clientele may idle into sit-and-listen mode, some gaijin enthusiasts will also usually wander in and automatically seed the atmosphere with a more animated mood. Once the locals realize that it is acceptable to have fun in the face of jazz, they usually loosen up as well. The Japanese who live in the area have already been exposed to liberal doses of foreign tastes and attitudes, and tend to be cooler anyway. This is definitely one jazz venue where it is OK to party. Once a month you can catch an all-night blues session which kicks in early and stays cooking late. With very friendly staff and a very reasonable cover charge, this venue is definitely worth a look.
Open from 5:30 p.m. till 2 a.m.
Tuesday to Sunday. Closed on
Monday.
Koenji Bldg. B1F,
2-3-4 Kita-koenji,
Suginami-ku.
(03) 3339-2727
¥¥¥
Dance and Prance
Dance clubs in Tokyo are bandits of the night. It is easy to get a license for liquor in Japan, but impossible to get a license for dancing after midnight. About 15 years ago, three teenage girls were picked up in a disco in Shinjuku after midnight and subsequently became the victims of rape and murder. By some inscrutable logic, dancing after midnight was therefore made illegal. For this reason many clubs will cite their closing time as midnight—even if they've just told you that they open at 11 p.m. If they openly flaunt their hours, then you'll know that they are paying the right people (and you'll be safe). Because of this law and the paranoia associated with it, the hours listed in this section may not match reality.
Whether legal or not, dance clubs are dependent on their DJs. They set the mood and create a following. Many boppers choose a club because a specific DJ is playing. Everybody is fussy about what will flick their switch and get them dancing, so many clubs feature different DJs on different nights to try and reach as wide an audience as possible. The fads and favorites never remain fixed for long. DJs come and go like the songs they play. Clubs that move with the market are always the freshest, but they are also the hardest to pin down. Small underground groups of kids sometimes set up a venue for a few months. They really hop for a while, then fly-by-night, but they're the coolest if you can find them.
Bland, prepackaged clubs have not been included. Take the excruciatingly boring Maharaja chain, for example. It will never change, so I can tell you exactly what you're not missing. You'll find snooty staff who behave like they're doing you a favor when they take your money at the door, lousy service even if you manage to get the bartender's attention, incredibly uninspired music, and unimaginative patrons who sway in front of mirrors and call it dancing. Even if you get VIP-room treatment, the atmosphere will be the same. These are the sort of clubs that hire sakura — a young couple whose job is to break the ice on the dance floor once guests start to arrive. No one wants to be first in this kind of bland clubland.
Another phenomenon which I have avoided is the menu approach to partying. The Nittaku Building in Roppongi has five floors of clubs all owned by the same company. When they entered the leisure industry they decided to hedge their bets and put a different genre club on each floor of the building. This vertical structuring runs oddly perpendicular to the idea of changing your DJs throughout the week. Each floor is a prepackaged party hell. Hitting a button in the elevator is like ordering from a vending machine. If you want disco, hit the B2 button. If you want 50s/ 60s, hit 2. If you want Latin, hit 3, etc. The aftertaste is as unappetizing as its fast-food equivalent.
The important thing is to plug in. The clubs I have omitted are easy to find—they advertise. The clubs I have listed will give you leads into Tokyo's real party core, so gear up and get ready for the meltdown.
The Deep
This is a fairly quirky venue in that it is only open on the weekend. During the week it is a gallery featuring exhibitions by up-and-coming local and foreign photographers. On the weekend, someone will occasionally organize an underground film festival of the Russ Myers/John Waters ilk. These tend to run in the early evening and then the club kicks in around ten or eleven p.m. By midnight the star DJs hit the turntables and a few seriously cool regulars start drifting in to dance. Although it appears in club listings, it is generally a very tight clique of partiers who come here to while away the morning. This is partly because it is very hard to find—but now you have a map. I will add a warning to this—it is not a pickup joint and it is a very tight, underground group of people who come here. So, unless you're as committed to cool as the concrete that lines the walls in this place, you probably won't enjoy it. They serve imported beer in cans, including Grolsch.
Open from 11 p.m. till 5 a.m.
every Friday and the 1st and 4th
Saturday of the month.
Suzuki Bldg. B1F,
8-12-15 Akasaka,
Minato-ku.
(03) 3796-0925
¥¥
Cleo Palazzi
If you're a young African-American male who loves Japanese girls or if you're a cool white dude who knows his way around the ghetto, this is the club for you. They have the best local and foreign DJs spinning the funkiest rap and hip-hop you'll hear in this city. Men go to dance and party but they also go to pick up girls—so know the score or take a chaperone. The interior is completely black as are most of the clientele. There were only half a dozen white or Hispanic faces there last time I went, and even though I had a brother as an escort, he was asked (not me!) whether I was available. Loads of Japanese women (not girls) hang out here too— yellow cabs who've decided to save the fare to New York. It's a skanking scene and well worth it if you think you've got what it takes to cut it in this sort of clubland. If the bartenders are genki, they will break into a routine when their favorite vinyl hits the turntable. You can keep your eyes wide open and still not feel like you're in Tokyo.
Open from 8 p.m. till 4 a.m. on
Friday and Saturday only.
3-18-2 Roppongi BlF,
Minato-ku.
(03) 3586-8494
¥¥¥
Eros
The only way to describe this place is as a total dive. The young and manic will find it extremely appealing, but unless you fall into this category I would advise that you give it a miss. It is dark, dingy, and covered with black-light graffiti. The walls are misshapen, evolving here and there into various seamy-smelling, cave-like grottos as they branch off the central dance floor. One of these nasty little caverns houses a large unadorned bed, which obviously inspired the club's "Lovenest" tag. This is Tokyo, however, and I have yet to witness or hear that it has been put to any use other than sitting. It gets totally packed on the weekend with the cream of Tokyo's wasted youth, who flock here to bop to machine-gun metered techno-house music. You would gain valuable cultural insights were you to conduct an anthropological study of Japan's shinjinrui on these premises. This is the kind of place that parents hate but kids count the
