This Sunday, October 23rd, Amoeba Music will be selling the best in rawk n' roll at the Budget Rock 10 Record Swap, Hangover Breakfast & Dance Party at Thee Parkside is SF!! Come by and visit our table for deals, steals, and collectables. 

The record swap goes from 1:00pm to 4:00pm, but the party goes on and features a ton of bands! Just look at this line-up:

Phantom Surfers, Legendary Stardust Cowboy, LaTeenos, Harold Ray Budget Rock Revue, Midnite Snaxxx, The Okmoniks, The Mothballs, City Deluxe, and MC Drunk Magic by the Great Salmagundi.

Plus DJs Chris Owen & Mitch Cardwell will host The Dance Party after The Phantom Surfers!

Get your tickets HERE.

      

Further proof that Amoeba Music is, and has long been, an integral part of the Bay Area's hip-hop culture is this brand new video (just uploaded to YouTube last night) that focuses on Bay Area hip-hop ambassador and KMEL mixmaster DJ Amen who begins his busy day (as seen in above Thizzler On The Roof produced video) by stopping into Amoeba Music San Francisco on Haight Street. The video then follows DJ Amen, who did a great job spinning an exclusive Bay rap set at the recent Hella Fresh Festival at the Fillmore few weeks back, on his event filled day with a burrito stop at Papalote, and then down to KMEL radio and that part of town where he interacts with such artists as visiting hip-hop acts The Cool Kids and Dorrough Music.

Today I caught up with the video's executive producer Matt Werner, who worked on the video piece in conjunction with videographer Left Lane & motion graphics expert Tyler Metzger, to ask him about his company, Thizzler On The Roof, and its mission? It was set up, he said, "In response to the lack of mainstream love the Bay Area hip-hop scene has traditionally received," adding that "Our website was established as way to give local artists an outlet to be heard by as big an audience as possible. In addition to regularly posting the best and most recent releases from the vast talent pool of Bay Area artists, Thizzler started a video interview series and corresponding mixtape series entitled Under The Bay." Many may already be familiar with their collaboration with KMEL: the influential The Bay Area Freshmen 10 as well as with the company's hip-hop productions that include the Under The Bay concert series, The Adidas Earn Your Stipes monthly cyphers, and the Fight Club battle series.

Real Estate – Days
 
Real Estate have helped usher in a contemporary appreciation of bands with clean guitars and hushed vocals, perfect for a summer day or autumn night. But Real Estate still do it better than anyone, as they prove on Days. From opener “Easy” and on, Days floats on breezy simplicity of melody and atmosphere that you could explain away as through line of Byrds by way of R.E.M. jangle pop informed by reverbed-out, dream pop aesthetics, but that would paint Real Estate as a throwback band when really their sound is their own. Country hues underpin even the spaciest of tracks, like the way winsome sliding guitars sway beneath the shivering, tremoloed star-shooting guitar lines of “Green Aisles,” and more obviously so on tracks like the springy, Smithsy “It’s Real,” which works some clever chord changes into a straightforward guitar-pop setting. Singer Martin Courtney’s voice is always plaintive but never intrusive, and the whole thing moves with subtle evocation, like a sepia-toned suburban home movie reel. It’s no coincidence a great, sunlit song on the album is titled “Wonder Years.”
 
Twin Sister – In Heaven
 
Twin Sister’s debut full-length delivers a band still emerging from chrysalis (their average age is now about 23, so says Wikipedia) but born with some pretty impressive power already. Roughly, Twin Sister are an indie pop band fronted by some froggish, androgynous vocals (singer vocalist Andrea Estella and guitarist-singer Eric Cardona both sound a little like the spawn of Sigur Ros’ Jonsi and St. Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell, the latter band of which they also sound a bit like on the lite-jazzy “Stop”). They touch on chillwave (the shimmering and strange chords of “Kimmi in a Rice Field” is the album’s absolute highlight) without committing to it, seemingly more interested in vibing late ’80s indie and video game music — the gentle “Luna’s Theme” has Sega Genesis written all over it, something that might be playing in some anime space station. But whatever Twin Sister ends up doing —be it cool Britpop, neo-futuristic electro or something else entirely — it ends up sounding great, if not entirely unified.
 
