Tokyo disco inferno
Tokyo disco inferno
The responses to the Juliana's Tokyo lookback were fierce!
The essay about Juliana’s Tokyo, hugely popular discotheque of early Nineties Tokyo, drew some impassioned responses from those who were on the scene at the time. In the spirit of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, I’ve pulled together an official inquest featuring multiple eyewitnesses, three living and one channeled from beyond the grave.
First a word from Alfred Birnbaum, legendary translator of things:
Just read your piece on Juliana's. A few points I would disagree on: house and techno music surfaced in Kansai well before Tokyo; and GOLD was much more "decadent" than Juliana's. Juliana's had better press, thanks to Magazine House et al.
Toward the end of the Bubble era, for the first time local prefectures and cities — notably Osaka, Fukuoka and Kumamoto — had enough money (equal to small countries around the globe) to rival, or not care, what was going on in the capital.
It was time of “fuck you” gestures toward Tokyo, and to the prevailing idea that culture had to come from Tokyo and radiate outward. In Kansai, especially, artists and musicians consciously snubbed Tokyo, made names for themselves abroad, and imported trends directly — without Tokyo's say-so.
Dave Spector, tarento extraordinaire:
While Juliana’s Tokyo undoubtedly represented the Bubble Era, GOLD was in a different category, club-wise. It was GOLD, and everything else — the gold standard, if you will.
Full disclosure: I often went there myself. Fortunately there are no photographs of any embarrassing dance moves. The bass alone could be felt in Brazil. Each floor of the massive disco had a distinctive vibe and theme. It was decidedly hip, despite the presence of yours truly, and the place to go. Suffice it to say those o-tachidai (raised platform) feather-dancers would not be welcome. That’s for Juliana’s.
Although Juliana’s deserves much credit for its success, over time the clientele grew more dasai [uncool], especially in the shadow of nearby GOLD. Word got out that many visitors were from Nerima or even worse: neighboring prefectures. Perish the thought! Some regulars even checked license plates in the parking lot to prove their point. Sort of like complaining at Studio 54 that all of the girls are from New Jersey.
More adventurous types would wander over to Lawson’s, the convenience store situated between Juliana’s and GOLD. It was like a DMZ. While some were just there to re-supply their rations (remember, this was pre-Red Bull), many more went in hopes of snaring an invite to GOLD. There will never be a place like GOLD again, nor Juliana’s. Only the music remains.
Greg Starr, a longtime resident who edited the books Hiroko and I wrote together, weighed in as well. (Yokai Attack! and its sequels would never have happened without his steely, steady hand.) It’s interesting to me what a central role discos played in the Tokyo social scene then; that hasn’t been the case for decades now.
Back then it was normal to go to an izakaya and drink, and then go to bars and clubs until late (or early.) I think I’d get to one or another club at least once a week. It wasn’t necessarily to dance, but just to hang out, drink, talk, meet people.
But… Juliana’s wasn’t hip! It was a hangout for ‘gals’ and suddenly-wealthy bubble-era salarymen to ogle them. That’s basically all it was. It felt like the most mainstream thing you could imagine. I wouldn’t have been caught dead in there.
Juliana’s felt like out of towners, whereas GOLD was pure Tokyo. It was in a tower with all these different spaces, multiple floors with everything from “chill out rooms” to VIP suites. There was even a small pool. There was art all around, and exhibits and shows. Every night, something was going on. You could just wander up and down the floors, and talk or dance or whatever, so it was just fantastic as a hangout.
I just dug out an old issue of Tokyo Journal from October, 1993. The descriptions on the nightlife listing page are good but short:
Gold: The mother of all Tokyo discos
Juliana’s: Where to watch OLs rattle and roll.
And here’s a capsule review from 1995:
“Off to Gold we go, with the same house-garage-techno-disco-soul disorder, increasing numbers of really wrong gaijin (God forgive me if I have anything to do with it) and a few tables inhabited by totally uncouth, grunting, crime-syndicated persons.”
And now for the grand finale, I bring you the spirit of designer Syd Mead, who designed the interior of TURIA. Media Arts Professor Northrop Davis interviewed him for the International Journal of Comic Art in 2015:
The Japanese culture, to my observational analysis, likes new stuff. They have this incredible cultural history which they sort of think about but they really do like new stuff all the time; I’ve designed several night clubs in Tokyo and they last about, 8 months, 9? Maybe a year? And then everybody’s been there, they don’t go there anymore.
Cover charges can be as high as $40-50. Then you buy drinks and they have “movers” which means if you’re not ordering enough drinks, they’ll move you, so they have some place for patrons that are. They’ll put you in, like, a backwater part of the club… It’s sort of harsh but they’re in business and they’re serious and the real estate, especially in places like Roppongi, is very, very expensive and they can’t afford to have the profit proportion drop too much.
Speaking of design, here’s a bonus. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the interior of GOLD was produced by Kyoichi Tsuzuki, whom you may know from the book Tokyo Style, which chronicled the gloriously cluttered living spaces of Nineties Tokyoites. (The Spanish publisher Apartamento has just put out a new deluxe reissue edition.) In a 2013 interview with my old senpai Peter Barakan, Tsuzuki said of GOLD:
I’m the one who wrote up the initial concept. Like, what should be on the first floor, the second, stuff like that. I helped pick the architect, and suggested what music should be played. Sketching that out was my job… After a while we had competition across the waterway, from Juliana’s, which was right down the street… Tokyo was incredibly full of energy back then.
Wait a second...is Nerima meant to be uncool :-)