Tucked away in the quiet shopping side-street of sleepy Tsutsujigaoka on the western side of Tokyo, Garageville stands as a testament that Tokyo’s vibrant record culture exists even in places you might not expect it. The man, woman, and cats behind this unique record shop and craft-beer/snack-bar, Yasu, Junko, Goma, and Kinoko (who’ve been featured on TRS multiple times) have cultivated a space that is much more than a place to buy music – it’s a kind of clubhouse for both the vinyl-loving deep-diggers and casual hanger-outers, alike.
I’ve written about Garageville a number of times and was thinking how I might approach this next post and started by digging online for articles in Japanese (which are numerous) for some inspiration. I quickly skimmed a few featured pieces on the shop – in one article I swore that I had read that Yasu’s journey to opening Garageville began in the back streets of Shibuya, where his father ran a small record shop.
Then, a couple of days later when I went back looking through those bookmarked articles for the one that mentioned his father’s record shop, and how it instilled in Yasu a deep love and appreciation for music, for some reason the article had vanished. I looked deep into my web browsing history for traces of the article only to come up empty-handed.
Finally, I messaged Yasu for more information, him having never mentioned about his father having a record shop. I explained that I was certain that I had read an article about his fathers shop but I could no longer find it and asked Yasu if it was indeed true and what the name of the shop was …or if I was losing my mind.
Yasu had a very goosebump-inducing reply to me:
“This is the first time I’ve ever heard that my father was running the record shop! Is that a rumor? This is very strange message that you wrote to me …cause my father passed away on Tuesday…and he funeral was today.”
Wow! What the heck?!?! Is Tokyo Record Style tapped into some higher vibration? What are the odds? What could this possibly be or mean? I still am a little rattled from it. Yasu went on to tell me that his father not only never had a record shop, but was mostly uninterested in music, and that he even lamented Yasu’s career as a record shop owner, wishing (as any father would wish for a son) that he had pursued a more prosperous and stable path, perhaps as an office worker and company man. According to Yasu’s sister, it was only just recently before his passing that Yasu’s father finally had come to appreciate and respect the path that his son Yasu had chosen for himself (a path many of us music lovers undoubtedly respect and highly admire!)
I was compelled to ask Yasu to tell me a little bit mroe about his father. He shared that though his father didn’t listen to much music, he recognized how much music meant to his young teenage son, and felt pity for him that Yasu’s record player was quite old and tired, with a broken needle that made for many skips while listening. In celebration of Yasu’s graduation of elementary school and upon his entering junior high, Yasu’s father gifted him with a new shiny Sony stereo set, a premium edition, far to luxurious for a teenage boy, but according to Yasu, a very cool set up with a gorgeous sound. “Though music wasn’t exactly what he wanted for me, he helped lead me to music in this way.”
Wow.
Since this had turned into such a peculiar and almost mystical conversation, I went on to ask if the record that Yasu had decided to pose with for TRS, Jerome Richardson’s “Roamin’ With Richardson”, might just have any strange coincidental connection to his father.
“No connection,” Yasu admitted. “However, “Roamin’ had been reissued on CD in 1994, when I just started to work in Disk Union (Yasu worked for many years as a globe-trotting overseas buyer for Disk Union before opening Garageville). “I was killed by the first note of the bass. Toooo coooool.”
What more can I say except our collective condolences for your loss, Yasu and Garageville fam. And bless the man who worked hard to provide you with your first hi-fi stereo set, and who maybe, just maybe wished that he, who knows, might have wished he too had pursued his passions more like you have. Maybe he’s even running a record store in the afterlife and somehow communicated that to me via some heavenly sound waves.
Well, until it’s my time to check out, I’ll keep listening to the records you recommend, Yasu, and visiting the little heaven-on-earth that is Garageville …with all the music roamers of this world and the next!
More TRS on the WAY!
Jerome Richardson – Roamin’ With Richardson
Label: Prestige – VICJ-60453, New Jazz – NJLP 8226
Series: Heritage of Jazz-II – Prestige 50 – 33
Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue, Remastered, Paper Sleeve
Country: Japan
Released: Dec 16, 1999
Genre: Jazz
https://www.discogs.com/release/7772988-Jerome-Richardson-Roamin-With-Richardson
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