M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
 
After a decade’s worth of brilliant albums that have been increasingly epic in scope, Anthony Gonzalez of M83 has delivered the masterpiece he has hinted at for years. Gonzalez builds off the life-embracing yet ’80s nostalgic pop of 2008’s Saturdays=Youth across this double-album. Taking a hint from the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Gonzalez sweeps through childlike wonder (the children’s story as Kraftwerkian computer-pop of “Raconte-Moi Une Histoire”), adolescent angst (the two and a half minutes of skyscraper-sized orchestral rock in “My Tears Are Becoming a Sea”) and young adult excitement (Gonzalez cries “The city is my church!” in the neon-backlit “Midnight City”) to capture the wide-eyed energy and naiveté of youth. There’s newly an emphasis on the kind of shuffling ‘80s funk-pop of the likes of Huey Lewis & the News and Hall & Oates in songs like “Claudia Lewis,” but it actually feels less throwback-ish than some of his previous work, perhaps in part due to contemporaries like Toro y Moi and Neon Indian similarly fusing such sounds with shoegazer aesthetics. Indeed, with the kinds of sonic dreamscapes of albums like Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts and Before the Dawn Heals Us also in tow on songs like “This Bright Flash,” Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming presents us with all of Gonzaelz’s best tendencies, all at once, and at their utmost potential.

We'll be keeping you up to date here with news related to our expanding activity with those breakable pre-vinyl artifacts sometimes referred to as “shellac” records.

As a point of interest, shellac is not just an arbitrary tag pinned on 78s. Just like shellac's well-known use as a furniture finish, the secretion of the Asian Lac bug was also the primary ingredient for 78s from the beginning of the industry in the early 1900s up 'til around 1950, when vinyl began to replace it. It takes approximately 100,000 Lac bugs to produce one pound of shellac, so this species is owed a special debt of gratitude among fans of the 78 rpm record. 

Upcoming entries might offer tales of amazing 78 finds or "fish that got away" stories dredged from ancient 78 lore. We'll highlight overlooked 78s or artists you should hear. We'll invite contributions from guest collectors. As the next advance in digital technology hypes storing music collections in the cloud, we'll delve into the lingering appeal these arcane fetish objects still have for some of us.

We recently added a batch of 78s to the Buy Stuff section of Amoeba.com, which now allows 78 surfers to select “78” from the drop down menu to view all the 78s together by date added. Items can also be selected by specific category of interest. We will continue to add 78s to the site and encourage you to check back regularly. As with other items purchased on Amoeba.com, shipping is free on 78s (USA only), saving 78 buyers at least $4.00 or $5.00 on shipping charges they would normally have to foot on an eBay or private mail order purchase. We grade 78s conservatively. Find out more about our 78 grading codes. 

When you buy a turntable from any Amoeba store now through November 15, you'll get $25 worth of USED vinyl - for FREE - to jumpstart your collection! 


To help determine which turntable is right for you, here are some questions to ask yourself before you purchase and some handy factoids that might help with that decision.

To DJ or Not to DJ
If you want to DJ with your turntable, you need a Direct Drive turntable. This means that you can scratch, mix, cue up your records, and do everything else DJs do without ruining your record player or the stylus.

If you don't plan on using your turntable for DJing, Belt Drive Turntable will work perfectly well for you.


How Are You Going to Hook Up Your Turntable?
Do you have a component system already? Do you have a receiver? If so, does it have a "phono" input selection? If your receiver doesn't have a phono input (and a lot of them don't these days), you will need a pre-amp.

If you have powered speakers (speakers that have their own power source), you can connect your turntable directly to the speakers if you want (and skip the receiver altogether). 


What the Heck is a Pre-Amp Anyway and Why Should I Care?
The pre-amp boosts the sound of the cartridge on your turntable up to the "line" level of an iPod, CD player or cassette deck. A lot of turntables come with built-in pre-amps these days and if that's the case, you don't need to worry about it. But if your turntable or receiver doesn't have a built-in pre-amp, you'll need to get one (you can get a decent one for around $30 at Radio Shack). Then your turntable will connect into the pre-amp which will then connect to your receiver (or your speakers if you have powered speakers).

