Dancing the Night Away in Tokyo

I’m not the kind of guy who would be out dancing and carousing till 5 o’clock in the morning. So why was I out on a Saturday night in late July in the middle of Roppongi doing just that?

Any Tokyoite knows that Roppongi is the liveliest, trendiest, most international part of the city by night, where some of the finest cafes, bars, restaurants, jazz clubs and discotheques are.

I’m no stranger to the city. I grew up in next-door Yokohama and have returned to Tokyo many times to visit my family. But I’d had my fill of temples and gardens and all those historic places in the big city. I was curious about Tokyo’s many bars and nightclubs, and the disco-crazed people I’d read about in the magazines.

Roppongi has more than 40 discos--eight in one building alone--and a per-block density of restaurants and bars that would astonish even a jaded New Yorker.

Walking around Roppongi, what amazed me was the sense of safety I felt from the crowd: Even at 5 in the morning the streets were full of people, which is probably not the case with other night centers around Tokyo--Ginza, Shinjuku or Shibuya.

On a side street, off the main Gaien Higashi avenue, I was attracted to a group of about 20, a melange of foreign and Japanese men and women, milling about in front of a bar.

Deja Vu is an American-style bar that was complete with tall gorgeous blondes and handsome Teutonic hunks--obviously some of the American fashion models making mega yen in the money capital of the world.

The bar displayed more than a hundred kinds of whiskeys. So why was everyone drinking bottles of Corona beer with slices of lime floating inside? Following the folkways of Los Angeles, perhaps.

A sign outside emphatically stated in English, “No Military Personnel Allowed!” But that hadn’t deterred the guy next to me at the bar, a sailor stationed at Yokosuka Naval Base a couple of hours’ train ride away.

He seemed utterly suave and wholesome compared to the tattooed biker in semi-tattered clothes talking to a voluptuous woman in short-short blue jeans. Meanwhile, the jukebox blared out an innocuous beat--Bon Jovi? No matter. The crowd--about 40% Japanese, the rest Westerners, mostly Americans by my educated guess--was oblivious.

Outside, the colorful neon lights were fading with dawn’s soft glow, but the crowd at Deja Vu showed no sign of thinning out. I walked half a block up the street in search of my old hangout. The Hamburger Inn, a Roppongi landmark for almost 40 years, was still there, looking a lot spiffier. I hadn’t been there in more than 20 years, when it had been just about the only place open all night.

Compared with the people at Deja Vu, this crowd was more lethargic--zonked might be a better word--as they listened to and watched the rock group Guns N’ Roses on a laser-disc jukebox, complete with visuals.

“I’m just killing time waiting for the subway,” a Japanese college kid told me sleepily. A familiar story from old times.

Across the street a tiny pub called Mistral Blue was packed, despite the late hour. “This is about the safest place to play, this Roppongi,” the bouncer told me outside, glancing at a couple of drunks who seemed to be heading toward the wrong end of a row of taxicabs. “I was robbed down to my undershorts in Shinjuku. That would never happen here,” he added with conviction.

Before I started my night tour of Roppongi I rendezvoused in Shibuya with a school chum and neighbor from my Yokohama days. Francais, a kissaten or place where one can leisurely talk for hours and listen to music for the price of a $3 cup of coffee, was a familiar place, having been another hangout from my teen years. It’s conveniently across the street from the Shibuya station.

The decor hadn’t changed much over the years, unlike the other kissaten that have been transformed into post-modern discomfort. The district of Shibuya, which is a few miles east of Roppongi, isn’t the hick town it used to be 20 years ago. Now it lures away shoppers from the Ginza district and other parts of metropolitan Tokyo.

Because of its inexpensive shops and restaurants, it’s popular with the high school and college crowd. Called the “Shibu-Caji” (Shibuya casual), they wear blue jeans, bright T-shirts and leather jackets, trying to imitate the looks and mores of America.

We hopped onto the subway to Omote-sando, a neighborhood of trendy boutiques and restaurants, but it was too quiet, so we inevitably ended up in Roppongi. The Almond coffee shop (pronounced amando by the locals), painted a garish pink, is a landmark at the district’s busy main intersection.

