much from the band’s lyrical fare. Many of the songs are inspired by what’s happening in the news. Quarry Bay headlines the relationship between expats and locals in Hong Kong, while The Journey details the story of Khalid El-Masri, a German Muslim victim of ‘extraordinary rendition’ by the CIA as part of the US’s ‘war on terror’. “I learnt most of what I know about world events through John’s songs,” says Parkinson, probably joking.

But for every serious Transnoodle number, there’s another that pulls the piss. Referendum, for instance, is set against a backdrop of the EU constitution referendum in France. It’s archetypal ska about a man so busy listening to news of the referendum his girlfriend runs off with another guy. Saeki, on vocals duty tonight in O’Connor’s absence, bewails, “She left with that wanker from a bank, the HSBC.” If it’s not enough to make you cry, it’s at least enough to make
you laugh.

Transnoodle play the Lamma Fun Day on October 22.