Having never seen Offspring (Andrew van den Houten and Jack Ketchum's adaptation of the latter's novel about a Northeastern cannibalistic kin, who first appeared in the book Off-Season), I took its sequel's opening pre-credit sequence to be a phantasmagoric continuation of I Spit On Your Grave where the eponymous Woman retreated into nature after having escaped the tyranny of Man and patriarchal culture. Surely, Lucky McKee and Ketcham's The Woman is more than an accidental synecdoche for the original title of Meir Zarchi's classic, Day of the Woman. Their film is, at its core, another rape-revenge film, but with the twist that the victim is feral, so outside of man's law. The misogynistic repression perforce comes from a different place than horror's generic South, since its resident hayseed hordes are uncultured and would likely sympathize with the bestial Woman. Zarchi's victim-protagonist Jennifer HIll, on the other hand, was an urbane writer who had culture stripped from her by barbarous rednecks. The Woman has just as much dirt under her fingernails as those rednecks, her language isn't much more than a growl, plus she's a cannibal (a taboo even greater than the use of the contraction "y'all"). Therefore, her victimization is a form of structural violence, that which is the repressed base of the status quo. The central fear expressed by The Woman isn't in having the Woman's culture dismantled (as it was for Jennifer) -- for she is pure cultural Other and has none -- but that cultural normativity is structured around the primordial violence she represents. Hillbillies can't victimize her any more than animals can victimize other animals, but the nuclear family can in the same way that a suburban adolescent might torture a cat.

It's a good time for music at the cinema as there are several very interesting looking music documentaries or music themed films that have just been released or are about to be released in both theaters and on DVD. These include Re:Geneartion in which live DJs/producers (including DJ Premier & Mark Ronson) "turn the tables on the history of music" by teaming up with artists that you would not normally expect them to work alongside (including members of The Doors), The Ballad of Mott The Hoople about the early 70's Dylan-meets-The Rolling Stones styled, Bowie-affiliated rock group Mott The Hoople (this is in select theaters currently but will be out on DVD next month), Andrea Blaugrund Nevins' The Other F Word about punk rock dads with Family repsonsibilities and lil kids to nurture which opens in theaters on November 2nd, and Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life. This film, which is just one of a few films in recent years about the unique French musical talent of Serge Gainsbourg, is having a special screening at the Lumiere in San Francisco this coming Thursday (Oct 20th) that Amoeba Music is giving away free passes to. More information on how to win here. Meanwhile above and below are trailers for each of these four new music themed movies that you may want to check out.

1) Murs Love & Rockets Vol. 1: The Transformation (DD172)

2) J. Cole Cole World: The Sideline Story (Roc Nation)

3) 9th Wonder The Wonder Years (It's A Wonderful World Music Group)

4) Dessa Castor, The Twin (Doomtree)

5) Danny Brown XXX (Fools Gold)

Thanks to ever-knowledgeable E-Lit at the Amoeba Berkeley store for the latest Top 5 Hip-Hop chart and in-depth overview of the many new hip-hop releases: many underground ones that you may not otherwise hear about.  These include Top Five entrants from both one-of-a-kind Detroit emcee Danny Brown (XXX) and Doomtree female artist Dessa (Castor, The Twin CD which comes with a limited edition fiction book Sleeping With Nikki - if you pick it up at Amoeba Berkeley). Also on the new Top Five are the ever popular J Cole album (#1 in the US this past week), the brand new Ski Beatz produced Murs album (Love & Rockets Vol. 1), and 9th Wonder The Wonder Years.  Other artists with brand new or recently released hip-hop releases include Bored Stiff's White Mic, Madlib,  The Knux, RJD2, DJ Drama, Boom Bip,  Evidence (Cats & Dogs), and maker of the new album This Is Our Science - Astronautalis who, as E Lit was mentioning in the above interview about his Bay Area concert earlier this week, is a truly gifted freestyle artist. Below are a slew of new videos from some of these hip-hop artists as well as some other ones including  the brand new videos from Indecent the Slapmaster along with the best of Vallejo rap talent and  Eligh & Amp Live that is taken from their forthcoming collaboration album Therapy at 3. Oh and don't forget that today (October 14th) at 6pm at the San Francisco Amoeba store that Mayer Hawthorne will be doing a live in-store DJ set and signing of his new second album How Do You Do (note on Universal this time out for the former Stones Throw act) . Details here.

