Shibuya is now headquarters for Tokyo's cool party crowd. In the last six years or so, countless little bars have set up shop and made themselves part of the night circuit around the station. Whether along Miyamasuzaka toward Aoyama, up Dogenzaka toward Daikanyama or south along the Yamanote tracks toward Ebisu -- the area is a patchwork of funky little bars and cafes that stay open late and cater to drinkers with a discerning ear for music.

Spike Bar is a relative newcomer, having only just this month celebrated its first anniversary. But it has pretty much everything a bar needs to stake a permanent claim in the hearts of Tokyo's hip drinkers. If reggae, dub, R&B or rock rule your world, this will be one nightspot that you'll definitely want to add to your list of drinking options.

Like his bar, the master, Hiroyuki Kusakabe, goes by the name "Spike." He is an effusive and outgoing character who appears to have an insatiable curiosity about, and affinity for, people. You walk in, you sit down, you are greeted and then -- as playfully as possible -- he will try to find out everything there is to know about you. Where are you from? What do you do? And he is able to deliver these questions in either English or Japanese, as the situation requires.