Collectors Keep Old Records Spinning in Tokyo

Mr. ENDO Hiroyuki / Bar "October"

In between lighting up a cigarette, serving a double scotch and pulling a few pints of Guinness, ENDO Hiroyuki somehow manages to slip a record onto one of his decks and gently lower the needle. As Jimi HENDRIX’s guitar on Little Wing begins to fade out, Endo flicks a switch and propels the music forward 25 years to Blur’s Parklife.

At “October,” Endo’s largely counter-only bar buried in the web of backstreets leading away from Koenji Station, Endo keeps an eclectic collection of several thousand singles and LPs that run the gamut from 1960s Garage and Freakbeat to Weird Al YANKOVIC and that include gems such as a Chinese punk cover of the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the UK,” a contender for the strangest record in his collection. “They can’t pronounce the words,” Endo says holding up the record’s distinctly communist art-influenced sleeve. “Crazy.

October is one of many bars that have sprung up in Tokyo which serve as havens for people who want a place to chill out listening to good vinyl, and which along with the city’s hundreds of record stores seem to suggest that interest in records and record collecting is very much alive in Tokyo.

When it comes to record shopping “Tokyo is a record collectors dream,” says October regular and record collector Kirk DANBY as he sits at Endo’s counter sipping on a pint of Guinness. “You can usually find stuff in great condition as Japanese people tend to really look after their records. As for shops, I go everywhere in search for the missing piece I am looking for — Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, Takadanobaba, Mitaka, Kichijoji, Koenji — all have great shops,” he says. “Grading in shops is usually spot on and prices are decent.”

For collectors like Danby and Endo, the Internet also throws open opportunities. “Nowadays, most shops are online, which opens up endless possibilities as to where to find records,” Danby says. Whether buying at a shop or online, the factors that determine value are same. “Records are valuable in part due to their rarity, their condition, and what people are willing to spend on the record,” Danby says. “I’ve seen very rare records sit in shops for years as nobody is willing to spend the money on them.”

Every so often record collecting hits the news because someone is willing to spend a fortune on a rarity – a copy of the Sex Pistols withdrawn version of “God Save The Queen” on A&M sold on eBay last year for over 12,000 pounds, while the lone acetate cut by the Quarrymen before they transformed themselves into the Beatles is valued at least in the region of 100,000 pounds. For most record collectors such excesses go against the spirit of record collecting, as Danby explains. “If people are buying only to speculate that the record will increase in price over the years, I think they are missing the point of it,” he says. “Don’t buy records to have them sit on a shelf — they are there to be played.”

With Parklife back in its sleeve and the Pogues’ LP “Red Roses For Me” careering around the bar to the approval of Pogues collector Kirk Danby, Endo dives into his collection in response to a request from someone at the far end of the counter, making sure that vinyl doesn’t stop spinning for the record lovers at October.

October:
Tel: 03-5306-2924

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