       

The ever popular Canadian pop-rock duo of Tegan and Sara are about to release a really cool new DVD/CD pack on Warner Brothers in the coming weeks. Entitled Get Along the two disc set will arrive in Amoeba on November 15th where no doubt it will be a popular item with both customers and staff alike since the musical pair have built a strong relationship with Amoeba following many in-store performances over the years dating back eight years including ones at both Amoeba Berkeley and Amoeba Hollywood last year.  Songs on the new set include "I Hear Noises," "Back In Your Head," "Divided," "Knife Going In," and "Not With You."

The DVD/CD package includes two mini-documentaries plus both audio and video footage of a live concert by the duo in their homeland. Recorded over two nights at The Warehouse Studios in Vancouver, BC for an intimate audience of 75 invited fans it is a seventy minute concert titled For The Most Part. Meanwhile the first of the two 30-minute documentary films follows Tegan and Sara on an American tour, focusing on their history tracing back to their early music-career beginnings plus a look at their close relationship with their fanbase - something that was quite evident at their Amoeba instores. The other documentary film is a 25 minute piece called India since it follows them on first-ever tour of India - as seen in the above trailer clip.

On Sunday, November 6th, Amoeba makes a repeat appearance at one of the Southland's biggest and best record swap meets, Pasadena City College's Flea Market and Record Swap. With over 500 vendors, the Flea Market features antiques and collectibles, records, tools, clothes, toys and much more, not to mention food and good company.

Hello! Welcome back to my new release blog. I am so sorry that I have been neglecting you. It has been a busy two months of new releases! Maybe you didn't notice...but it is already October. Not sure how that happened. It is already October 13th actually! This is absolutely one of my favorite months. I wish it was October every month!  Although I was not exactly enjoying the warm weather yesterday. Although we did not really have a crazy hot Summer this year in Los Angeles. So I can't blame Summer for trying to squeeze a couple of more days into October. But October is most certainly here and November is quickly approaching. All of the music labels are rushing to get their best new albums out to you before the end of the year. And all the movie studios will soon be rushing to get their best movies out before the end of the year! So lets go back in time and catch up a bit on what has come out the last couple of weeks. Then we can actually move onto October! First up is the week of 9/13 and 9/20...

I fell in love with The Drums when they put out their Summertime EP last year. How could I not love this band. It was the perfect pop record. Brilliantly pop friendly songs heavily influenced by The Smiths and Joy Division. But adding more modern sounds and synths. I fell in love. They also released their debut self titled full length album last year. Which was also fantastic. And now they have unleashed their second album called Portamento. You can never capture that excitement of a first record. But I am still loving this new album. The songs are catchier than anything and they just make me happy. A nice way to end my summer for sure. If you have still not joined the cult of The Drums. You should start with their first album The Drums or the Summertime EP. You will not be disappointed.

Continue reading...

The San Francisco Jazz Heritage Center presents Best of Bop City: Celebrating 50 Years of Impulse Records, this Saturday, October 15th.

Hosted by KCSM's Sonny Buxton, this evening is part of our the San Francisco Jazz Heritage Center's series Best of Bop City, featuring great music from the high flying days of IMPULSE! Records. Called the "House that 'Trane Built," Impulse was at the forefront of the jazz avant garde and graphic design. Join our quintet of fine musicians as they interpret the great sounds of that immortal time.

Pianist Larry Vuckovich brings tenor saxophonist Noel Jewkes, bassist Jeff Chambers, and upcoming drummer Lorca Hart (son of famed jazz drummer Billy Hart). Jamie Davis will perform the great vocals of Johnny Hartman as heard on Hartman's famous recording collaboration with 'Trane.

This special concert is in conjunction with the San Francisco Jazz Heritage Center's new exhibition that celebrates the 50th anniversary of Impulse with iconic album covers and images of musical history giants captured by the legendary photographer Chuck Stewart.  These images tell the label's story as vividly as its music does.

