Here’s an odd one.
I honestly have zero idea who Japanese rock band Go Ohgami are –- or, more likely, were -- but here’s a video they shot in 1984 for a tune called “Kids On the Street.”
While I don’t personally think the actual song is all that much to write home about, the video is notable for a couple of reasons.
For a start, it was written by erstwhile Patti Smith guitarist/fabled Nuggets archivist and all-around nice guy, Lenny Kaye. He’s actually the first guy to appear in the music video. ADDENDUM: Correction! According to Mr. Kaye himself, Okapi Tsuyoshi actually brought this song with him from Japan.
This was apparently culled from an antiquated cable access music show called Videowave, which prefaced the clip with its host standing in front of the old Life Café on the corner of 10th Street and Avenue B. To say that this corner today is no longer even remotely recognizable from how it appears in this video is a herculean understatement.
From there, Go Ohgami vocalist Okami Tsuyoshi and cohorts (including a few breakdancers in period-specific finery) are seen cavorting all over Manhattan, passing through what looks like Chelsea, Battery Park, the East Vilalge and possibly Riverside Park on the Upper West Side, as well as radom locales like the old mural wall on East Houston, a pizzeria and a fish market … as one does, I guess.
Like I said, the song didn’t really blow a new part in my fashionably feathered hair, but as a period-piece, it’s an interesting glimpse of NYC circa 1984.
See what you think…
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