Tokyo Night City Where to Drink & Party. Judith Brand
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 days till they can go again.
Open from 8 p.m. till 12 a.m.
Sunday to Tuesday and on
Thursday, and till 5 a.m. on
Friday, Saturday, and
Wednesday.
Uchida Bldg. B1F,
4-12-6 Roppongi,
Minato-ku.
(03) 3404-5531
¥¥¥
J Trip End Max
The J Trip conglomerate runs the hippest chain of clubs in this city and this one is their best. It is a very cool dance venue patronized by young, fun, and funky locals and a sprinkling of gaijin who have already infiltrated. It is also big. The second basement houses a large dance floor where you can bop till you drop—and that's what you'll want to do when the DJs are really cooking. The interior on this floor is suitably industrial with bare concrete walls and a small hideaway bar area at one end. Upstairs you will find a more subdued and comfortable atmosphere with low tables and couches where you can take a break from the frantic pace below. They play a lot of classic funk, soul, and rock on this floor, so you may not want to stop dancing if you go upstairs for a break. It does make a nice retreat from the blood-boiling thumpety-thump house music downstairs, though. This is one of the few clubs in Tokyo that almost achieves that dark, heady, and mysterious New York feel.
Open from 7 p.m. till 2 a.m.
Sunday to Thursday and till 5
a.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Hara Bldg B1F & B2F,
3-4-18 Higashi-azabu,
Minato-ku.
(03) 3586-0639
¥¥¥
Java Jive
In my hall of fame for staying power, this venue rates an honorable mention. It is still going strong after the best part of a decade—in fact, it's predecesor in the same space managed an equally long stint. On the weekend, this large two-story basement venue attracts a faithful flow of expats, models, GIs, and some brave new local adventurers. Because of the club's norowdies-allowed door policy, it is a reasonably well-behaved group of partiers who end up thronging the dance floor and bar areas until closing. The walls are swathed in cute island-inspired graphics featuring repetitious silhouettes of dancing girls in grass skirts. A rough-hewn staircase connects the club's two interior floors, but its unevenness requires some negotiation after a few drinks. They used to have a novel sand-pit dance floor, but the