Select music, provided by Amoeba Music, will also be on sale. 
       Saturday October 15th 
7:30 pm  &   9:30 pm
Jazz Heritage Center Lush Life Gallery
1320 Fillmore St., SF CA  94115 
415.255.7745     
www.jazzheritagecenter.org

I can't even believe to explain how excited I am about this box set. All three This Mortal Coil albums have been remastered and repackaged into a beautiful box set by 4AD. This is a limited edition box set, so you shoud reserve a copy right now if you want it. I really can't imagine my life without 4AD and these beautiful albums. We all have those albums in our lives. I can remember when and where I bought each of these albums. I can remember who I listened to them with. I spent many nights falling asleep to these albums. These albums will stay with me forever in my memories. And they sound just as amazing now as they did when I first heard them. I love you, This Mortal Coil. Thank you for the amazing memories.

Check out the link for more details and to preorder a copy at Amoeba.com



THIS MORTAL COIL
deluxe limited edition
[4 CD BOX SET]
Preorder it now at amoeba.com
$99.98 w/ FREE SHIPPING!







"Song To the Siren" by This Mortal Coil from It'll End In Tears (1984)



"Strength of Strings" by This Mortal Coil from Filigree & Shadow (1986)

It's curated by Terri "Tooter" Berman and features Halloween-appropriate works by Grace Albelda, Douglas Alvarez, Kim Bagwill, Brooke Bearup, Terri "Tooter" Berman, Airom Bleicher, Julie Bossinger, Jonathan Bueno, Michelle Caplan, Deryke Cardenaz, Marcel DeJure, J Fuchs, Cristian "Smear" Gheorghiu, John Michael Gill, Harrel Goldstein, Dan Goodsell, Kio Griffith, Patrick Haemmerlein, Walter Hall, Mary J Hoffman, Lisa Hull, Jinxed Art, Billy Kheel, Aaron Kraten, Supersmash Max, Isabella Electra McGrath, Marlon McWilliams, Jon Measures, Sal Mendez, Yuki Miyazaki, Delphia Nikolaus, Tom Oliver, Jerry Paeff, Vera Paras, Carol Powell, Sarah Ramirez, Shannon Rowland, Uddon Soup, Mike Street, Paula Tade, Mayumi Tanaka, Kelly Thompson, Paul Torres, Jessica Valencia, David VonDerLinn, Susan Catherine Weber and more...

The VinylBeat expands its focus this week to present a fun interview with Amoeba’s own Joel Gion, tambourine man with The Brian Jonestown Massacre.  Joel hips us to the good, the bad, and the ugly in the world of tambourines as he shares his collection with us.  Enjoy. 



To check out extensive LP label and price guides, head to the Vinyl Beat website!

Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls
 
While listening to Irish Grimestep or whatever genre happens to be unfathomably cool at the moment is great and all, sometimes you need meat and potatoes. In my case, that would be C86, shoegaze, college rock and that sort of thing, and Slumberland Records keeps serving up bands like sloppy joes that fulfill this particular hunger. Their latest band is Veronica Falls, which, despite their late-‘90s CW Network show sounding name, are actually a great garage pop band in the vein of Slumberland alumn Crystal Stilts, Girls Names and Black Tambourine. “Right Side of My Brain’s” bouncy pop gets C86 so right that it could have been on the original tape that spawned that genre. “The Fountain” is delectable guitar goth pop that displays one of the band’s best and at first easily overlooked tricks — pristine harmonies. “Beachy Head” injects a welcome bit of surf-rock meanness to an otherwise well-mannered album. It’s pretty much candy all over.
 
