Hey there Kyong Sung! Thanks for taking the time to say hello! Kyong Sung and his friend had just paid a visit to Tower Records when I caught up with them on the streets of Shibuya. I don’t know if I’d call Kyong Sung’s visit to Tokyo from his native Seoul part of a growing trend per se, as Koreans have statistically far out-visited Japan than any other nationality, averaging a million per year for the last several, compared to just ~300k of it’s next two rivals, Taiwan and USA, BUT I do keep meeting Koreans on the streets of […]
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Atsushi – BBQ Records
To be perfectly honest, when I finally found BBQ Records after having driven past it 2-3 times, situated above a Matsuya Gyudon beef-bowl fast-food chain, in what looked like a tiny little 2nd-floor apartment, I pretty much lost all hope that I might have been stumbling upon a Tokyo diamond in the rough. But you never know, and I was keen to check it off the list of shops I’ve visited, and so I parked the bike and headed up those sorta sad and all-too-familiar non-descript apartment stairs. I followed the signs, rounded the corner, and came upon a surprisingly […]
Tokyo Record Style
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Daisuke (and Mao)
I have been dying to visit Coconut Disk in Ekoda for some time, and having a few hours to kill last weekend, I found it on the map, and though it appeared just a short jaunt away in Nerima, Maps was telling it me would take 50 minutes to get there by car on a busy Tokyo Saturday. Knowing that I can split lanes on the bike and work my way to the front of every green light, I can usually shave off about 30-40% of every trip (I’ve insister for years that Tokyo really is best experienced by bike. […]
Tokyo Record Style
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Destiny
Welcome to my 200th Tokyo Record Style post! AMAZING! Thank you all for joining me along this wildly fun journey so far. Here’s to the next 200! Wow, 2024 will mark my 20th year in Japan and I tell ya, Shibuya is still Shibuya. Yeah, she’s a little shinier, a little taller, a little more electric, but she’s still got that Shibuya “charm” …ok, fine, not for everyone. But c’mon, just admit it, yes she’s crowded, noisy, juvenile, and obnoxious, but she’s darling too, Forever 21, Hysterically Glamourous, Ichimaru-cutey. I mean it’s just who she is, and if you can’t […]
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Markus
Bumped into Markus visiting Japan for the first time from Berlin where he works for a major record label managing artists and musicians! WOW! It appeared by the contents of his record store bag, which had a smattering of all-genre scores from Disk Union, HMV, and Tower, that Markus was a record-store tear! He was generous with his time with me but I could tell he was keen to get to Face Miyashita before it closed in 30 min. We had a nice short chat and I shot him on the stairs suspended over Organ Zaka that go up to […]
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Bobb
I caught up with Bobb from Singapore in the backstreets of Udagawa-cho, in that cluster of record stores on Cosmic Zaka that include Next Records, Face Records, Manhattan Records, and Mother Records, four shops that are a stone’s throw away from 4 more shops – Perfect Circle, Jammers, HMV, and Rock and Roll Music Garden, which are a stone throw away from 4 more… In fact, I got a fairly definitive count on record stores in Shibuya. Care to take a guess? 37 Record shops in SHIBUYA ALONE! Insane! Back to Bobb and the record he scored, Nujabes, the beloved […]
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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
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Saqip
With the pandemic having more-or-less ended, and travelers having postponed their Japan trips for a couple of years now , Tokyo is brimming with tourists. “Over-tourism” is a buzzword being floated around on TV and in conversations, which comes with a plethora of contradictions and complexities. On one hand, it’s great to see business booming, and restaurants and bars full, record stores too, but on the other hand, the streets and train stations are crowded with lost people standing in your way, and every once in a while, you yourself get slightly overwhelmed with a bit of that entitled New […]
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Tokyo Record Style Day Volume 3 – Hatagaya – Thank You!
