[/floatr]Perfect Sound Forever: Singing Doctors and Friendly Time Bombs
Many moons ago, I worked as a record store clerk in the Tower superstore in Chicago...I thought my collected experiences would be enough to pad a good book or two...until I first experienced the Japanese record store scene in all its majesty. After just a few incursions into music epicenters like Tokyo's Shinjuku area and Osaka's Ame-Mura, I realized exactly how tame my experiences were...There was obviously a gap in my music-related experiences that needed filling...If you go to a larger Japanese chain store such as Disc Union, you will immediately notice the spectacle of determined vinyl-hunters flipping their way through record racks at an astonishing, inhuman speed that accompanies their thorough knowledge of their chosen musical genres. Then they will disappear from the store just as quickly and wordlessly. The 'select shop' crowd is wired in a completely different way...Frequenters of select shops will dally for hours, commenting on what they hear over the store speakers, and might just disclose all the essential details of their personal lives...more...