Björk – Biophilia
 
With all the hubbub surrounding Björk’s latest album (corresponding iPad apps to songs, a street date delay and rejiggering of sound), it may be easy to dismiss the album beneath it all. That would be a shame, because Biophilia is as brilliant as anything in Björk’s catalog, but that brilliance is quieter and takes repeated listens to understand compared with some of her previous efforts. Whereas she tried to recreate the violently happy turns of Debut and Post in 2007’s Volta, here she’s back to forging new sonic territory, using newly invented instruments (such as the gameleste, which combines Indonesian gamelan instruments with the key-based celeste instrument) and employing iPad-made music and programmed beats. Of course, none of that matters if it doesn’t end up sounding great, and you probably don’t need to know any of that to enjoy the songs on Biophilia, but it helps to understand the otherworldly nature of a song like “Crystalline,” which relies on the strange gameleste to build atmosphere before breaking into a hyper-intense hardcore breakbeat section. That that song and “Cosmogony,” a musical cousin to Björk classics like “Isobel” and “Bachelorette” that builds beautifully before disintegrating into a sea of descending vocals, are the most accessible songs tells you more. At its core, Biophilia is a wildly strange, even disturbing album, from the dissonant and gibberish-laden “Dark Matter” to the blood-curdling electronic sounds and ghostly vocals of “Hollow.” Then there’s “Mutual Core,” in which Björk tosses her fans a bone (although one on which the meat is tough and sinewy) with more typically “Björk” musical movements and more overtly clubby beats. But there’s something new to uncover with each listen, despite a somewhat hollow-sounding veneer, such as unusual time signatures, haunting lyrics and hidden, loping melodies. Biophilia really sounds nothing like anything else Björk has done, or anything anyone else has done, for that matter, and will probably upset some fans and detractors alike. For its gutsiness alone, it’s great; and for its more inspired moments, it’s something no music fan should miss hearing.
 
Zola Jesus – Conatus
 
For those who were expecting Zola Jesus aka Nika Roza Danilova turn around from last year’s winning Stridulum II with an album of glossy pop, think again. Sure, Conatus is her most accessible statement yet, but the album is still teaming with the experimental electronic music and ethereal vocals on which she built her name, only with slightly more of an emphasis on the electro balladry she exhibited so well on Stridulum’s “Night” and “Lightstick.” “Hikikomori” begins with throbbing synths and Danilovato’s yearning vocals intoning “blisters on my hands,” underpinned by subtle strings. On this track and several others on Conatus, you can hear the effort Danilova has put into carefully considering the album’s every movement, building songs gradually and deliberately, pulling at the heartstrings but always from afar, sometimes coming through clearly, sometimes unintelligible in a vocal styling reminiscent of Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser. Her best songs manage to do it all at once, such as in the soaring “Seekir,” in which she aims for the gut (“Is there nothing left of the mess we made?” she asks in a moment that clears the sonic din to cut through) as well as the dance floor, although the result, with intertwining, ghostly backup vocals, is too complex to simply label a dance song. You sometimes long for more moments like that on Conatus (the epic choral build of “Lick The Palm Of The Burning Handshake” being another), but its balancing act of restraint and putting it all out there makes for intriguing listening that will keep fans happy and pull in plenty of new ones.
 

At Friday (Oct 7th) evening's art opening of Billy Sprague's space themed album cover exhibit at North Oakland's As Is Exhibitions gallery space at 4707 Telegraph Ave. so many people showed up to catch the unique album cover exhibit by the avid record collector / Amoeba Berkeley employee, that for much of the night the large crowd spilled outside onto the Telegraph Avenue sidewalk. It was the perfect night for Billy's opening since the Bay Area early October weather was in Indian Summer mode, plus it was First Friday's in Oakland with art openings everywhere including right next door at Smokey's Tangle art space that shares a doorway with the 4707 space. Among the large crowd that showed up at the event were many of Billy Sprague's fellow Ameobites. "Tom McKwon, Shawn Williams, Big Tunde, Gail, Marc Weinstein & family, Ryan Stark, Kent Randolph, Ramon, Lori and Steve, Ian, Ranon, Rebecca & Matt plus a bunch of ex-employees," (including DJ Inti) all converged at the last Friday's packed opening reported the curator.

Like all the other lifelong music collectors I was drawn in by all of these amazing album covers - many I already knew but a lot I had never even seen before like Music for Sleepwalkers Only which - one of Sprague's personal faves that he accurately describes as, "a great mostly black galactic cover with three sleeping pills floating in space in a rather phallic manner."