Hatagaya has a special place in my heart. It was the first place I lived in Tokyo, two stops from Shinjuku on the microscopic 2-station Keio-Shinsen Line. Little did I know when my pal Taku and I traded places, him leaving Japan on a sojourn of a lifetime, and me ending mine, that when he handed me the keys to his little apartment in Yashiro Mansion, and the keys to his motorcycle, that I would become forever rooted to Japan and that Shimokita/Shibuya/Shinjuku triangle would more-or-less remain my stomping grounds all these nearly 20 years later. Back then Hatagaya was […]
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Temuge
They say Shibuya Scramble is the busiest intersection in the world. Is it true? Could be. Two things are for sure. 1.) It still manages to impress, no matter how many hundreds (or thousands) of times you’ve crossed it, and 2.) It’s where I spotted Temuge crossing in the sea of people with his pal, both with ice-pops on a Saturday Night. I chatted Temuge there on the corner in a mix of Japanese and English and I began to wonder if Japanese was both our second languages. I asked Temugu where he was from and I thought I heard […]
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Johnny and Bora
I just keep meeting the absolutely coolest and nicest people in the world on this project. What a brilliant little way to interact with the world that I seem to have just stumbled into. Though every person I meet is unique with totally different taste in music, it kinda feels like I keep meeting members of a sorta Secret Society, “The Illuminadio”, “Knights of the Turntable”, “Order of the Black Circle”, “The Fellowship of the Ringwear”, the “Fraternal Order of Record Collectors” and these two knew the secret handshake. As soon as I started speaking Japanese, I could sense that […]
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DJ Yasushi (Sushi)
“I can’t believe I just signed an original pressing of 3 Feet High and Rising… History” – Vincent Lamont Mason Jr., AKA Maseo, P.A. Pasemaster Mase, and Plug Three, of the one and only, you guessed it, De La Soul “White Label Test Pressing bought for $2.99 from a random bookstore in Pennsylvania decades ago”, according to whom the signature is addressed, DJ Yasushi of Groovenut Records in Ame-Mura (American Village) in Ōsaka. Good grief! Test Press of one of the most important and influential albums in Hip Hop history, personally signed no less. Talk about treasure… …For the Golden […]
Tokyo Record Style
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Taiki
Hey, Taiki! Nice to meet you! You’re Tokyo Record Style’s 100th post! Thanks so much for chatting me up and being such a friendly face. And thanks for sharing your time and your M.O.P. score with me. I was totally unfamiliar with M.O.P. (Mash Out Posse), American hip-hop duo comprised of rappers Billy Danze and Lil’ Fame but after listening to a few tracks off the Warriors record, I’m taken back to a time in my life, a couple summers in the mid to late 80’s where I listened to nothing but gangsta rap, hardcore hip-hop, the artists that found […]
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Chaz
Zig-Zagging home through the streets of Shibuya, Chaz’s Supreme Jersey, White Polo bucket hat and record bag caught my eye. Then I noticed that the tote bag his wife, Nana, was carrying was one of those heavy canvas incognito Disk Union bags. “Sumimasen? Disuku Yunion no baggu desu ka? Naka ni rekōdo haitemasu ka? Watashi mo rekōdo daisuki. Rekōdo o katta bakari no hito-tachi no shashin wo toru kameraman desu. `Tokyo Record Style’ to iu boku no insutaguramu desu. Shashin totte mo īdesu ka?” “We’re Korean.” “Annyeonghaseyo!” (Laughter) “…that’s about all the Korean I know …and Gamsahabnida (Thank You). Is […]
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Keesh
I met Keesh and crew in Shinjuku outside of Disk Union. His lovely wife Tama was waiting outside with a trolly full of vinyl while he and the scratch brothers, Haruto and Keito (stay tuned for the next post) were inside the shop. Right as I approached Tama, who easily looked the DJ part, for the Tokyo Record Style pitch, out came the Keesh with half an eyebrow ever-so-slightly raised in natural suspicion about this strange foreigner chatting up his wife who has been guarding a crate-full of records. (Japan IS as safe as a society can be, but this […]
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Haruto
Believe it or not, DJ Haruto pictured here is 13 years old. He was hanging out with DJ Keesh when I met them in front of Disk Union in Shinjuku. Despite being just 13 years old and never having lived overseas, Haruto was speaking English with me. When I asked him how he learned English, he answered with cool confidence, “I’m just trying” …man, that alone made quite an impression on me. But Haruto would end up making an even bigger impression on me when he told me that he is a scratch DJ and that he has been scratch […]
