Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.rock.progressive
Titolo: I Buffalo Springfield giapponesi - HAPPY END

Happy End was one of the first genuine rock bands that used Japanese
lyrics (the prevailing notion of the day being that Japanese language
was not suited to rock 'n' roll, an imported music genre from the
West). It was formed in 1969 with members that later became giants of
the Japanese music industry: Eiichi Otaki, Haruomi Hosono, Shigeru
Suzuki and Takashi Matsumoto. 
At the time, rock music was largely considered a fringe genre and was
performed by young musicians who focused more on playing guitar
phrases accurately than conveying their thoughts and emotions. On the
other hand, big record companies were marketing guitar-toting boy pop
groups (dubbed "Group Sounds") styled after the early Beatles sound to
appeal to the emerging youth culture. Happy End broke out of this mold
and influenced the course of Japanese music as a whole. While it
remained on the margin of popular culture and only lasted about three
years, the band, along with the label URC (Underground Record Club)
that signed them, showed that independent musicians could put out work
that does not conform to the mainstream notion of what's popular and
still be viable long before independent labels became a popular
alternative some 20 years later. 
Kazemachi Roman (Wind City Romance) is Happy End's second album and
often cited as their finest. The band set out to create a musical
portrait of Tokyo before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, naming the A-side
"Wind" and B-side "City." The lyrics by drummer Takashi Matsumoto
paint a wistful landscape of the old city and the changes that took
place there:
hitoke no nai 
    (deserted and alone)
asa no koh hee ya de
    (in a coffee shop in the morning)
hima wo tsubushitetara 
    (killing time was all I was doing)
hibi wareta garasu goshi ni 
    (then, through the broken glass)
matenrou no kinuzure ga 
    (i saw the skyscrapers' rustle)
hodou wo hitasunowo mitan desu 
    (filling the sidewalk)
-- "Kaze wo Atsumete" (Gathering Wind) 
inaka no shiroi azemichi de 
    (the country side, on a white dirt road) 
hokorippoi kaze ga tachidomaru 
    (dusty wind comes to a halt) 
jibeta ni petan to shagamikomi 
    (squatting flat on their feet) 
yatsura ga bi-dama hajiiteru 
    (them's flicking glass marbles) 
-- "Natsu Nandesu" ('Tis the Summer) 
Musically, Happy End sounds very much like the West Coast folk rock of
the 60s (the band's leaders, Hosono and Otaki, wanted the band to
sound like Buffalo Springfield). The record does sound pretty dated
(unfortunately, the poor sound quality of the re-issued CD I am
listening to doesn't help here) even compared to their contemporaries
such as the Doors, Zeppelin, Hendrix and the Beatles, but it certainly
is a convincing work by accomplished musicians. There are some
genuinely timeless melodies and riffs here, such as the folkie "Kaze
wo Atsumete" (recently made popular again by the Lost in Translation
soundtrack) and the Allman Brothers-esque "Hanaichimonme." The
humorous word-play found in "Aiueo" (Love Hunger, or the Japanese
ABCs), "Taifu" (Typhoon) and "Haikarahakuchi" (High-Color Fool,
"high-color" being a Japanese expression meaning "modern style") is
quite refreshing and unconventional for the time, I imagine. The
band's intricate, sometimes hard-edged playing, anchored by Hosono's
bass and Matsumoto's beats, create a genuine groove over which the
enigmatic Japanese words glide somewhat hypnotically. I found myself
putting it on repeatedly and daydreaming about the city I'd never
known but long for.
Happy End broke up in 1973, but its legacy far outlived its short
career. As the later generations kept discovering and re-discovering
Happy End's genius and emulated its music and style, the band's
members continued forging ahead with their unique visions, some in
mainstream popular music and some in the fringes, spreading their
influences in every corner of the industry. Today, virtually all
musicians in Japan can be said to be influenced by Happy End and its
members' later works. Japanese punk of the 80s was a natural
progression of the movement URC started in the 70s. Hipsters such as
Flipper's Guitar and Pizzicato Five styled themselves after the pop
sensibility and twisted humor of Hosono and Otaki (Pizzicato Five
debuted on Hosono's label, and Cornelius has collaborated with
Hosono's latest unit). Even pop idols like Hikaru Utada and Ayumi
Hamasaki can't escape from the influence of Happy End; its members
virtually created the whole genre as it sounds today. Just typing the
members' names in the search field of Amazon Japan turns up anywhere
from 40 to 300 works each.
Albums consigliati
Happy End 1970 
Kazemachi Roman 1971 
Happy End, 1973 
City - Happy End Best Album 1973 
Live Happy End 1974 
http://cgi.ebay.com/HAPPY-END-ST_W0QQitemZ350017588686QQihZ022QQcategoryZ307QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/HAPPY-END-KAZEMACHI-ROMAN-CD-NEW_W0QQitemZ230242263948QQihZ013QQcategoryZ307QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/Import-HAPPY-END-CITY-BEST-HITS-CD-NEW_W0QQitemZ230246979323QQihZ013QQcategoryZ307QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
--
Mauro Moroni
http://www.myspace.com/mellowrecordsmusic

 -- "Natsu Nandesu"
mi sento ubriaco...;-))
w k