Community Highlights: Meet Marcus Chavez of Tune in Tokyo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marcus Chavez

Hi Marcus, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Tune in Tokyo was formed in 2008 by Greg Hignight and Del Martin. At the time the Los Angeles club scene had many different events focused on particular genres or communities. There was Frenchpop, Britpop, Goth night, Bollywood night and so on.

At the time, we recognized two problems. All of these club events would happen on a different night of the month and there was a no space that was playing exclusively J-pop or K-pop. People would have to wait for that one night a month to enjoy specific events. After recognizing the climate, we decided to take advantage of the situation and launched “International Pop Conspiracy”. It was a night where we combined all of the popular events happening in LA nightlife under one roof with a focus on J-Pop and K-Pop. It was a success and after a year of parties we rebranded as “Tune in Tokyo”.

After rebranding, we began producing events and themed nights in LA nightclubs, conventions, and private parties focused on J-pop and K-pop. We sought to provide a space to people seeking out these genres and to build a community through music education and entertainment.

Today, after the retirement of Del Martin in 2017 and the unfortunate passing of Greg Hignight in 2022, the spirit and legacy lives on. Tune in Tokyo is celebrated for producing LA’s premier City Pop event, Plastic City. Debuting at Bicycle Coffee in 2018, Plastic City quickly rose in popularity and relocated to The Lash the following year. Despite The Lash’s closure in January of 2023, Plastic City has been held as a pop up event at The Paramount and online.

Tune in Tokyo produces a wide array of events such as Shibuya Starlight, Heisei Nights, Showa Drift, and Showa Sundays to name a few. Outside of our flagship events we can be found at many different festivals, trade shows, conventions, and private events.

Recently, we had the privilege to join Night Tempo on his first ever US Tour. We provided technical support in LA and opened the night in San Francisco. Alongside the official shows we also hosted intimate meet and greet events under our Shibuya Starlight series.

Currently we are planning two of our own tours. We’ll be heading to Japan & Korea and later a west coast tour from Mexico to Vancouver.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has most definitely NOT been a smooth road. There have been disagreements about marketing and production. In the early days we relied heavily on word of mouth and our own personal networks to get people in the door. The first 10 years we never ran digital ads. We passed out postcards with our events and hung flyers around downtown. At one point our Facebook page was shut down for an extended period of time dude to cyberbullying. Our Instagram was hacked when Greg’s account was hacked because they were connected. Our following was flooded with bots and it took us weeks to remove them all.

After the unfortunate passing of Greg, we had a short period of panic because we had an event coming up and nothing had been done to promote it. We were effectively locked out of all the social channels and had no list of contacts to reach out to. Thankfully we were able to slowly regain access and unify all of our social media accounts.

Today we have moved into a more professional presentation. We have a full service website, social media presence on all major platforms, a growing email list, and effective marketing strategies. We are currently looking to polish our look and brand and seeking graphic designers and animators.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Tune in Tokyo is a promoter & DJ Team specializing in Citypop, J-pop, K-pop, & more in Los Angeles, around the world, and online. We are known for producing LA’s Premier Citypop Event, Plastic City along with many other events focusing on the AAPI and Anime communities.

We are most proud of our versatility and weath of professional expertise and contacts that allow us to bring the public fully featured, unique, and fun activations and experiences.

What matters most to you? Why?
Music education and community building.

In 2008 J-Pop and K-Pop were breaking into the public consciousness. The average person wasn’t aware of the wealth of content that was being made overseas. Fast forward to today, K-Pop has become a global phenomenon and J-Pop has become a more recognized and celebrated genre due to the popularization of anime and It’s use in Hollywood movies.

Currently there has been a wave of nostalgia for the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. With this wave we have seen an increased desire to return to and rediscover older music. We deliver this to our fans and the public in the form of showa and heisei era music as well as 2nd generation K-Pop hits. Artists are modernizing the music of the Japanese 80s and call it Future Funk and New Retro. All of which has been massively successful.

With this in mind, we wish to continue to promote these genre of music but also the less popular or known tracks or artists within these genres. The more we are able to show people there’s more out there than they may realize the more we are able to inspire them to dig into the music past the surface level and discover something “new”.

Those moments are where we seek to build community and connections. We have made so so many friendships along the way. We’ve seen friend groups form, people finding their partners, people starting their own events and looking for advice, and people coming together to support each other in times of need at our events. We are honored to provide a space for these things to happen within our communities.

We are continuing on a legacy that was left to us. The most important thing to our dear departed friend Greg was community and friendship. We do our utmost best to uphold that despite the rough patches and disagreements that come with managing a business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tuneintokyo.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tuneintokyoevents
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TuneInTokyoEvents
• Twitter: https://x.com/TuneInTokyoClub
• Other: https://linktr.ee/TuneInTokyo

Image Credits
Dennis Chu
Dave Tada
Jung Kyung-Ho
Randall Tabula
Marcus Chavez