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Sara and Tyler
Slammed on the breaks on my way home from work, and made a hard left to catch these two standing in front of Tower Records, carrying that signature Yellow-red-orange bag. From quickly chatting Sarah and Tyler up from atop my bike, they gladly agreed to a photo, and told me they were cousins traveling together to Japan, from their home in Vancouver, on a trip they’d been planning for years, adding that after a few more days in Tokyo, they’d be heading to Kyoto to rendezvous with yet more family! Well, done team! From their vinyl Tower Records bag, they […]
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Juan and Yvette
What a supremely cool couple! Meet Juan and Yvette from Los Angeles on a trip they’ve been planning to Tokyo for ages, spotted on the streets of Shibuya. Carrying that unmistakable yellow Tower Records bag, Yvette caught my attention and I approached her for a photo. Immediately friendly, she was warm to the idea of a photo, and asked if she could pose with her boyfriend. “Of course!,” I said, looking over her shoulder to meet the slightly suspicious (read: potentially menacing) glare of Juan who seemed to be carefully, stoically, understandably sussing the situation of some stranger in a […]
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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, […]
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Nao and Ryu
I spotted Nao and Ryu, two young buds and college classmates, coming out of HMV in Shibuya with their first records and a turntable in their hands! WOW! “How old are you guys?” “I’m 21 and he’s 22” I think I remember one of them saying. “When you can stream everything, why are you guys suddenly buying records?” I asked. “Well, I tend to listen to playlists on streaming platforms, and that’s fine, but if I listen on a record, then I’ll be forced to listen to the whole album and in the sequence the artists intended. It will be […]
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Riku
If you don’t know Tokyo Camera Style, on which Tokyo Record Style is based, run by my pal Sypal, I highly recommend again that you check it out. It’s a celebration of old-school film photography love, where when John spots you on the streets of Tokyo, rawking your film camera, he snaps a shot and adds you to the stream. As I’ve said before, in one light, it could be considered quick to dismiss as material camera porn but it is really anything but. Culture is what it is, Street fashion is what it is, individuality and expression is what […]
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Miles and Cameron
I caught up with Miles and Cameron in the alley outside of Josey’s Records after they had just scored rapper Freddie Gibbs and producer Madlib’s 2014 collaboration, “Piñata”. Something about them reminded me of myself when I started collecting records in my early 20s and I asked them if they were new to vinyl. Miles responded a resounding no, in that he had grown up with a house full of records, and that his mother, if I remember correctly, recently had given him her Prince collection, including Purple Rain and 1999. That must be something! That jogged my memory that […]
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Turistan, Tiger, Keita
At 17 years old, Turistan (@trippin_tree3) is the youngest person that I’ve photographed so far for Tokyo Record Style. I caught up with Turistan seminal classic “Enter The Wu-Tang” from ‘93, that’s 30 years ago. That would be the equivalent of a 17-year-old me in 1993 buying “With the Beatles” (which I probably did). Thats give me great encouragement to not only see youngsters (Oh, my god do I sound old) interested in records, but interested in GREAT records. Turistan was with his skating bros, Tiger and Keita, (Fellas, Turistan is our-cooling you! Time to score some wax!) They were […]
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Saeka Shimida
A fellow photographer – Saeka! I caught up with her and a pal with a nice stash of records just scored from Jet Set which, a little like Big Love Records, keeps a highly curated inventory of mostly new-ish records, finds that for the more discerning listener. Maybe I’m imagining things, but walking around with records in a Jet Set bag says to the more basic (in that modern dismissive sense) listeners like me, “That gay/gal didn’t just score some records from Jet Set …that person IS A JETSETTER!” That could actually be true because when Saeka produced the records […]