Happy End
For city_of_walls
I first heard Happy End on October 2nd, 2004, somewhere in the dark p.m.. Actually, that's not totally accurate. I only heard the songs of Happy End, as performed by other musicians. This tribute to Happy End I heard, called A Happy End Parade, is a miracle in its own right.
But the cover you see here is from Happy End's first album. It was recorded in the summer of nineteen seventy two. And you can tell. The drums are mic'ed to sound like the Allman Brothers, the guitars are right out of Badfinger. Imagine Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young doing the Beatles, on the old CSN&Y equipment in the old CSN&Y studio. . . Only in Japanese. . . A relaxed, natural and pretty Japanese that's way beyond the bark and show of the sixties' fuzz and Rolling Stones covers. . . Sincere and plain, these vocals, unhurried and unstrained. The songs feature lots of backing vocals, as well, mixed right in there between Badfinger guitar and bright Columbia 78 basslines. big fat major chords in the key of A on a big old piano. All of it softly and warmly mixed. This record hits you like a warm gust of air.
The SOUND is back there, with the Doobie Brothers, for sure, but Happy End make it all their own. I don't think I've heard them cover a single song. . . A lot of bands from that period (Happy End formed in 1969) were heavily bar-gigging, and quite a few recordings by popular Japanese rock bands feature covers of American and British songs. . . Happy End don't really rely on much musical input from the OUTSIDE. The SOUND may have been borrowed, but the SONGS were entirely original, if not traditional. I'm entirely ignorant of what was really going on in these guys' heads, I know next to nothing about their biographies, but I'm guessing-just by listening to the record alone-that every member enjoyed a certain amount of freedom within the structure of each song. It's an easy going ride, this one, with no one showing any amount of strain.
But then it could be that it was all Haruomi Hosono's idea, and everything was carefully written out, hashed out, thrashed out, and cashed out. Fuck it. I'm not arguing for the band's artistic integrity, only their originality.
It was one of those records that temporarily dazzles you with a fleeting glimpse of unity. Hearing this record for the first time, I caught flashes in my mind's eye. . . of the yellowing leaves in the Michigan fall beyond the passenger window of my father's old car. . . It was an early Saturday morning trip to the self-service car wash, out on Elizabeth Lake Road, near the Pizza Joint decorated with clowns. . . A glimpse of my father slipping coins into the big water gun that dangled from the ceiling by a black hose. . . The thought that it would be so much fun tp waste water and money by just spraying the run out into the back lot, into the trees. And all the music that came from the car's stereo. . . from the trip their, to the washing, to the donut shop on the way home.
Happy End somehow pulled everything together, hearing the songs and sounds of my childhood filtered through an (ultimately) alien culture eliminated the twenty some-odd years that separated those initial listens to CSN&Y and a windy night in October in Taipei. There was an awareness of perspective, a sense of how much time and space had been covered. . . and a temporary feeling of unity between past and present.
You should probably just listen to it for the sheer pleasure of hearing a really good rock band playing timeless music.
One night in August, last August, bafooz and I were having dinner at a pub in my old neighborhood. O'Ginny's. MC and I would go there once every two weeks or so.`Strange place. Pretty much a foreigner bar, but you'd never see foreigners outside in the neighborhood. It was if they crawled up to the bar from an underground passage.
Bafooz and I were getting pretty sauced when we met a Japanese writer named Kenji Yuda. He overheard us talking and joined us at the table. He was then working in Taipei for an easy translator's gig. In his spare time, he was working on translating an old Japanese cookbook into English. The three of us got to talking about poetry, and trends in poetry, and then music. . . And the conversation began to orbit around the late sixties and early seventies.
Eventually I asked: “Did you ever listen to the Happy End?”
And his face lit right up, as if he could hear the opening bars to one of his favorite songs, as if he was getting hit in the face with that warm breeze.
“Yes! I love Happy End!”
“Were they popular?”
And he burst out laughing so hard that he nearly choked.
