VIVA Strange Boutique - Tokyo's Post-Punk, New Wave & Indie Store

VIVA Strange Boutique is a fantastic store located near Okusawa station in the south-west of Tokyo close to Jiyugaoka and its packed with vintage Post-Punk and Indie posters, badges, records, music magazines and memorabilia. The emphasis is very much on U.K. Post-Punk and Indie with prominent displays of the more avant-garde and DIY acts such as Alternative TV, Television Personalities, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV. Store owner Minami, who also sings and plays guitar with her own band, She Talks Silence, designs and produces original, officially authorised merchandise for some of her favourite bands and artists such as Felt, A Certain Ratio, The Raincoats, Durutti Column, David J, The Vaselines, Primal Scream, Sparks and the Japanese band Plastics who were a kind of cross between The B-52's, Wall of Voodoo and early Talking Heads. She's had some well known visitors too, DJ Don Letts and Devo's frontman Mark Mothersbaugh have popped in to visit the store. 

 

You can check out the VIVA Strange Boutique online store here for the full list of merchandise, as they also offer shipping worldwide. Of course, you can probably guess from the store's name, that Minami is a huge fan of The Monochrome Set and they recently invited the band over to Tokyo to headline a sold-out gig at the WWWX venue in Shibuya to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the store's opening. 

 

There's also an exhibition space in the basement and luckily we were able to catch an exhibtion of stunning photos by the music photographer Toshi Yajima who also just so happened to be in the store, so we could have a nice chat about this work and career as a UK based correspondent sharing his photos to various publications back in Japan. He took very early photos of the Sex Pistols in their Denmark Street rehearsal room in 1976 and would go on to photograph all the musical greats such as The Clash, The Jam, David Bowie, XTC, Iggy Pop, The Damned, Japan, Morrissey, The B-52's, Devo, Paul Weller, The Specials and Kraftwerk among many others - all are featured in an excellent book entitled "Each & Every One" which was actually published by VIVA Strange Boutique. Hopefully, we will be doing a more in-depth feature on his superb pictures sometime in the future.

With thanks to Minami and Toshi Yajima. For more information on VIVA Strange Boutique please check out their web-site here and Facebook page here, they are also on Instagram.

Retrosonic Podcast Episode 40: "A Primitive Psychosis" New Release Special incl. The Damned, Wire, The Go-Go's, The Limiñanas, The Speedways, Draculina, The Fleshtones, Billy Childish, BMX Bandits and More...!

To celebrate our 40th Episode here's a special "non-retro" Retrosonic Podcast where Steve from Retro Man Blog selects 22 brand NEW releases from some of his favourite new international bands and artists alongside some superb fresh material from a few old favourites such as The Damned, Wire, The Go-Go's and The Fleshtones. There's great music from BMX Bandits, Or Arrowe Hill, Cult Figures and The Sensible Gray Cells, there's Power Pop and New Wave from The Speedways, The Vapors, Treasures of Mexico and Phil Hendriks, Medway Garage Rock from Wild Billy Childish & CTMF and The High Span, French grooves from The Limiñanas, Ian Kay and Popincourt, Psychedelia from Melody Fields and Grandad Pants, Punk Rock from The Lurkers and we top it all off with some atmospheric Surf-Noir from Draculina. Retrosonic Podcast has a valid PRS licence. Retrosonic theme by Adam Donovan. This episode's cover star: Polina from Draculina.

Here's the full track-listing, please click on the highlighted links below for further information.

Wild Billy Childish & CTMF "Poka Hontas"

BMX Bandits feat. Anton Newcombe "Razorblades & Honey" (Hifi Sean Re-Mix)

The Limiñanas "Calentita"

The Damned "Manipulator"

The Sensible Gray Cells "So Long"

Ian Kay "Little Granadin"

Popincourt "Always Back (Like The Morning Dew)"

Melody Fields "Broken Horse"

Grandad Pants "On My Street"

The High Span "Dynamik 73" 

The Treasures of Mexico "Stick With You"

X "Alphabetland"

The Fleshtones "You Gotta Love Love"

The Go-Go's "Club Zero"

Wire "The Art of Persistence"

The Lurkers "Fits You Like A Glove"

The Vapors "Crazy"

Phil Hendriks "Radio Calling S.O.S.

The Speedways "Daydreaming"

Cult Figures "Camping In The Rain"

Of Arrowe Hill "All Roads Lead To Quinns"

Draculina "Taboo" 

Record Label/Merchandise Spotlight

Damaged Goods

Spinout Nuggets

MuSick Recordings

Milano Records

Coop Records Gotland

Pink Flag

Migas 2000 (The Limiñanas Store)

 

Please kindly support the featured bands, artists and record labels - thank you!

You can listen/download/stream directly below or via our main Retrosonic archive on Soundcloud or subscribe for free on iTunes/Apple Podcasts so you don't miss an episode! 

Retrosonic Podcast · Episode 40 "A Primitive Psychosis"

Retro Man Blog's 2017 - The Best of The Rest...

