Photo by Maki Nibayashi

Amongst the gaijin lifelines in Tokyo (National Azabu, Books Kinokuniya, Aux Bacchanales), Tower Records Shibuya is a major savior. Tower has just celebrated its 20th year in Japan, during which time it has pioneered massive changes in the music retail industry. With 40 stores and 1400 employees in Japan and other stores in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, Tower is a true Asian tiger. Keith Cahoon is Senior Vice President and Director of Asian Operations. Maki Nibayashi spoke to him in his CD-stacked office in Shinagawa to find out the secret of Tower's power.

It's twenty years since Tower first came to Japan. Have you been working for the company all that time?
I've been working for Tower for over 20 years but not always in Japan. I've been here for the past fourteen years. I was in charge of importing for the company from the UK and Japan and that helped me get interested in Japan. Then I wanted to be able to read Japanese magazines, so I started studying Japanese. I became more and more interested, came for a holiday, put in a plug to be transferred, a position opened up and here I am!

Tower's first store was in Sapporo. That seems like a strange place to start.
When we first came here as a wholesale company to sell American imports, we found a company in Sapporo illegally using our name. We approached the store manager and he said that he had visited the store in LA and loved music but never thought that Tower itself would come to Japan. He apologized, sold us the store and the fake Tower became a real one.

What has changed in the music industry since you came?
As far as our customers are concerned, 20 years ago they were younger, aged 15 to 25. Now there's a wide range of age groups that visit our stores. Also, Japan always had a fixed price system, so Japanese records were always more expensive than in other countries. So when we started to sell imported records there was a big gap between the foreign price and local price. I think Tower had a big impact in Japan because we were selling so many import records that the record companies had to lower their prices. It worked out for the consumer.

What was the hardest thing starting up here?
There were no other foreign retail companies, so we basically had to pave our own way. We were smaller back then and less well known. Just explaining what we did to landlords was a hassle. Now many landlords come to us, but getting started was tough. When we first opened our Shibuya store, we set our store hours to be open till 10pm and a lot of people thought that was insane. They didn't see the point in a store staying open past 7pm. When I first came here record stores were run by a guy in a suit. I think Tower made shopping for records more enjoyable.

Which Tower is the biggest?
The Shibuya Tower is our biggest store in the world with 50,000 square feet, and sometimes we wish we had more room. It also gave us room for the book shop, which was perfect because of the large foreign population in Tokyo.

What do you like most about Japan?
I like the fact that people are considerate. I think it's instilled from an early age and that makes living in Japan quite pleasant. There are of course exceptions, but considering there are so many people living together, there aren't too many cases of major violence here, and that's nice.

Why would you prefer to live here than anywhere else?
Even though I've been here for fourteen years it still remains a foreign environment to me, and for most foreigners there's a certain sense of adventure here. It's an exciting environment to be in, a fascinating place to be.