The Last Picture Show I’d just come up to Tokyo from a Kyushu port town that had a U.S. military base and was living with some friends in a crummy little apartment in a wooden building north of Inokashira Park. These friends had formed a blues band back home and hoped to find success in the big city. I played drums but wasn’t really passionate about carrying on with a blues band from the hinterlands of Kyushu. My main priority had been to get away from my parents, and they’d agreed to send me off to Tokyo with an allowance if I’d attend a preparatory school there. The other guys worked as busboys or waiters while they waited for their big break. I wasn’t working and lived with them mainly because doing so was easier than trying to find a room on my own.