Last dance for Cisco Records, Japan

Last dance for Cisco Records, Japan

14 December, 2007 | 11.22AM

• Written by: Yuko Asanuma
• Filed under: Music News: cisco records

For those who couldn’t make their last visits to one of Cisco Records’ famed record stores before they closed, here are some scenes from the last couple of nights in Japan.

Last Sunday, one of the most charismatic MCs in Japan Ill-Bosstino from Tha Blue Herb flew in from Sapporo city and made an appearance on Cisco Slope to perform a song and kick some free style rhymes to show respect to the legendary hip hop store.

Hundreds of fans and regular customers crowded the public street to witness this sad but historical moment.

Hip hop store manager Mas made a brief speech and asked the crowed for their continued support for the development of Japanese hip hop culture. 

Ill-Bosstino on the Cisco Slope, Sunday 9th December 2007

On the actual day of the closing, Monday the 10th, many of the regular customers showed up with a bottle of champagne, Sake and Shochu to enjoy their last hours in their favourite store.

It was like a big reunion for many DJs, other record shop owners, local club promoters, record company staff, journalists, and enthusiastic music fans, as most of them grew up to be who they are now with the help of Cisco Records (of course, including myself!).

When I arrived there around 7.30pm, there was already a big party going on with familiar faces.

In front of the Cisco techno store, I saw DJ Mayuri of Metamorphose Festival, DJ Toby, Fumiya Tanaka, Moodman, Ian O’ Brien (who resides in Tokyo now), a prominent music journalist Noda along with many others drinking to shed the tears over.

Inside the house store, DJs from the long-running parties Smoker and Gallery were playing on turntables whilst there were still many customers doing (literally) last-minute shopping.
However, the biggest party was up on the second floor at the hip hop store where an in-store barbecue was taking place in the back of the store, while big local DJs such as DJ KZA (of Force Of Nature and former Cisco hip hop staff member), DJ Jin (of popular group Rhymester), DJ Kensei, DJ Ta-shi (one of the pioneer battle DJs to represent Japan at DMC), DJ Watarai and DJ Jif-Rock (2007 DMC Japan Battle Champion) were blessing the turntables and local MCs such as Maki The Magic, Zen La Rock, Darthreider, Gocci (of Lunch Time Speax, and a top freestyler) and Kashi Da Handsome freestyling to express their gratitudes and regrets.

It was just around midnight when, sadly, everything was finally over.

The stores’ official closing time was 9pm.

It was a great finale for a great record store chain.

It was only that night that I found out that they opened their first independent store at the current location way back in 1976 as a progressive rock record store.

One senior local journalist told me that Kraftwerk’s first records were only available at Cisco back in the 1970s.

That fact alone shows how important this record store chain has been.

Thank you and bye bye, we all loved Cisco!

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