OUR NEW COLUMN DELVES DEEP INTO THE TOKYO WE DON'T KNOW
At long last, we can hear some electro music here in Tokyo! Can you believe it, after all these years, finally some electro!? And know that I don't think I mean one of the "electro parties" in Tokyo where the DJs may play straight-up techno or house in lieu of "electro."
Anyhow, if you have the chance to visit Tokyo, you may be surprised to find so little a connection between fashion and music. While we can say that we enjoy the newest fashions... the music here is dead. Completely dead. I'm not kidding at all!
However, in the case that youth culture gets this bizarre (read: music is dead!), it's only natural that young people have a heightened desire for counterculture. So our store in Harajuku is pumped full with old and young girls and boys who love U.K., EU, and U.S. underground indie and dance music... they've all but forgotten about the Japanese in the past decade or so.
For the past eleven years, I've been putting on a party at a small club called WEB in Mishuku city. I've kept it up for over ten years because it's in the perfect location: no stations are nearby and it's forty minutes walk (or a ten minute cab ride) from Shibuya, so the people who come really come! The real people come to the party. The people who gather there know all cultures, musics, and fashions and naturally mix it all up.
Recently, the WEB regulars have been into the fashion of London's Original Sin, a label that just so happens to be good friends with the bands Ulterior and the Horrors (both of whom say they don't mind wearing the same designs, fortunately).
Bands that are passing through WEB include Metronomy, N.Y.C.'s Vivian Girls, and London's Magistrates. The most important thing to remember is that you can never play CDs or MP3s as a DJ—the club literally won't accept DJs who don't play vinyl. (So I can't play tracks by bands that haven't released on vinyl—that's why our labels EVERY CONVERSATION and BIG LOVE (our latest) keep on releasing vinyl; we're prepping for the release of a 7" by Geneva Jacuzzi right now!)
THE EVERY CONVERSATION CLUB is held every third Saturday (and will soon experience a name change).
