CD shopping in Tokyo

God bless Tower Records. Sure, I'm a champion for indie stores when I live in the States, but when I live in Japan, well, Tower is my lifeline.

Last night I had some time to wander around in the vast Shibuya location -- at 50,000 square feet over eight (or is it nine?) stories, it's the biggest Tower Records in the world. And, my friends, it is a beautiful place. They have a surprisingly decent selection of Americana and bluegrass records. Bluegrass is in its own little section, but Americana stuff falls under "country" -- which is then further broken down into really weird categories such as "acoustic swing" and maybe three kinds of "folk." Amusingly, all this is lumped onto the floor (5th)selling "world music" -- which, of course, country music is considered in countries that are not America. So usually I am shopping for my music to a soundtrack of polka or weird French-African beats. Which is pretty cool, really. Way better than the pitfalls of the very well-stocked "rock" floor (3rd), which can include shopping to Journey (who are huge here right now) if you hit it at a bad time.

Also interesting to note: Everything in Tower, on every floor, is alphabetized by first name. So Lucinda Williams is under "L," and Jay Farrar is filed conveniently right next to Jayhawks. Jay-Z, however, is on a different floor (4th, for hip-hop).

Anyway, among the booty from my Tower trip was this:

That's right, folks, it's the "This is Americana, Vol. 2" CD. The gospel is spreading to the Far East! See the price tag? It says 620 yen. Which is about US$6. Which means I paid three times the retail price for it. But such is Tokyo (a regular one-disc release usually runs about $22-$25), and such is my desire to check out this CD without having to wait three weeks for it to get to me from the States by mail. And such is the mind-set you enter when you're spotting familiar Americana CDs on store shelves in Japan while listening to German ambient music or Buddhist chanting over the PA.