We had a dazzling choice of fine restaurants, everything from African to Russian, but we were in the mood for traditional Japanese cuisine and headed for the Goninbyakusho (“Five Farmers”), which serves country-style food in an attractive farmhouse setting.

There we were greeted with an energetic “Irasshaimase!” (Welcome!), and our shoes deposited in an old-fashioned geta (wooden clogs) box, of the type still used in public baths in Japan. We feasted on sashimi, charcoal grilled fish and shrimp, cold bean curd and fresh-brewed sake. The seafood was delightfully fresh, the sake properly chilled.

Goninbyakusho is the last thing you would expect in a building full of wildly decorated discotheques. Popularly known as the Disco Building, its real name is Square--obviously a misnomer, with clubs such as Bingo Bango Bongo and Java Jive inside. The building’s six other discotheques also have distinctly un-Japanese-sounding names: Bio, Nepenta, Venus, Giza, Buzz, the Circus.

We tried the Circus first, on the top (10th) floor, but it was packed. It was prime time on Saturday night, around 9 p.m. The place was decorated with vintage American neon signs--Pabst beer was one--and with odd messages, such as “You are guileless in your dream” and “People who go crazy are too sensitive !”

This is Roppongi’s current hot spot, featuring black American DJs and their selection of soul music. The crowd was mostly college kids and office workers in their early 20s. According to a Japanese magazine survey, about 20% of the crowd are foreigners.

We decided to leave the Disco Building to look for a less crowded place. In the same block there are Razzle Dazzle and Queue; around the corner, past Cipango and Area, is Lexington Queen. This is where you look for famous international musicians who are on tour in Japan. Kenny Rogers was there recently, a local magazine proclaimed.

We headed for a familiar establishment from years back, a place called Kentos on the other side of the main Roppongi street, Gaien Higashi. The place has flourished with the retro boom of recent years; ‘50s and ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll is still very popular in Japan. Luckily, Kentos wasn’t too crowded or expensive, and we were happy to see there were plenty of people over 30.

But no Westerners. It was fun to watch the Japanese performers imitate everyone from the Beatles to Elvis to Connie Francis. Only in Roppongi.

What happened on the dance floor at Kentos is typically Japanese. Men and women face the rock band, forming a line, and dance--not with anyone in particular, but as a group. Although they dance with much more abandon than in the traditional festival dances, still there is a certain symmetry, reminiscent of the bon-odori , the summer dance to appease the souls of the departed, in which kimono-clad men and women form a circle and dance around a tower on which drummers and other musicians perform.

At about 11:30 p.m. something peculiar happened: Half the clientele at Kentos suddenly rushed out. I asked a waiter if the place was closing and he replied, “Not yet. But they’ve got to catch the last train out.” Of course.

I remembered the times I had to run to catch that subway and connect to the To-yoko Line, the last train out just past midnight. Missing it meant an expensive taxi ride. Luckily, on this visit I was staying at my mother’s house not far from Roppongi.

We decided to move on. It was past midnight by then, but the streets were crowded with weekend revelers. We walked down Gaien Higashi avenue toward the Tokyo Tower, just before the intersection with Highway No. 2. On the right is a discotheque called Hot Corocket (meaning croquette , a popular Japanese side dish). When I stopped in two years ago a Brazilian band was playing some fine batucata . Now a Jamaican reggae band was featured.

We’d hit the jackpot: This was a first-rate band with authentic-looking Rastafarians. Upon a closer look, one guitarist was a Japanese with dreadlocks.

Hot Corocket was smaller and cozier than Kentos, the setting and the clientele more urbane. The crowd included several European couples as well as groups of men dancing among themselves, perhaps too shy to ask the group of attractive women nearby to join them. The island rhythm and chant of the group was soothing; the drummer, gazing deeply toward the flickering disco lights, played as if entranced.

By 3 a.m. we were exhausted, but were determined to sample as much of Roppongi’s night life as possible. We headed on, toward the Hard Rock Cafe, a couple of blocks back toward the main Roppongi intersection. It was a good place to rest with a cup of coffee among the guitars and other memorabilia of famous musicians.

