Tokyo bought more records than almost anywhere else through the 1980s and never threw them away. The result is a secondhand market without equal, and a live scene built on small rooms that take music seriously.
Udagawacho: Shibuya’s record street
Leave Shibuya station by the Hachiko exit, cross the scramble, and walk up past Center-gai into Udagawacho. In the 1990s this was the densest cluster of record shops in the world; it has thinned, but it is still the place to start. Manhattan Records is the hip-hop and R&B landmark, HMV Record Shop handles secondhand vinyl across genres, and Face Records specialises in Japanese city pop and jazz. Disk Union Shibuya sits nearby with floors split by genre. Tower Records’ eight storeys on Jinnan-dori are a few minutes away for new releases and the deepest J-pop stock in the city. Shops open around 11:00 or noon and close at 21:00 or so. Prices for used LPs run from ¥500 in the bargain crates to whatever the market will bear for an original Japanese pressing.
Disk Union: a chain that behaves like a dozen shops
Disk Union is the backbone of the secondhand trade, and its Shinjuku presence is a cluster of separate specialist stores within a few blocks of the east exit: jazz, rock, punk and hardcore, progressive, Latin and Brazilian, soul, classical, each in its own building or floor. Staff grade condition honestly on the sleeve tag, and the stickers tell you what you are holding. Bring a list; the stock is enormous. Union also buys, so if you are travelling light you can sell what you brought and leave with something better.
Jazz kissa: listening as a discipline
A jazz kissa is a café built around a record collection and a serious hi-fi, where you order a coffee (around ¥800–1,000) and listen. Talking is quiet or absent. Dug, in a basement off Shinjuku-dori near the east exit, has been running since the 1960s and is the easy introduction. Meikyoku Kissa Lion in Shibuya’s Dogenzaka plays classical rather than jazz and has done since 1926; conversation is not permitted, the seats face the speakers, and it is one of the strangest and best rooms in the city. Both open in the afternoon and are at their best after dark. Jazz Spot Intro in Takadanobaba adds a late-night jam session if you want to hear people play.
Shimokitazawa: live houses within a few streets
Shimokitazawa has perhaps a dozen live houses within five minutes of the station, and on any night two or three will be running four-band bills of indie rock, punk and whatever the local scene is calling itself this year. Shelter (part of the Loft family) and Club Que are the established rooms; Three and Basement Bar are smaller and rougher. Doors are typically at 18:00 or 18:30, the show runs until 21:30, and entry is ¥2,000–3,500 with a mandatory drink charge of around ¥600 on top. Check the venue’s schedule page, which is nearly always in Japanese; the band names and the price are all you need.
Koenji: the louder, older cousin
Koenji’s scene is Tokyo punk’s spiritual home, and its venues are rawer. Koenji High is the biggest room; 20000V (say ni-man volt) and Penguin House are the basement institutions; UFO Club handles the psychedelic end. Koenji’s shows run later and drunker than Shimokitazawa’s, and the audience includes people who were at the first ones. Afterwards the standing bars and curry shops under the tracks stay open past midnight, and the last Chuo line train toward Shinjuku leaves around 00:30.
Clubs and the basics for both
Tokyo’s clubs cluster in Shibuya (Womb for techno, WWW and Club Quattro for live and DJ crossover) with a scattering in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho. Doors are late, around 23:00, with nothing happening before one. Entry is ¥2,500–4,000, often including a drink; you must be twenty, and a photo ID (your passport) is checked at the door without exception. Lockers cost ¥500, re-entry is not always allowed, and photography on the dance floor is usually banned. The last train leaves just after midnight, so either commit to the first train around 04:30 or budget a taxi: Shibuya to Shinjuku is roughly ¥2,000–3,000 with the late-night surcharge.