THE DEMISE OF RECORD BOUTIQUES IN TOKYO
The worlds' best record store street, was to be said Udagawa-cho, Shibuya... but two thirds of the stores seem to be closed now! Ten years ago, my daily routine was to buy records every day in that neighborhood―but not any more. My record store's location could be one reason I stepped away (it's in Harajuku, twenty minutes from Udagawa-cho), and I do know if there are any good stores still. Nevertheless, my friends say they haven't been there lately, either.
Well, anyhow, import records and CDs' prices are too low in Japan. They're just too cheap.
Did you know that you could buy the U.K. edition in Japan for less than you can in the U.K.?
Why?! It seems that Japanese music stores are selling their wares without any gain! The mega stores are corrupted by insurance company or IT companies. Even after that, they do the same thing and say they have no gain. Sigh. Maybe the Japanese are just a race repeating the same mistakes. Maybe they'd have war again. (Kidding.)
Oh, and if you can come to Japan soon, you should go to the secondhand records stores like RECOfun in Shibuya. It's a secret, but the secondhand records are cheap as death. I guess it was after 2000, when the Shibuya-kei aesthetic finally ended (maybe I'm stretching my point ), and believer in it lost the meaning of the rare records that had "cultural proof," and those are sold by a store clerk without any love to music just like my dad. I used to visit London or Paris as a record buyer ten years ago, so maybe the buyers from the U.K. or EU would buy back the records I bought! Anyhow, I should go and get some new-wave records.
Shop Escalator hits this week:
SALEM 'REDLIGHTS' ACE PLALE 7", S.C.U.M 'VISIONS ARIS' LOOG 7", GHOSTWOOD 'RED VERSION' CHESS CLUB 7", RADIO DEPT 'FREDDIE AND THE TROJAN HORSE' LABRADOR CD-EP, LADYHAWKE 'DUSK TIL DAWN' MODULAR CD-EP
