Anyone into Japanese vinyl?

I know there's Yahoo, but I was wondering if someone can recommend a shop that specializes on selling vinyl (based in Japan)? The prices on ebay are hilarious, just like import vinyl in record stores here in the West. It's not dirt-cheap in Japan either, I know that, but it still makes a difference if you get a Pink Floyd vinyl for 2500yen rather than for the $85+tax they charge you here for every random LP.

There are some obscure albums I'd love to buy, but there are just no sources - they don't even pop up on Yahoo Japan, or at least never in satisfactory condition. Kazuki Tomokawas good stuff for instance. I searched everywhere including YAJ, and the only source I found is a French seller and he wants 145 Euros -_-


I was hoping that maybe someone is into Japanese vinyl and could tell me some addresses of online shops (they can be Japanese). And also, is there a similar amount of nice dedicated shops for vinyl in Japan as there is for manga and video games? Vinyl used to be so damn big in Japan, there has to be something!

 

My local hard off has thousands of records but they don't do mail order so no good for you I guess.

 

This may sound pretty obvious but it wasn't initially, at least for me, but, Amazon usually has some pretty good deals. Sometimes directly, but mostly via third party sellers on Japanese vinyl. I'm a big fan of Michael Monroe/Hanoi Rocks (One Of My Top Favorites) and unfortunately his stuff is very hard to find in the USA but Amazon has sellers in Europe and Japan that get a hold of these still very rare European and Japanese pressings for pretty decent prices. I also got Guns N' Roses (My Absolute Favorite Band) Live Era 87'-93' CD, the Japanese version from them with the bonus track "Coma" which is over 10 mins long! Fantastic song and performance of it, Axl and the gang are in top form! Anyway, you might also just want to do a Google search for a specific album, sometimes you get lucky and find these really small shop websites that have them, sometimes they are really cheap too! Believe me, you may have to go to page 20 on your Google search but you'll usually find something! That's exactly how I found Steelheart's out-of-print record "Tangled In Reins". Anyway, good luck! Let me know if you have any questions. Happy to help! Rock on buddy!

Also, here are a few great Chinese and Japanese online game shops if you are looking for Neo Geo, Sega Saturn, or Sega Dreamcast imports:

P.S. I've bought loads of stuff from both these shops, great guys (I know the owners well) who know their stuff and are honest, they have great prices and do great packing jobs too!

http://www.skywaypro.bravehost.com/index.html

http://www.akiba-games.com/

Again, much luck to you in your search!

 

mail order vinyl records is always dodgy at best they need to be very well packed and handled i prefer a local store rather then mail order / online

was lucky enough to find a box in my sisters roof space with a load of vinyl, early 90s dance / rave stuff, promo records etc and a few other things mixed in.

might just be my paranoia but i wouldn’t trust mailing vinyl records

 

Thanks for the links! Especially akiba-games seems to have very fair prices, you don't see that everyday.

I tried amazon, but unfortunately I couldn't find what I am looking for. Granted, the vinyls I want are indeed very rare, even in Japan I was looking for G.I.S.M. - Detestation and M.A.N. on vinyl and I couldn't find a single offer on the entire internet regardless in what language I searched.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/...ils?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1345921685&seller=&sr=8-2
This is the cd-version, no spinecard, for almost $200. :S

Kazuki Tomokawa's "sakura no kuni no chiru naka" is the one I found from the French seller for $145. There is always the same one on Yahoo for $90, but the spinecard is broken.

 

No problem. Glad I could help. Those prices are insane! Best of Luck!

 

I got a vinyl from Japan just recently from SoundFinder, they specialize in vinyl and have links to record stores all over Japan

http://www.soundfinder.jp/

 

http://www.psfrecords.com/psf.html
http://www.tiliqua-records.com/rare/reco_A-B.html

I haven't purchased anything from either of these sites, so I can't recommend them based on personal experience. You probably won't find any deals on either site.
PSF is a legendary record label and shop in Japan that specializes in music that you might be interested in based on what you've mentioned. Similarly Tiliqua has many rare records for sale at collector prices.

There are many excellent record shops in Japan:
http://www.kt.rim.or.jp/~jojo_h/ar/p_ams/index.html
http://www.timebomb.co.jp/
http://www.neds-records.com/

Good luck!

 

There's no good mail order for vinyl in Japan. You need to come here and raid a disc union or two. Prices vary, but they have rare stuff, too. I have gotten a few goodies... got a 3-LP compilation off of Moor Music for 500 yen that would have cost me about $30 plus shipping off of discogs.

 

That's what Soundfinder is, it's not one store, it's an international forwarding service for a bunch of stores all over Japan specializing in vinyl :smile-new:

 

I live in Brazil and I always buy records (vinly) these sites, never had problems.
These sites are portals stores and particular sellers worldwide .

http://www.discogs.com/

http://www.musicstack.com/

 

I buy from discogs all the time -- it's great. Not a lot of Japanese vinyl though, but some.

 

Guns N' Roses are my favourite band too! Live Era is a fantastic album, though I don't have the version with the "Coma" bonus track.

 

Right on man!!!!! Glad to see another GN'R fan out there!!!!!!! You a fan of Michael Monroe/Hanoi Rocks too? How about Iggy Pop/The Stooges?

 

I usually check discogs.com for sellers. Some vinyl is still expensive, but that's just because it's rare. There are quite a lot of sellers who sell hiphop music, I'm not sure about the other genres because I never look at those. In Amsterdam we also have a few shops which sell Japanese vinyl fairly cheap.

 

So what's the difference between Japanese and American vinyls? Do they have in common in terms of audio quality and size?

 

Every single Japanese record I've bought has sounded phenomenal. I've heard vinyl produced elsewhere that sounded just as good, but the consistency from Japanese pressings seems to be fantastic.

 

Japanese vinyls tend to be pressed on virgin vinyl. I find that many of them also used thicker cardboard and have more nice bonus material such as notesheets and interviews as opposed to some of the American counterparts.

In addition to these measurable differences, JPN vinyls are also visually appealing to many collectors because they came with bright and shiny obi strips, enhancing the collectibility and beauty of the item. Of course, this is highly subjective, but I find that an obi strip makes the album more beautiful. If I don't like it, I can just remove it any time anyways.

e.g. here:

 

What a lovely photo, those Japanese pressings of the early Kraftwerk albums look shit-hot!

I was reading a Sabbat (jpn) interview recently and IIRC it was mentioned that there's only one pressing plant in Japan and it's very expensive (what a surprise haha). I bet they do a good job though. Most new records I've gotten have been pressed at GZ and I'm not amazed by the results most of the time. Recently I got a couple of Tormentor (hun) LPs that were pressed in Germany and even though one side was almost 30 minutes long the quality was fantastic. A good mastering job goes a long way.

I don't listen to too many Japanese bands (GISM are pretty cool though) and after the other two I mentioned this will sound retarded, but I really want a couple of Hi Posi albums on Vinyl and there are only cd versions. No way I'm paying $40+ for a cd. Sucky situation but with just the one pressing plant I guess I can see why it turned out like this.

 

Someone needs to find some more of those Namco vinyl's