Tokyo: Disc Union

If you ever make it to Tokyo, Disc Union is amazing. I just got back and the selection is just mind blowing.

I ended up restraining myself and only picked up 3 records, but I'll be back there in a couple of weeks.

Today's purchase:

Sun Ra: Nothing Is
Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers: Drum Suite
Enter the Dragon Sound Track

I almost grabbed Herbie Hancock's Fat Albert Rotunda, but it was pretty beat up and kind of pricey.

It's not the same as diggin' through the thrift store crates, but to see everything you've ever wanted right there is just unbelievable.

Which Disc Union did you go to? I used to shop at the one in Tsudanuma, Chiba quite a bit.

man sounds good , i had two japanese fellas come by our shop today and thrpw down some money they got some good stuff ,
man i would love to hit up japan to do some diggin on the real tho.

algorithm18 wrote:Which Disc Union did you go to? I used to shop at the one in Tsudanuma, Chiba quite a bit.

I hit the shop in Shibuya. The basement there is all jazz, funk, soul records.

dj e.d.e wrote:man sounds good , i had two japanese fellas come by our shop today and thrpw down some money they got some good stuff ,
man i would love to hit up japan to do some diggin on the real tho.

I knew a DJ from LA who was living over here for a couple of years. This local record shop owner up in Fukushima, Japan asked him if he could go home with him to go vinyl shopping. He said they went into one shop in LA and after looking through their stuff, the guy made them a deal on like 20 crates of records. They delivered them to my friends' place in LA. The guy spent the next day going through everything, took like 3 or 4 crates of choice records back to Japan and told my friend to keep the rest.

Crazy...

Tha S ence loves japan

Yeah, and I can imagine what he sold the choicest records for back in Japan. That's what makes record shopping in Shibuya interesting. You can be in some tiny place flipping through the dollar bin, and then in the next crate over you pull out "The Sounds of the RCA Synthesizer" from the '50s, with a $500 price tag on it... Shibuya also has the distinction of having more record stores crammed into it than any other area in the world. There are 4 disk unions there, but look at the shop signs on the upper floors and you should see a record place every 2-3 buildings.

I usually go to Koenji for records on the cheap. This one place has lots of boxes outside and it's all 3 for ￥600. You can pull some usefull stuff out of there some times. Lots of other places around, too. I also used to haunt the flea markets. Makuhari Jumbo Flea Market was asolutely amazing, like, five years ago. There's still a flea market around there in summer but nothing like it used to be, and often no vinyl. All the development in that area has taken up the empty lots they used to use. I'd rather have my flea market than a furniture store, but man... I spent so many ￥100 coins there back in that day.

When did you move here, by the way? If you just got here, then you've got a lot of ground to cover. Eat at Yoshinoya and save some ￥￥￥ for more vinyl. Here's the disk union site (with maps to all their locations) for anyone that's interested: http://diskunion.net/

algorithm18 wrote:When did you move here, by the way? If you just got here, then you've got a lot of ground to cover. Eat at Yoshinoya and save some ￥￥￥ for more vinyl. Here's the disk union site (with maps to all their locations) for anyone that's interested: http://diskunion.net/

I'm not new to Japan, just new to Tokyo digging.

I've been in Japan since '99, but there's still lots of ground to cover.


I live up in Utsunomiya and work as a translator/interpreter. I'm looking to move down to Tokyo within the next 6 to 12 months, so I'm psyched about being near so many digging spots.

Where are you at? How long have you been over here?

what are the prices like? I'm going to Japan in a few months and aside from eating and sightseeing, i'll be diggin!

BlackestBeats wrote:what are the prices like? I'm going to Japan in a few months and aside from eating and sightseeing, i'll be diggin!

Algorithm or someone else may be able to give a better answer than me, but I'd say the bigger shops (like disc union) know what they have but grade pretty fairly. I saw a lot of GREAT albums in the 1500 to 1800 JPY range which is like $13-15 USD right now. The good stuff in that price range that I saw was usually graded like a B or C. If you're lucky though it's just the jacket that's beat up (I'm not a serious collector so that doesn't bother me). Then again, it goes as high as you want and as low as you want. There are boxes of 100JPY ($1) records, and there's a lot of stuff in the $50+ range as well.

