Despite having lived here for 19 years, Tokyo is just too vast of a city to know very well. People are constantly saying to me “You don’t know ? How can you not know ?” Well, the answer simply is “There’s just too damn much to know.” Upstairs Records, run by the infamous Makato, previously of Broolyn’s similarly infamous “Weekend Records” opened around 2017, fairly long after my many years of Shimokita nighthawk life, and it was one of those places everyone seemed to know except for me. Those ~6 years go when it opened, my kids were kindergartners, and […]
Tokyo Record Style
All Japan Records & CD Summer Carnival
I dropped by the Metropolitan Industry and Trade Center Taito Building this weekend for the “All Japan Records & CD Summer Carnival” where 31 record shops from around Japan all came together for a big trade/swap fair which according to their website (https://alljapan-records.com/) is the biggest 2nd hand record fair of its kind in Japan. I’m not totally sure, but I think this is a rather new event, having hosted just 4 other carnivals in years past with a big 3-year pause with the pandemic. The general vibe I picked up was that everybody was really happy to be back […]