"What the hell happened to the Cobra Chicks?" I say, slapping last year's "Loaded" album onto the cafe table. Four rock chicks stare up at me from the CD jacket pulling pouty poses so effortlessly steamy that only a eunuch or a nun could resist dashing off to snap up a ticket for the next show.

Then I look at the four members of Cobra Chicks who are sitting round the table . . . There's been some drastic cosmetic surgery going down by the look of things. OK, bassist Dee and singer Kumi are looking in fine shape, but one of the other "Chicks" is sporting enough facial hair to make the Unabomber look like Britney Spears, and the other, with his chopped blonde hair and crooked teeth, is certainly no rock babe. But, this is the newly hatched "Cobra Chicks." And at live shows, there might be 50 percent less chicks on stage, but there's a helluva lot more venom in the rock 'n' roll.

Dee tells me that previous girl members -- original bassist-singer Yasuko and drummer Chie, plus short-term guitarist Cao Lin -- either didn't have enough ambition or just weren't good enough. So this year guitarist Junya and drummer YasuMasa joined, and apparently, the dudes have got what it takes, which, in the gospel according to Dee and Kumi, is skill, determination, ohhh, and loads of boogie.

Dee might seem like a dictator, but then again, great bands have gotta have someone to rally the troops and drive them from one victory to another. But while Dee might be ruthless she can also be diplomatic.

"Yasuko thought of the band as a hobby, but I wanted to be more professional. So Yasuko left," says Dee. "Chie's drumming skills were not good enough and she agreed and left the band. I want to do this band for my life, for a real job."

Dee's eyes flame with ambition as she says this. Maybe she knows that only about 0.1 percent of great Japanese underground bands are accepted by the mainstream mafia and allowed to live off their music, make a living out of their art, but she has a desire that blinds her to reality, and it's exactly that kind of unconstrained desire that gets a band places.

"For us, being professional is not a fantasy," says Kumi. "It is a real goal and we can see it. Chie couldn't see that goal and if you can't see it you'll never reach it."

Cobra Chicks had a clear goal at a live show two weeks back at Hatsudai's Wall livehouse: Blow all the other bands off the stage so that the promoter for the upcoming Nashville Pussy tour, who was there to check all the bands out, would hire Cobra Chicks for the supporting slot.

YasuMasa flailed at his kit like a resurrected John Bonham. Junya whipped out precise guitar solos even while writhing on the floor as Kumi poured a bottle of Jack Daniels over his head. Dee bounced about while pulling out funky bass riffs and Kumi shook all she's got at the front like a mondo stripper on Ecstasy. There was only gonna be one winner. Two days later, the Chicks were told that they'd got the job.

And while Nashville Pussy might not be the Stones, for the Chicks it's a big step forward. They were playing to about 20 people 12 months ago, whereas now they often headline because other bands don't have the guts to take the stage after them.

YasuMasa was hired after his previous band Upside Down split up, while guitarist Junya was found via the Internet.

"We posted on a bunch of sites asking for a female guitarist, but we got zero replies. So we deleted the word female and got 10 replies in one day," explains Dee. "We asked them what guitar they used 'cos we wanted someone who used a Gibson Les Paul. Do you know the Gibson sound is addictive? Once you start using one you can never play another guitar."

"And only a quality guitarist can handle it properly," adds Kumi, nodding toward Junya.

"But what is most important is that we wanted someone who was influenced by all the old-school rock of the '70s," says Dee. "We wanted to play hard rock 'n' roll like AC/DC and ZZ Top."

With Junya capable of playing virtually the entire back catalogs of his heroes -- "my biggest influences are Guns N' Roses, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and AC/DC" -- he fitted in perfectly.

"We want to bring that rock sound up to date. We want to play boogie," says Dee.

You mean rock music with a groove you can get into?

"That's exactly what I wanted to say. I think the groove is the most important thing in rock 'n' roll. It's the roll part, the sexy part, about feeling the groove and getting into it."

And then we get talking about how comfortable guys can be in a band called Cobra Chicks.

"What I now hate is that there's rock bands and then there's girl bands," says Kumi. "I wanted to be in a band with just girls and that's why I joined Cobra Chicks. But when we played with these guys it sounded great and I knew it was for the best. I was shocked I changed my views, though."

"It's like the Riot Grrrls movement," says Dee. "It's cool for girls to make bands, but there's too much emphasis on the girl. Me and Kumi might be feminists, but we don't shout about it now because we just want to play great music. Simon, I know you always make jokes about our name now that there's two guys in the Cobra Chicks. But, basically, it's just a name and it's the music that matters."

Cobra Chicks play Musashisakai Statto, April 19; Tsukuba Park Diner, May 3; Ikebukuro Live Inn Rosa with Nashville Pussy, June 10. For more info check www1.ocn.ne.jp/~boogie

For info on Nashville Pussy's tour call Booster Dragon at (03)3351-6009

Shinjuku's Club Doctor is one of the best livehouses in Tokyo. Apart from the live space, there's a bar with battered velvet sofas and bartenders who need little encouragement to pour potent cocktails. It also hosts the monthly Frantic Teeno, arguably the best garage-rock event in Tokyo. On March 29 Young Parisien (who play pop songs about summer camp, etc.), and Kyoto's Astro Babys (cute, shouted anthems and surf guitars) represented the old school of garage rock. But the final two bands are, like Cobra Chicks, part of the new wave of garage-rock sweeping the Japanese underground, playing harder, faster, dirtier. Supersnazz and the Pappys used to play pop songs, and I guess they still do, but now they play them twice as fast and sneer like Johnny Rotten with a bad dose of hay fever.