Artist description It begins with the electric guitar and the big beat and builds up from there. It aspires to be pop music with a sense of adventure like that composed by John Lennon in the late years of the Beatles (think "Everybody's Got Something to Hide (Except for Me and My Monkey)" or "She Said She Said"). Take the sounds of electric pop and shake them up. Don't settle for the obvious. Move things around, prize asymmetry, twist song structure up like a pretzel. But keep the song paramount. Noise is okay, even welcome, but the sour should be balanced with the sweet. Let sophistication clash with raw energy.

Music Style Electric guitar pop with a fondness both for sophisticated melody and blasts of fuzzed-out noise.

Musical Influences The Beatles, the Clash, Burt Bacharach, Ramones, 1960's garage bands, Sun Ra, Big Star, MC5, the Byrds, free jazz, Johnny Thunders and John Coltrane

Similar Artists We sound like a band immersed in 35 years of adventurous pop.

Artist History The original version of Happy Ending, featuring the songwriting of both Hank Hoffman and Jay Mundy, released a vinyl LP "Have A Nice Day!" in 1984. After Mundy bailed for the life of a hermit in the Eastern Connecticut hinterlands, Hoffman reconstituted the band. He has continued with it, off and on, since 1985, drafting his musical friends for recording projects and occasional live performances. The band's most recent full length project was the "Smile For The Camera" CD, released in 1996. Happy Ending's song, "The Hermit," was included on "Revelation A-Pop-A-Lypse," Elevator Records' 1999 compilation of Connecticut bands.

Group Members The core live band, at present, is Hank Hoffman (Vocals, electric guitar and electric sitar), Tom Smith (drums), Ray Neal (electric guitar) and Andy Karlok (bass). Frequent guests are John Venter (saxophone) and Clark Huckaby (electric fiddle).Other contributors to these songs were Richard Brown (electric guitar, bass, alto saxophone, synthesizer), John Columbus (percussion), Maya Rossi (bass, violin), Jim Montez (electric guitar), Randy Stone (bass), Kathleen Cei (Fender-Rhodes piano), Aimee Kanzler (cello).

Instruments Guitars, guitars, guitars, bass, drums, violin, theremin, cello, keyboards, percussion, acoustic larynx.

Albums "Smile For The Camera," "Have A Nice Day!" (the latter is a limited edition CDR remix of the original 1984 vinyl release, which isstill available)

Location Wallingford, CT - USA

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).