Yes, you’re probably thinking you already read this? Yes, not even a year ago. Although it’s taken me a bit more time to do this one up. If you didn’t read that one, well it’s longer than this one. There’s not a ton to add to the previous one, Disk Union in Shinjuku is still great, Record Shop Boy and Record Shop Base are still great as well. While we didn’t do much different this time in Tokyo, we only had four days in Tokyo total, including the half day when we arrived and half day when we left. While we were running around a lot on the last day, I at least got everything done I wanted.

Stores

I didn’t really have enough time to go to record stores, this time around. Which is fine, I did a lot of that last time. I did go to Disk Union Shinjuku (punk market) as well as Record Shop Boy and Record Shop Base – the three must go-to record shops in Tokyo for punk. Where I did end up was Bunken Shoin which is a rock n roll magazine shop that had some pretty cool things especially if you’re looking for old Doll magazines, or perhaps a 1982 tour program from PIL. I ended up picking up an old Me-Her fanzine with The Stalin in it, as well as an early Doll with, again, The Stalin in it. Now the shop does mailorder (click the link above), but some of the more punk focused things are not online (that I saw).

Venues

We didn’t end up getting to see any shows in Tokyo except the Gauze one, which I wrote about already.

Food

We did eat at some of the same places we ate previously, only because we had such a great time the last time. Repeat performances at restaurants are always difficult to live up to, I’ll say that this time it was equally as good. Out of the new places we tried, nothing blew our minds like the 新宿立吉 秋葉原店 (Shinjuku Tatsukichi – a kushiage and kushikatsu place that we went to last time), which had a different seasonal meal. It was delicious, every round was a surprise and was often quite delicious. I know it’s not punk prices, but it’s not unreasonable for a special night. It seems that we always end up at some izakaya and someone ends up being our friends for the night – that happend as well at Kushikatsu Tanaka (立ち呑み串カツ田中 新宿京王フレンテ店) – which was essentially a standing bar with various deep fried foods. Hey, no one said we were super healthy, especially when there’s a wide variety of battered and fried foods! Might I suggest the Lotus root? It’s a vegetable right?

Here’s the map: