A must-see for visitors to Tokyo in the ’80s and ‘90s was the “hokoten” street-band scene adjacent to Yoyogi Park. On Sundays the street would be closed to traffic, becoming a “pedestrian paradise,” or “hokosha tengoku,” which was abbreviated to “hokoten.” It was also a paradise for amateur bands eager to show off their talent to the crowds of Sunday strollers. Most hokoten bands have long been forgotten, but one – The Boom – was obviously a cut above the rest. The band was formed in 1986 by four friends from the city of Kofu, about 100 kilometers west of Tokyo in mountainous Yamanashi Prefecture. The following year the quartet moved to Tokyo to seek fame and fortune, and they soon became hokoten regulars. The Boom then started playing club dates, and their accessible blend of rock and ska styles caught the ear of record-company talent-spotters. A deal with Sony followed, and in 1989 the band released their first album,
A Peacetime Boom. Dominating The Boom’s sound was the smooth vocal style of band leader/songwriter Kazufumi Miyazawa and the slashing guitar style of Takashi Kobayashi. The Boom’s steadily increasing popularity coincided with Japanese musicians’ renewed interest in their country’s traditional music, especially the vibrant folk music of Okinawa. On their fourth album,
Shishunki, The Boom started to get heavily into “ethnic” music, and one song from that album, "Shima Uta (Island Song)", became a huge hit, sellin...
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A must-see for visitors to Tokyo in the ’80s and ‘90s was the “hokoten” street-band scene adjacent to Yoyogi Park. On Sundays the street would be closed to traffic, becoming a “pedestrian paradise,” or “hokosha tengoku,” which was abbreviated to “hokoten.” It was also a paradise for amateur bands eager to show off their talent to the crowds of Sunday strollers. Most hokoten bands have long been forgotten, but one – The Boom – was obviously a cut above the rest. The band was formed in 1986 by four friends from the city of Kofu, about 100 kilometers west of Tokyo in mountainous Yamanashi Prefecture. The following year the quartet moved to Tokyo to seek fame and fortune, and they soon became hokoten regulars. The Boom then started playing club dates, and their accessible blend of rock and ska styles caught the ear of record-company talent-spotters. A deal with Sony followed, and in 1989 the band released their first album,
A Peacetime Boom. Dominating The Boom’s sound was the smooth vocal style of band leader/songwriter Kazufumi Miyazawa and the slashing guitar style of Takashi Kobayashi. The Boom’s steadily increasing popularity coincided with Japanese musicians’ renewed interest in their country’s traditional music, especially the vibrant folk music of Okinawa. On their fourth album,
Shishunki, The Boom started to get heavily into “ethnic” music, and one song from that album, "Shima Uta (Island Song)", became a huge hit, selling more than 1.5 million copies. The song did well outside of Japan as well: a Spanish-language cover version was a huge hit by Argentinian vocalist Alfredo Casero, for example. On subsequent albums The Boom explored an ever-widening variety of musical idioms, including reggae, Malaysian/Indonesian gamelan and Brazilian samba. The impetus for The Boom’s ethnic explorations came mainly from Miyazawa, who released his first solo album,
Sixteenth Moon, in 1998. Since then Miyazawa has divided his time between performing and recording with the band (which has released 11 albums to date) and working on his solo projects. The Boom, by the way, are a great, hard-rocking live band.
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