Lexington Queen
The Newlex is a nightclub in Tokyo entertainment district of Roppongi .
The club was founded in 1980 under the name Lexington Queen and, after a renovation phase, reopened in 2007 under the name "Edo NewLex", although after a few months the " Edo " was removed from the name and the venue has officially been called "NewLex" since then . Colloquially the club is called " Lex " for short .
The Lex has been a popular meeting place for Japanese and non-Japanese models practically since its inception (for whom entry is free on presentation of the sedcard ). In the booming 1980s, the model agency owner Motoko Inagawa scouted models for the first wave of foreign models in Japanese advertising by, among other things, looking around the crowd while dancing from the raised podium and then simply speaking to people who seemed suitable.
The Lex is also famous for its large number of prominent visitors, particularly from the film and music industries. It is mainly thanks to the contacts of the managing director Bill Hersey , an American, that world stars who visit Tokyo for work often stop by Lex at night. Thus Paris Hilton celebrated her birthday in February 2009 at Lex. The celebrity visit is documented by many photos on the walls of the club that go back to the years it was founded in the early 1980s, including photos of the visit of Queen or Udo Lindenberg, for example . Ryuichi Sakamoto immortalized the disco in 1980 with a song called "Lexington Queen" on the B-side of his very first single.
The Lex is located in the basement of a building with several other restaurants and a hostess club and is comparatively small. Almost half of the club is taken up by the VIP seating area, the freely accessible area consists almost entirely of the dance floor and the area in front of the bar and the overhead lockers, so that disco visitors have to stand practically all the time. Many attribute the particular charm of the Lex to this fact.
The Lex is also visited by numerous "normal" Japanese people who like to celebrate their birthdays there, whereby they are congratulated by name by Bill Hersey over the DJ microphone. The club, which is mentioned in several travel guides, is also popular with tourists, as well as with the large numbers of foreigners living in Roppongi.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Interview with Motoko Inagawa in Japan Times .
- ↑ Is documented by photos in the entrance area, December 2009.