New Cisco System

So according to Mnml Ssgs, Cisco, one of Tokyo's leading techno record stores has closed its doors. It's more bad news for vinyl, but is the picture as bleak as the guys who run the blog claim it to be? They make the point that Japan/Tokyo is one of the last bastions for vinyl culture and that this closure signals the beginning of the end for crate digging and vinyl buying in the city. I visited Tokyo once. Admittedly, it was five years ago and it was only for a few days, but even during that whirlwind visit, I couldn't help but notice the vast number of specialist record stores (it was like the city was too well served). It seemed like crate diggers' heaven - indeed, the promoter who I was with told me that Francois K and Derrick May used to come to the city for exactly this purpose - but maybe the situation has changed in the interim. Of course, Cisco hasn't closed entirely: it will continue as an online operation, focusing its efforts in a country with a huge youth population with siginificantly high disposable incomes and the most advanced technologies and highest broadband penetration rate in the world, so to assume that it's gone forever is wrong. It simply marks a move toward further consolidation of the vinyl market and will join other (and hopefully for Cisco, as lucrative) operations like Juno, Nuloop and Decks. The other point about clubbing in Tokyo - how true is this? Maniac Love is no more, but wasn't it always a small 200-capacity party? Is it really such a significant loss - what's the situation in the bigger clubs like Womb etc? Remember, things have to get better before they get worse (or before they get even worse)...

Comments

[Kenny]

Buddy of mine is living in Tokyo at the moment, and he says the best thing about it is the crate digging and places like Yellow. So I don't think it's all doom and glooom just yet.

[ErikG]

Tokyo is indeed a crate diggers' heaven, thanks to various outlets of DiskUnion selling second hand vinyls. As long as they excist, there's nothing to worry about. During my last two visits to Tokyo DiskUnion Tehcno and DiskUnion Jazz / Rare groove were always full of customers and the business seemed to be good.

Cisco Techno was a small shop selling mainly new relases, mostly imports, you could find in every online store like decks or nuloop for less money. I never found anything interesting from Cisco Techno, which is indeed closed since at least December. Cisco House was still open last month.

[chrisdisco]

this is one of the mnml ssg boys saddened by the disappearance of cisco. is it is bad as pete makes out? perhaps not quite. but it is significant. cisco was a real central point for new music, and while there are still options (disc union and warsaza), the loss of cisco is a big hit. i should add this is on top of the virtual distruction of my other favourite record store in tokyo - jetset in shimokitazawa. the upstairs techno store got consolidated with r&b, soul etc and the techno/minimal etc has basically disappeared. so in the space of a year, 2 of the main 4 record stores for techno/minimal etc in tokyo (with its 20 million population) have basically disappeared. that has got to make a difference at some level. i should also add that it is probably has a much bigger impact on the small, but prominent, expat techno peeps in tokyo (like us mnml ssgers were/are). for those of us lacking the required japanese to get everything digitally, cisco was a key hub in finding out what was on.

in terms of the clubs in tokyo, yes maniac love was a small club, but it was special and the crew had been around a long time. they'd been putting on parties for around 10 years i think and they were pretty central. saying that, in the last 2-3 years they had kind of lost the plot (some stinky trance and hard techno). but. but years after it happened, tokyo still has yet to recover from the loss of the liquid room. there are still good clubs - yellow is fantasic (3rd only to liquid room and berghain for clubs i've been to) and unit is pretty cool (dont get me started on womb - to describe it as hell on earth would be unfair to the devil), but none have even come close to filling the pivotal role in the tokyo scene.

so things are definitely changing and i would argue, for the worse. it definitely isnt dire, and there is still a big market. no doubt about this, we had to suffer a horribly overcrowded m-nus party last year. but. but. i guess the jury still may be out on this one.

[Cam]

Hello, another member of the mnml ssg team. As people have pointed out, there is still a lot of crate digging to be done in Tokyo, and there are still clubs. This is true. Even Cisco is not completely gone, existing now as an online shop. It's all still there.

But diminished. The scene has definitely contracted here compared to a few years ago. As chrisdisco pointed out, we've lost Cisco, and Jetset in Shimokitazawa is a pale shadow of what it used to be (and it used to be really really good). We've really only got Disk Union Techno, Technique, and Warszawa left.

Likewise with clubbing. True, Yellow is still there. But "places like Yellow"? Really, there aren't many (any?) of those left. For Techno, there are only two main clubs (Yellow and Womb), with three on the periphery (Unit, Colors Studio, Ageha).

As people have pointed out, Maniac Love was small. Furthermore, it was mainly closed due to police pressure. But Maniac Love had developed quite a name for itself in Techno circles. When I first arrived in Tokyo, Maniac Love was *the* club for Techno (Yellow was considered a club for House), and people around the world knew that. As chrisdisco pointed out Maniac Love started to lose their way towards the end, but its loss was still a loss to the scene.

The closure of the Liquid Room was another *huge* loss to the Techno scene in Tokyo.

Yellow has taken up some of the Techno slack, but it's also being targetted by the police who randomly drop in from time to time to enforce the "no dancing" laws. (That's not the real name of the laws, but it's what everyone knows them as.) Will promoters continue to put on parties at Yellow, knowing that the cops could come in and bust everything up?

Womb will keep on keeping on, because it's got the market cornered here. More's the pity, because Womb is a fucking nightmare. But they've got money to burn, and have managed to throw so much of it around that they've basically locked in some artists exclusively. Womb is a horrible club full of scenesters who know nothing about the music: Womb is the place to go because it's central, it's "cool", and there's loud bangiing music to help you enjoy your pill. Hedonism at its worst. It is most definitely *not* a place for the community to interact.

Unit is a great space, but is being severely underused for Techno nights. Colors Studio manages to get good Techno artists about once a month. Once or twice a year you'll get somebody interesting playing at Ageha.

But, mostly, you're looking at a choice between Yellow and Womb. One of those clubs sucks hard, and the other is being pressured by the cops. (Actually, they've even started pressuring Womb.)

Standing back and taking a look, the Techno scene in Tokyo has indeed diminished.

True, the club closures and pressures have nothing to do with the vinyl/digital thing. But those closures/pressures combined with the brick and mortar record stores closing down leads me to wonder what is happening/will happen to the community.

I mean, if everyone else shifts to online sales along with Cisco, fine, but where/how will the community meet and interact? (Certainly not at Womb, that's for sure.)

This is my main concern, and this is why I feel the closure of Cisco is a loss for Tokyo's Techno community. Where do we interact? How do we interact?

Cheers,
Cam.

[Ronan]

I'm afraid that's the killer argument.

Although Googlefreetr makes a good point too.

[Cam]

Indeed, Googlefreetr took the words right out of my mouth!

[Brophy]

It's all beechnuts and acorns really, isn't it?

[cecil]

Chisco did well advertisement but tokyos welfare 100% number 1 recordstore is& has always been UNION DISK SHIBUYA.
If Derrick went for Shopping he went there, no doubt.

[takuji]

Yellow is shutting down and womb is having trouble with the cops too

its dying here

[cecil]

for what reason? new laws? only guitar music wanted in electric city?...

[Dave]

and now Cisco has gone bust I heard ... shit stinks
Cameron drop me a line would ya? maustokyo@gmail.com