Roppongi by day is a relatively quiet part of Tokyo, attracting upscale shoppers to its fancy boutiques, but mostly to the amazing variety of fine restaurants. The American and other foreign embassies and their residences are nearby; Ark Hills, a modern, upscale complex of hotel, theaters and mostly American business offices, is just down the street.

Many longtime foreign residents of Japan, who prefer a more “authentic” Japanese setting such as the shitamachi (downtown) of Asakusa and elsewhere, refer with scorn to Roppongi as the “ gaijin (foreigner) ghetto.” But to many Japanese it is precisely the international atmosphere that attracts them.

Discos aren’t the only draws here. Jazz, too, is very much alive and well in Roppongi. The Japanese branch of New York’s Blue Note, Roppongi Pit Inn, Body and Soul and Satin Doll are popular jazz hangouts, although the quality of the music depends on who’s playing on a given day.

Then there are the “pool bars” such as Block Shot, Milefiglio and Arviera Black. The latest rage in Tokyo and Yokohama, they are essentially fancy bars equipped with pool tables. The Hungry Diver Waku-Waku is another popular spot, a cafe bar with a variety of games including darts, chess and Scrabble.

Also abundant in Roppongi--and all over Japan, for that matter--are karaoke bars. The word derives from kara (empty) and oke (orchestra). An elaborate gadget containing dozens of laser discs (called the karaoke set) provides background music from hundreds of Japanese and American hit tunes.

The idea is that anyone can be in the limelight for a few minutes, and impress (or irritate) the audience with his singing. The bars provide customers with a catalogue of songs. When your turn comes, you take your place on a small stage, microphone in hand. The proprietor punches in a few numbers on the remote control and--voila!--a TV screen provides the backdrop and printed lyrics. Even the music’s key is adjustable at a touch of the remote control.

After two decades of popularity, karaoke has become entrenched in Japanese society as something everyone has to master or cope with, not just in bars and nightclubs but at company parties, trips, at the boss’s home. When a cliff crumbled and boulders hit a tour bus last summer, among the dead was a man who still clutched a karaoke microphone. Presumably, he died singing.

In Roppongi I was definitely not in the mood to sing for any crowd. By 6 a.m. I was ready to drop. I could have taken the subway back to my mother’s, but decided to take a cab instead.

“Where have you been?” my mother asked when she heard me stagger in. “I’ll tell you after I get some sleep,” I said weakly.

Compared with those in New York or Washington, discotheques in Tokyo are expensive, particularly in the Roppongi district. The cover charge is anywhere between 3,000 and 5,000 yen ($21 to $35), which includes a drink or two and, occasionally, food. Women usually pay about 1,000 yen (about $7) less. Frequently, hawkers pass out discount tickets (worth 500 to 1,000 yen) to passers-by on the streets outside the building.

There is a dress check at the entrance of some establishments. Casual wear, including blue jeans, is acceptable at many; coats and ties are required at a few. Both Area and Bio turn away people who look “too casual.” The entrance check at Razzle Dazzle is the strictest; it’s said that it turns away half its potential customers in its search for people with “distinctive style,” whatever that may be.

Most Roppongi discotheques are open daily from about 6 p.m. to past midnight. A sampling:

--Java Jive (B-1), Giza (3rd floor), Buzz (5th floor), Venus (6th floor), Bingo Bango Bongo (7th floor), Nepenta (8th floor), Bio (9th floor), Circus (10th floor). All are in the Square or Disco Building, Roppongi 3-10-3.

--Hot Corocket: Daini Omasa Building, Roppongi 5-18-2.

--Kentos: Fukuyama Building, Roppongi 4-10-3.

--Lexington Queen: Daisan Goto Building, Roppongi 3-13-14.

--Razzle Dazzle: Marina Building, Roppongi 3-10-5.

--Cipango and Area: Nittaku Building, Roppongi 3-8-15.

--Queue: Chiba Building, Roppongi 3-10-9.

For more information on travel to Japan, contact the Japan National Tourist Organization, 624 S. Grand Ave., Suite 2640, Los Angeles 90017, (213) 623-1952.

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