As my daughter begged and pleaded with me at the 11th hour’s last 5 minutes to take her all the way to Nagoya to see her favorite boy band (she’s 13) at Vantalin Dome, and as I refused her a dozen times trying to explain to her that it made absolutely no financial sense, there sitting on a massive shelf behind her were about 1000 2nd-hand records that cost a small fortune to accumulate, and as many dollars worth of stereo equipment, not to mention a piano and two guitars and a few other musical trophies (all of yours truly), […]
Tokyo Record Style
Brian
Wow, another TRS first …we’ll at least first since my very first post. I’M being featured on Tokyo Record Style! Yours truly – Brian Scott Peterson, AKA, “BP”, “Peter Brianson”, “Pete Mesquite”, “Moosehead”, “Zebrio”, “Wendell (my bowling name), “Big Boss” to some, and “Safety Samurai” or “Bura-chan” to even fewer. Um… How coud I not, when the very friendly Oscar from Sweden (featured a dozen or so posts back), who appeared at my last “Tokyo Record Style Day” event at Coco Isle Music Market, despite not even being a record collector himself, whose heartwarming first words to me where “I […]
Tokyo Record Style
Kazuki – Coco Isle Music Market
I’m really happy to shine the Tokyo Records Style spotlight on Kazuki from Coco Isle Music Market, a well-established and beloved Reggae records specialty shop in Tokyo. But what’s a more honest way to put it, is that I am really happy to be IN the spotlight OF Kazuki, because as one of the most friendly and knowledgeable record shop owners that you will meet in Tokyo, to spend any amount of time with him is to brighten your day (or night). It’s also easy to tell that all the positive vibrations Kazuki regularly absorbs through music across 2 decades […]
Tokyo Record Style
Tokyo Record Store Day Vol. 6 – Coco Isle Music Market
Reposting from yesterday, no change in plan, just posting again! Guys, I really dropped the ball on this one. I need you guys to please give me a pass. I had originally planned this for 3pm in the afternoon but then I found out I had a family obligation. Although I didn’t actually make a dedicated post or event page about it yet, I had mentioned the initial time in one post, but then the 7-9 postponed time in another post. Ahhhhh!!!! I just got overwhelmed and didn’t know if I should keep pushing or not. Anyway…. It’s *TODAY October […]
Tokyo Record Style
Nori
Nori-san, pictured here, though the same age as me, knows more about music now than I could ever know even with 2 entire lifetimes. Though initially, we didn’t exchange so many words, I could sense by his attentive and discerning curiosity of me, a lightness but directness in his voice, along with a sensibly understated style, details of which were jumping out at me (tucked-in-to-slim-navy chinos, a “Tunnel Records Shirt San Francisco” Tee, western leather belt and eastern neighborhood sandals, distinctive eyeglass frames and an inconspicuous black-on-black Ralph Lauren cap) that there was probably much more to Nori that even […]
Tokyo Record Style
Natsuki
I’ve just stepped into an alternate reality time machine where I’m looking in a mirror and seeing a 20-something Japanese version of myself, surviving on cup noodles, party beer, cheap rent in a house full of like-minded hippies, spending every last cent on records and concerts, and having just blown through my entire week’s paycheck at the record store in one go, with absolutely no concern or worry that I now have no funds for food. Don’t worry, I’ll subsist on music… Meet Natsuki, who I caught up with outside Coconuts a couple of weeks ago, who in a way […]
Tokyo Record Style
Jeremy Freeman
After catching a social post that Ella Records had gotten in a Taj Mahal record that I had been looking for for a while, I stopped over with the intention to just pop-in and pop-out with the one record. In the short matter of time that it took me to dig through the New Arrivals section to find it, there was an even faster whirlwind of a fellow gaijin that blazed in, rawking a felt beret, an oversized neckerchief that my bandana-discerning eye suspected might actually be some sorta middle eastern kufiyya, and a heavyweight long-sleeve t-shirt shirt that was, […]
Tokyo Record Style
Kelsey and Joseph
I was born in 1976. Not long after I bought my very first few LPs to play on the family turntable, I probably got the dream birthday or Christmas present of every MTV-watching pre-teen adolescent in ‘86 or ‘87 suburbia America, a Ghetto Blaster Boom Box, replete with double tape-deck for dubbing, am/fm radio and antennae, and probably a button for “Turbo Bass”. The Boom Box did several things for me. It gave me the ability to listen to music by myself, to tune into and to record to cassette Casey Kasem’s Top 40 every Sunday morning, listening to which […]