Last weekend I hosted another edition of “Tokyo Record Style Day” – basically just record shopping with pals. For this 6th volume, I slated to go to Coco Isle Music Market in the afternoon around 2 or 3pm. Then just a few days before the event was here, Dad duties threw a little wrench in the gears and I had to postpone it til later in the evening. I few people who wanted to come, wouldn’t be able to make it and, in addition to feeling cross at myself for screwing up those people’s weekend plans, I worried for the sake of Coco Isle records, that it would end up being just me. Luckily it wasn’t.
A few friends new and old appeared and it was great to finally meet Julian from Argentina who started an unsolicited and somewhat mysterious Instagram Chat with me, a month or two prior with only the words: “Try to get your hands on some Serú Girán, though I don’t know if you’ll have any luck finding them in Tokyo. I certainly haven’t.” “Hmmmm, Julian Cirnigliaro? Do I know this cat?” I thought to myself, “I think he’s been liking some TRS posts but have we already connected and I forgot? … And who (or what) is this Serú Girán he’s recommending I get my hands on … Ok, now I’m curious, Let’s see where this takes us.” And Boy! Am I ever glad I did, cuz not only did I find a most AMAZING Argentine band you’ve probably never heard of, led by an apparent living legend Charly Gacia, whose Serú Girán is a little bit of Beatles, little but of Stones mixed in with some serious Zappa level musicianship (chain the bass player, Pedro Aznar), and just one of his many virtoso bands, but I also made a new friend in Julian! What a nice guy guy and how great that I now have a friend from Argentina, which I don’t believe I had before. Cool! And ever since we connected, he’s been providing a steady flow of great Fundementail Rockers The world gets smaller through music!
Both Julian and Oscar from Sweden (who I’ll feature in the next post) were visiting Tokyo on long enough stays to really take in the city and culture of Japan, but not long enough for it to make sense necessarily to accumulate a bunch of records to move around during their stay. So they were just along at Tokyo Records Style for the ride, and that’s quite cool too, as I’ve always said that you needn’t really know or care about records to appreciate a great record store, which Coco Isle certainly is. Though neither Julian nor Oscar scored a record this day, the kind and generous shopkeeper and Jamaica (and Hawaiian Reggae) Musicologist and shopkeeper Kazuki sent us all home with a mixed CD for his “Legal Pirates” series. More on that in the next post.
Thank you for coming out Julian! Hope to stay in touch!
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