Chatmonchy (チャットモンチー, chattomonchī) was a three-piece all-female rock band which consisted of Eriko Hashimoto (guitar, vocals), Akiko Fukuoka (bass, chorus), and formerly Kumiko Takahashi (drums, chorus) who are from Tokushima Prefecture on the island of Shikoku, Japan.
[1] Fukuoka, then in the same grade and at the same high school as Hashimoto, joined to make an acoustic duo, and performed one show when a male drummer pulled out right before a concert in April 2004.
Takahashi sat in the audience of the show and at the time was in another band, but was known to the duo via the Light Music Club of their university in Tokushima, Shikoku.
[1][5] The band independently produced an album, entitled Chatmonchy ni Naritai (チャットモンチーになりたい) (out of distribution) and sold it themselves, chiefly by hand in the Tokushima area, achieving as many as 1500 sales and record label solicitations.
[1] In March of the following year, the band released the single Koi no Kemuri (恋の煙), but it did not chart.
In April 2007, the band released the single Joshi-tachi ni Asu wa Nai (女子たちに明日はない) but it failed to chart.
On March 19, 2010, Chatmonchy played at the prestigious SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, as part of the Japan Nite tour.
[6] The band also took the chance to do a mini-tour of the US, visiting New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
[1] Later that year, their song "Koko Dake no Hanashi" (ここだけの話?, "Just Between Us") was used as the opening of the anime series Kuragehime.