A quick trivia question: Can you name a group that toured the U.S. for several weeks, enduring all matter of hardships (missed flights, illness, equipment failure), only to limp home and suddenly find out that they'd become big news in Japan?

You'd be making a good guess if you answered "Spinal Tap."  After all, England's 17th greatest rock 'n roll band to emerge from the Sixties did indeed self-destruct during a meticulously documented U.S. tour, only to reconstitute themselves when their single, "Sex Farm," reached number five on the charts in Japan.  (That subsequent Japanese tour even featured the debut drumming of Jo "Mama" Besser).

However, the answer we were looking for is AAM.

Yes, the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) trekked across 10 states in the U.S. recently during a national Town Hall tour.  That toured proved taxing to the group's endurance-- with the occasional equipment malfunction, the requisite case of sniffles after one too many cross-country flights, the long drives and packaged meals at road-side diners...

Amazingly, AAM straggled back home to Washington, DC and found that they had become stars in Japan.

Okay, maybe we're exaggerating.  Maybe AAM didn't quite become a household name in Japan.  But TV Tokyo profiled AAM's Town Hall in Erie, Pennsylvania and even included an interview with AAM Director Scott Paul (who may or may not have greeted one Town Hall in Lorain, Ohio with "Hello, Cleveland...").

Click here to watch AAM on Japanese TV.  Or, watch this brief educational film on drumming, below: