Cafe Lion, Shinjuku Tokyo, Japan

 Two weeks ago, I got to go to the legendary Cafe Lion in Shinjuku Tokyo which is now 99 years old. I was a kid in a candy store.

As you may already know but I didn't until last year, the "Listening Lounge" which is trendy greatly globally, started in Tokyo around the 1920's.

Among the original locations was Cafe Lion. Is it the last standing original "Ongaku Kissa"? I don't know but I spent two hours in the this mecca and it is most definitely like time travel.

No photography, no talking, no food. You quietly are welcomed and told where to sit, a server whispers welcome as they give you a menu, you order a drink, they quietly bring it to you and the rest of the time you listen to a whole side of an LP or a selected playlist off a CD. Once the selection finishes playing, the "DJ" whispers the details of what we just heard.

Rows of small tables and booth seating facing the speakers, which look like Steampunk designed. CNN did a spread and you can see the speakers in their report: LINK

I made some sketches while I was sitting at my table with notes, hope you enjoy them.

It all started with me last year when my friends Ana Iwataki and Ed Hill at USC invited me to the North American Premier of the documentary film "A Century in Sound": LINK 

I hadn't secured my plans to visit Japan but seeing that film certainly inspired me to do so. I just got back last week and had several opportunities to visit some of the veteran Jazz Kissa across Japan. Cafe Lion was the only one I went to that was strictly Classical music.

In two hours, much happens. Your ear sensitize to the sound system. It took me a good 15-20 minutes to adjust my volume expectations. Once that happned, it was as if they had boosted the sound, which of course they did not. It was our ears and brain adjusting to the volume and I would say the intention of the audio engineer who mastered the LP or CD. it was a master course on listening to pre-recorded music.