I 90% quit Twitter this week. You can read why here. You can also read about my love giant Hard-Offs. I’m not going to explain that sentence. You’ll have to click the link to find out.
As I say in my blog post about Twitter, I will still check my mentions on the regular. So it’s the best way to get a hold of me if you have any questions about my blog, Tokyo, or collecting records. That’s by far my favorite thing about Twitter, so I’m not giving that up.
Anyways, here’s a goofy single.
Sister Sledge
He’s The Greatest Dancer (Remixed by Brutal Bill Marquez)
We Are Family (Remixed By Marley Marl)
I actually bought this record at a Hard-Off for 108 yen, or about a buck, making it the cheapest record I think I’ve bought in well over a decade. So that’s something.
This record was released in 1998. If Discogs is to be believed, it was a Spanish release. So, at some point between 1998 and 2017, this record made its way from Spain to Tokyo, eventually landing in a Hard-Off discount used hardware store in the outskirts of Tokyo.
Here’s what I think happened:
It was originally bought by a Spanish DJ. It was the late-90s, global economy was booming, he gets a gig at a lavish disco-themed dance club in downtown Madrid. It becomes the hottest dance club for your vintage grooves and a big tourist destination for international clubbers. One day, while mixing some Chic tracks, he catches the eye of a beautiful Japanese tourist. They fall in love.
But she has to return to Japan to finish school. With nothing weighing him down financially, he decides to ditch his home country to be with the girl he loves. All he has to his name are his decks and a crate of records. So he packs them up and heads out for a new life in Japan.
They’re in love but life can cruel, life in Tokyo. The club scene is different there, and he’s having a hard time finding work. The occasional gig comes along every now and then, but he’s not making ends meet. She just finished school. She’s a new recruit at a company. The money is decent, but barely enough to support them.
He’s about to give up and head back to Spain. He loves his girl but he doesn’t want to be a burden. Then he finds out that there’s a market for Spanish teachers. Luckily, he does have a degree, it’s in electrical engineering, but that’s all he needs to get a visa to teach. So he puts his DJ work on the back burner and takes up teaching.
Turns out he’s really good at it and soon he’s making enough money not to be a burden on his girlfriend anymore. Relieved of financial pressure, the two get married. He likes to DJ still but it’s just not financially feasible anymore. The teaching pays so good. He’s getting private corporate teaching gigs now. That’s too much money to pass up.
The wife gets pregnant and they decide that the city is no place to raise a child. They head out to the outskirts, toward Saitama. They find a nice neighborhood with good schools. Their place is even pretty big (for Tokyo standards anyway) but those records, turntables and mixers are taking up a lot of space. With a heavy heart, he decides its time to move on. He keeps one turntable, he still likes to play music at home, but he packs up the rest of his gear and his B-tier records (Sister Sledge single included) and hauls them down to the local Hard-Off. He doesn’t get a lot of money for them, but he’s able to take the wife out for a nice dinner that night.
Sometime later, a giant gay man from Pittsburgh buys the record and plays it for his boyfriend. He tells his boyfriend that the “He’s The Greatest Dancer” remix is okay, but the “We Are Family” one is a lot better. His boyfriend agrees.