What blows me away is not the prices, but the selection. Just so many records I'd like to own under one roof.

I live around Oji, pretty much at twelve o'clock on the Yamanote line. Where are you thinking of moving? Oh, and I've lived here since 2002.

Yeah, I'd agree with Murahachibu on median prices for decent records. However, you can go as high as you want. I went to this one place and flipped through the "Acid Rock/Psychedelic/Freakout" bin. EVERY record was 200, 300, 400 bucks. It was fun to look, but... Check out the Disk Union site. You can search for whatever you need and the prices are right there on the site. One of the nice things about the ￥100 crates here is you come up with some weird shit you won't find anywhere else. Try and find soundtracks for samurai TV dramas from the 70's. Japanese instruments like shamisen and shakuhachi blended with sick wah-wah guitar and funk breaks. Some older anime soundtracks are pretty good too, and there's tons of that stuff around. Basically--if you have the money, it can be found here.

I'm surprised noone has mentioned cheap gear in Tokyo, though. Anything used and Japanese-made is so damn cheap. At Sofmap in Akihabara I saw an Akai S2000, without manual and OS disc, for $10. I kid you not. I went into a thrift store to buy a few records and ended up getting a Fender bass for $30, a Zoom 505 pedal--in its original box--for $2, and a practice amp for $1. Definitely worth checking out too.

algorithm18 wrote:I'm surprised noone has mentioned cheap gear in Tokyo, though. Anything used and Japanese-made is so damn cheap. At Sofmap in Akihabara I saw an Akai S2000, without manual and OS disc, for $10. I kid you not. I went into a thrift store to buy a few records and ended up getting a Fender bass for $30, a Zoom 505 pedal--in its original box--for $2, and a practice amp for $1. Definitely worth checking out too.

Akihabara definitely would be the place to check out. Up here by me the "recycle" shops (i.e. thrift stores) charge ridiculously high prices.

Did some local digging today:

Got a really quality copy of Stevie Wonder Innervisions - Japanese Pressing for about $10 US.



I also got a near mint 1974 Japanese pressing of Clifford Brown & Max Roach at Basin Street for about $5. (Break beats galore)



Saw an original copy of Sun Ra's Angels & Devils at Play for about $50US and was really tempted, but I let it go. Too rich for my blood.

Only bad purchase was on the way to my bus stop I popped into a Hip Hop record shop and picked up a copy of Deltron 3030 in the bargain bin for like $3. Got it home and it's warped. 1st tracks on both LPs are **** up. Guess I should stay away from the bargain bins.

dj e.d.e wrote:man sounds good , i had two japanese fellas come by our shop today and thrpw down some money they got some good stuff ,
man i would love to hit up japan to do some diggin on the real tho.

Those asian are known to dig, dig, & dig. When I used to work in a record shop and they would come in and they would tear the place up looking for ANYTHING, and of course the owner jacked up the prices on the spot. But to them it was all good. They bought "crap" records for mad money. And another time I was at a record store and I found the last Noreaga double colored 12's and this asian dude wanted it. After I told him it was the last one and he went through about 50 crates, he gave me a hundred to take it out my stash.

DBA wrote:

dj e.d.e wrote:man sounds good , i had two japanese fellas come by our shop today and thrpw down some money they got some good stuff ,
man i would love to hit up japan to do some diggin on the real tho.

Those asian are known to dig, dig, & dig. When I used to work in a record shop and they would come in and they would tear the place up looking for ANYTHING, and of course the owner jacked up the prices on the spot. But to them it was all good. They bought "****" records for mad money. And another time I was at a record store and I found the last Noreaga double colored 12's and this asian dude wanted it. After I told him it was the last one and he went through about 50 crates, he gave me a hundred to take it out my stash.

damn, yeah these cats came up with a big ass stack and asked for more ,,
naaw, we dont jack our prices up like that, we are trying too build a rep which is working in our favor, we just want to stay in business and give good deals to our customers,

man i wish we had more customers like them cats yeah they dont care what they buy they just want it all but they bought some good shi+ though, i was just puttin out massapeal and dude was like i want that ,never hit the shelf , but we got another one in stock now .