Lastgasp Art Laboratories

[lordgalvar]

She likes punk alright, just more Vibrators/Buzzcocks than Zouo/GISM, you know? We went to Rebellion last year in Blackpool. It was our first time out of the USA. She drags me to Coachella every year, so she can survive music stores and a few Forward/Gauze/Life gigs, haha. We'll go eventually. I mean, we survived Florida and Blackpool.

Thanks for the heads up on digimart. Good site and way easier to search. I put in some inquiries with people I know to see if I can't turn up some old LAL. I'll let you know if I find anything. I'll ask my friend if there are any particular stores to check there for you (there are those stockpile places that just have boxes and you have to read a stock list). Thanks for the offer on the gear lookout. This store looks promising though: https://www.tcgakki.com/English.html and they have an 87 but listed as sold...sad sad sad.

Oh, if you see any of the old lastgasp you aren't picking up, let me know. Thanks man.

[Eivind August]

It was actually mr. Lastgasp himself who tipped me about digimart. It's apparently used by retailers/stores.

I think I went to that tc gakki store last time, lived close to a street with almost exclusively guitar related stores. Pretty sure it was the famed Ocha no mizu. Will live in the same hotel this time as well, so I'll be close to teh goodies. Loads of used pedals in stores over there, so I hope I'll get lucky. Will let you know if I find something sweet. Oh, and thanks for asking your friend, always good with some advice from people who know the place.

[Strange Tales]

I'm supposed to be going to Japan sometime in the next year. Looks like I have a huge gear quest to go on as well. What places should I look out for?

[backwardsvoyager]

As far as used gear goes it's getting really hard to find good deals on anything in and around Tokyo, they're pretty good at knowing what things go for outside Japan and mark it up accordingly.
If you get a chance to hit up any Hard-Off (recycled electronics) stores, i'd recommend that first. There's an enormous one in Hachioji and i can't quite remember the other ones that were good but basically the further you get from Tokyo the cheaper everything is and better chance of finding interesting stuff at good prices. The one in Akihabara is small but was pretty good for how close by it is though. Most sell like vinyl records and video games too and the bigger stores it's easy to lose yourself for a whole day, super good fun. The only downside with those places is they have goddamn awful facilities to demo things, the staff are generally not too helpful and the store theme song loops loudly all day every day. Drove me insane
As far as music retailers go the Ishibashi stores generally have the coolest pedals, Ochanomizu and Shibuya had MASF among many other things and you can demo anything you want.
I didn't see a single LAL pedal last year, but you never know really. I'd say if anything is close by just drop in regularly to see new things before they get snagged.

[Strange Tales]

I'll have to check those out definitely. Do you know of any good ones out near Oosaka or Nagoya? I'll be staying in Nagoya most likely for my trip so I'll definitely have an easy time going either to Oosaka or Tokyo.

[Eivind August]

I'm planning on going to Osaka as well, so any tips on music stores there would be sweet. Might also go to Kyoto and maaaaaaaaaybe Fukuoka if it's doable.

[backwardsvoyager]

I didn't really get around to gear hunting in Osaka or Kyoto and didn't stop in Nagoya unfortunately. Hard-Off stores are all over the place and any of them are guaranteed to have some used pedals and guitars and stuff, so if you find out there's one nearby at any point definitely check those out. I got kind of obsessed at one point and started taking day trips out to a bunch of them.
If you're in Osaka definitely go to Den Den Town (Nipponbashi) though. So many electronics and video games and other (less socially acceptable ) things.
Kyoto is definitely just worth going to full stop though, a lot of cool bands emerge from there and it's generally pretty inexpensive and laid back compared to Tokyo. I regret spending all my time at temples and shops instead of bars and gigs while I was there Super cool atmosphere.

[Strange Tales]

I have so many shows to go to while there, I have a ton of friends in bands there. I might have to trek all the way up to Niigata to see one of my friends, that's really going to be a journey. Any of my friends that played in Kyoto though ended up moving to Tokyo just to be closer to the heart of the scene, so I'm not sure whats left there. I know there are a couple really cool bands out of Ehime though which is still surprising to me.

I'm gonna be in Japan for like 3 weeks if I go there, still not sure how much I'll be able to, I'm already a little overwhelmed.

[backwardsvoyager]

Yeah people generally seem to move away to Tokyo for the scene (which is fucking amazing), but you can find small venues and lots of weird stuff going on in Kyoto among other places. Uchu Conbini, jizue, Nuito and tricot are all from Kyoto, it tends to foster a lot of the cool mathy rock bands.
You can basically guarantee at least one awesome show will be on any given night in Tokyo, it's nuts, sometimes i had to pick between like half a dozen things per night. It's left me in despair at how much of a shithole my city is for interesting music

[lordgalvar]

Yeah people generally seem to move away to Tokyo for the scene (which is fucking amazing), but you can find small venues and lots of weird stuff going on in Kyoto among other places. Uchu Conbini, jizue, Nuito and tricot are all from Kyoto, it tends to foster a lot of the cool mathy rock bands.
You can basically guarantee at least one awesome show will be on any given night in Tokyo, it's nuts, sometimes i had to pick between like half a dozen things per night. It's left me in despair at how much of a shithole my city is for interesting music

Kyoto was where a lot the 80s noise punk bands were from too. The punk scene is thriving there. My friend takes amazing pictures and documents it every time he goes there. Has like 10 gigabytes or something of punk photos.

I agree with your previous comment about looking outside of Tokyo for gear which is why I mentioned those stockpile stores. That's where everyone goes to buy old arcade PCBs because the stores in Tokyo overcharge.

You should try LA. If you don't like corporate pop/rock, there isn't much of anything except for that hipster garbage that doesn't want anyone to know how cool they think they are. Always begging for money too. The underground is dead here. The only underground shows are secret (literally, you have to be friends with some kid to get invited to a house party 40 miles away). The only thing we have here is this weird DJ nostalgia scene (hey, it's another Morrissey night, YAY!). I'm really jealous of Tokyo. We get maybe one show a month that might, maybe be worth going to.

Hah, on the LAL front: I used two "find it" services last night on a whim. One found a Ripplet! They took my money and went to buy it...it was a fake ad but I got my money back. Should've known because it was going for like 9000 yen. The other guy is looking out in the outlying areas (I think south of Tokyo). He's keeping an eye out for me. We shall see...

[UglyCasanova]

Perfect Circuit Audio restocked a bunch of LAL's just now, including Gomorrah, Lluna and 88 Super Oscillo fuzz. Get 'em boys!

http://www.perfectcircuitaudio.com/prod ... rand=670#4

[Mudfuzz]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-8BaUbMESE[/youtube]

[ponyteeth]

There's a Multi Noise Processor 2 at the Music-go-round by my house.

[lordgalvar]

There's a Multi Noise Processor 2 at the Music-go-round by my house.

Very interesting. Those are awesome. Don't pass it up if the price is right.

[resincum]

There's a Multi Noise Processor 2 at the Music-go-round by my house.

Very interesting. Those are awesome. Don't pass it up if the price is right.

buy that shit!