In the mid-1960s, a young Mike Nogami picked up a camera and started taking pictures of things around him ¡ª dogs, his neighborhood, friends playing guitar. Some of those friends were in a band called Happy End, the group that Haruomi Hosono played bass in before starting Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Fans who know their rock lore, however, will know that Happy End wasn¡¯t just a stopping point on Hosono¡¯s way to international recognition as part of YMO ¡ª the band was a milestone in the course of Japanese pop music history.
In the early 1970s, Happy End was a particularly unusual group. The band leaned heavily on overseas artists such as Buffalo Springfield and Moby Grape for its psychedelic sound, but its content was specifically focused on the members¡¯ own lives in Tokyo. The lyrics of the 1971 album ¡°Kazemachi Roman¡± are detached, yet nostalgic for a city that was being blown away by the winds of change.
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