“NO!”
I first heard Happy End on October 2nd, 2004, somewhere in the dark p.m.. Actually, that's not totally accurate. I only heard the songs of Happy End, as performed by other musicians. This tribute to Happy End I heard, called A Happy End Parade, is a miracle in its own right.
But the cover you see here is from Happy End's first album. It was recorded in the summer of nineteen seventy two. And you can tell. The drums are mic'ed to sound like the Allman Brothers, the guitars are right out of Badfinger. Imagine Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young doing the Beatles, on the old CSN&Y equipment in the old CSN&Y studio. . . Only in Japanese. . . A relaxed, natural and pretty Japanese that's way beyond the bark and show of the sixties' fuzz and Rolling Stones covers. . . Sincere and plain, these vocals, unhurried and unstrained. The songs feature lots of backing vocals, as well, mixed right in there between Badfinger guitar and bright Columbia 78 basslines. big fat major chords in the key of A on a big old piano. All of it softly and warmly mixed. This record hits you like a warm gust of air.
The SOUND is back there, with the Doobie Brothers, for sure, but Happy End make it all their own. I don't think I've heard them cover a single song. . . A lot of bands from that period (Happy End formed in 1969) were heavily bar-gigging, and quite a few recordings by popular Japanese rock bands feature covers of American and British songs. . . Happy End don't really rely on much musical input from the OUTSIDE. The SOUND may have been borrowed, but the SONGS were entirely original, if not traditional. I'm entirely ignorant of what was really going on in these guys' heads, I know next to nothing about their biographies, but I'm guessing-just by listening to the record alone-that every member enjoyed a certain amount of freedom within the structure of each song. It's an easy going ride, this one, with no one showing any amount of strain.
But then it could be that it was all Haruomi Hosono's idea, and everything was carefully written out, hashed out, thrashed out, and cashed out. Fuck it. I'm not arguing for the band's artistic integrity, only their originality.
It was one of those records that temporarily dazzles you with a fleeting glimpse of unity. Hearing this record for the first time, I caught flashes in my mind's eye. . . of the yellowing leaves in the Michigan fall beyond the passenger window of my father's old car. . . It was an early Saturday morning trip to the self-service car wash, out on Elizabeth Lake Road, near the Pizza Joint decorated with clowns. . . A glimpse of my father slipping coins into the big water gun that dangled from the ceiling by a black hose. . . The thought that it would be so much fun tp waste water and money by just spraying the run out into the back lot, into the trees. And all the music that came from the car's stereo. . . from the trip their, to the washing, to the donut shop on the way home.
Happy End somehow pulled everything together, hearing the songs and sounds of my childhood filtered through an (ultimately) alien culture eliminated the twenty some-odd years that separated those initial listens to CSN&Y and a windy night in October in Taipei. There was an awareness of perspective, a sense of how much time and space had been covered. . . and a temporary feeling of unity between past and present.
You should probably just listen to it for the sheer pleasure of hearing a really good rock band playing timeless music.
One night in August, last August, bafooz and I were having dinner at a pub in my old neighborhood. O'Ginny's. MC and I would go there once every two weeks or so.`Strange place. Pretty much a foreigner bar, but you'd never see foreigners outside in the neighborhood. It was if they crawled up to the bar from an underground passage.
Bafooz and I were getting pretty sauced when we met a Japanese writer named Kenji Yuda. He overheard us talking and joined us at the table. He was then working in Taipei for an easy translator's gig. In his spare time, he was working on translating an old Japanese cookbook into English. The three of us got to talking about poetry, and trends in poetry, and then music. . . And the conversation began to orbit around the late sixties and early seventies.
Eventually I asked: “Did you ever listen to the Happy End?”
And his face lit right up, as if he could hear the opening bars to one of his favorite songs, as if he was getting hit in the face with that warm breeze.
“Yes! I love Happy End!”
“Were they popular?”
And he burst out laughing so hard that he nearly choked.
“NO!”