Retro Man Blog's Top 10 Singles/EPs of 2017...

01. Les Lullies "Don't Look Twice"

02. Side Effects "Feels Like Walking on Sunshine"

03. The Jackets "Be Myself"

04. Ebbot Lundberg & The Indigo Children "Royals"

05. Duncan Reid & The Big Heads "Bombs Away"

06. Travis Pike "Feelin' Good"

07. French Boutik & Olivier Popincourt "The Place I Love"/"Tonight at Noon"

08. Derrick Anderson feat. Kim Shattuck, Debbi & Vicki Peterson "When I Was Your Man"

09: Jetstream Pony "Like You Less"/"Had Enough"

10. Arvidson & Butterflies "Blank Season"

Retro Man Blog's Best New Albums Part 2 (11-20), Best Reissue, Box Set & Compilation

11. The Fallen Leaves "What We've All Been Waiting For"

12. Ian Person "Exit Highway of Light"

13. Wire "Silver/Lead"

14. Cyanide Pills "Sliced & Diced"

15. The Darts "The Darts"

16. Billy Childish & CTMF "Brand New Cage"

17. Stag "Midtown Sizzler"

18. The Baron Four "Silvaticus"

19.  Joel Gion "Joel Gion"

20. Sparks "Hippopotamus"

Best Reissue

Kaleidoscope "Tangerine Dream" 

Best Compilation

Stupidity "10 Years of Stupidity"

Best Box-Set

The Jam "1977"

Please click on the highlighted links above to buy the featured records or to check out further information on each band. Most of the artists above have been featured in various episodes of our Retrosonic Podcast. You can subscribe to the archive on iTunes or check out Soundcloud here.
 

Wire Live at Ray Davies' Meltdown Festival London June 18th Text by Jim Emery + Photos by Steve Worrall

Always challenging, always unconventional, always oblique. Wire have kept me enthralled for decades and earlier this year after the lead-off track for their vital new album implored “fuck off out of my face” I was theirs once more.

For a band that has performed live art installations and performance pieces where they would be expected to tear through such mini mindfucks as 12XU the anticipation was palpable.

They walked on without spotlights or fanfare and charged straight into ‘Adapt’ from the aforementioned Red Barked Tree. Augmented by guitarist Matt Sims following the departure of Bruce Gilbert, the band ploughed through a succession of songs spanning the decades.  

                                                                                      

Colin Newman’s guitar seemed like a stranger to him as he kept chopping out the rhythm, it seemed like hard work at times. I think this was mainly due to the metronomic, mellifluous drumming of Robert Grey. Eyes shut during the songs, he keeps time like few contemporaries, the fills are subtle and the experience intense. He introduces each song with the clack of his sticks and doesn't let up, the band revolves around the clockwork genius.

Wearing a Glengarry bonnet with a red bobble atop, bassist Graham Lewis added to the puzzle. His powerful upper body firing rumbling charges from a fretboard  that shook the Royal Festival Hall on more than one occasion including a severe lashing of ‘Drill’. Fillings came loose and smiles abounded. 

Newman found his confidence after that. He had been rooted to the spot thus far yet during ‘Bad Worn Thing’ he danced around a while, straying from the iPad that he sang the lyrics from all night.

There was an inkling that we weren’t going to be treated to a sulky set list after an enjoyable ‘Kidney Bingos’ and ‘Another The Letter’ mingled effortlessly with the tracks from the latest offering. Even though the setlist was planned it still seemed rather odd to have them play what could have been a hit single ‘Map Ref. 41°N 93°W’ after someone had yelled it out as a request. Was this Wire the friendly post-punksters?

Even more larks were to be had when they came back on for an encore and stunned every fan in the Hall. Are you sitting down? Yes? Good. They played ‘Outdoor Miner’. You heard me. A song they have never performed live but one everyone has always wanted to hear. Why here, why now? I felt so honoured. A smile even broke across Colin’s face. It was a sublime moment.

The finale was the eponymous track from the album that kick-started it all back in 1977. ‘Pink Flag’ with its refrain of ‘how many dead or alive?’ struck an appositely apocalyptic note, determination writ large across all four faces as it descended into a squall of feedback. Grey came to a rest, head bowed, while the others attacked their guitars and pedal boards with gusto. Newman then plugged his guitar lead from the amp into the iPad and continued the maelstrom through a synth app.

The bass thudded, the guitars squealed and conjealed into a cosmic soup that the ears tuned in and out of, picking up different small melodies here and there and then with a ‘thanks’ they were gone.

Perception is a funny old bird. When Colin came back out to help dismantle his effects board I asked for an autograph. Twice, three times I said ‘Colin!’. I thought he was playing up to a moody typecast but the reality was that he just hadn’t heard me. He gladly wandered to the front of the stage, signed some CDs and set lists and even cracked a joke and a smile.

Always challenging, always unconventional, always oblique and still surprising. 

--- Jim Emery June 2011 ---

Wire appeared as part of Ray Davies' Meltdown festival at the Southbank Centre