Further proof that a hip-hop event in Oakland can be a peaceful, positive & uplifting, as well as extremely entertaining occurrence was offered up once again this past Saturday (Oct 8th) at the annual hip-hop themed Life Is Living Festival in West Oakland's historic DeFremery Park. Now in its third year the multi-faceted hip-hop themed event, that featured live music performances (including Los Rakas, Pete Escoveda, Jennifer Johns, and ?uestlove), interactive art, graffiti art (Estria's 5th Annual Graffiti Battle Finals), and lots of speakers and booths disseminating information on healthy living. It was just fantastic, as was balmy Bay Area Indian Summer weather that accompanied it.  I arrived mid afternoon at the event that began at 11am and unfortunately missed the set by Latin music legend Pete Escovedo and his orchestra. Luckily however I was there in time to catch another Latin flavor East Bay group: the hip-hop duo of Los Rakas who live in Oakland but are from Panama and rap mostly in Spanish. Their set, while not quite as long their recent one at the Hella Fresh festival at the Fillmore, was pure energetic fun with the audience of several hundred grooving to their infectious melange of contemporary Oakland hip-hop and reggae flavors.

Meanwhile scattered around the grounds of the East Bay park, which as one of the speakers on stage reminded folks features as its centerpiece a beautiful century old Victorian building, were drummers, art tables, food and clothing vendors, and various live graffiti installations. These various vibrant live aerosol art installations were all part of the weekend long 5th Annual Estria Graffiti Arts Festival which began two nights earlier with the Can Film Festival in SF and an exhibit at Oakland's SMSHBX Gallery, and continued the night before in downtown Oakland with various events that coincided with First Fridays and included the Pecha Kucha Night at the Oaksterdam University with all women artists under the title "Women Creating Public Art." The graffiti artists on Saturday, as part of the Life is Living Festival in DeFermery Park, included Doves (NY), Meres (NY), Woier (LA), Level (LA), Katch (HI), Ckaweeks (HI), and Vyal (LA) who took the title this weekend for the second year in a row.

One of my favorite bands of the past few years has to be Wild Beasts. Captivatingly beautiful yet harrowingly strange, there just aren’t many bands around like Wild Beasts. If you haven’t heard them, think Talk Talk/Talking Heads style percussive yet atmospheric rock with the theatrical falsetto of singer Hayden Thorpe and intoning howl of bassist Tom Fleming booming and flooding over everything.
 
Their earliest stuff had a freewheeling quality that made it seem like they were daring you to turn it off or keep listening to find out where they’d go next. First single “Brave Bulging Buyoyant Clairvoyants” from Limbo, Panto starts as this bouncy guitar jam until you hear the weirdest voice ever, like razors on chalkboard — that would be Thorpe’s dandified growl. That song used to be like a litmus test for me to see how much people would be willing to hear something that kind of smacks you around a bit and can’t sit nicely in the background.


“We were kind of small town boys really,” Fleming says of their early days. “It’s a bit of naiveté. We just thought people would get it.”

Things changed for 2009’s Two Dancers, which saw the band rein in the ruckus and focus on grooves and tunefulness. People took notice — the formerly renegade and challenging band suddenly appeared on year-end lists aplenty and got the band nominated for a Mercury Prize.

“It didn’t change a thing in terms of the music we’re making,” Fleming says. “But when you’re heading people like Mark Ronson saying they like Wild Beasts, it’s like, what on earth? When did this happen?”

     On June 21st, 1948, CBS engineer Dr. Peter Goldmark introduced the new Columbia long playing record at a press conference. In the previous 15 years, there had been attempts to make a commercially viable long play album with no success. As with the concurrent development of television, the post-war boom made the project commercially viable. 33 1/3 rpm was considered the optimum speed to play the 12 inch long play microgrove records. And being made of a new plastic called vinylite they were virtually unbreakable. For shorter pieces and recitals, there were 10 inch records, but these only survived till the 1950s.
 
The new LP was considered a huge leap forward for listening to pre-recorded Classical music. A pop song took, on average, two or three minutes to play, which was just perfect for a 10 or 12 inch 78 rpm record. A symphony required up to 5 or 6 records on 78 rpm and had to be changed 10 to 12 times with the music often interrupted in the middle of a musical phrase. There were automatic 78 rpm record changers, but they were clunky and could damage your records. You also had to account for the amount of storage space needed for the brittle, breakable shellac 78s. The most dramatic part of Goldmark’s demonstration was when he was photographed holding a few dozen LPs while the equivalent in 78s were stacked six feet high next to him.
 
The introduction of the LP was not without controversy. Columbia’s great rival RCA Victor was developing its own system of 7” short playing vinyl records that played at 45 rpm. RCA engineers insisted that quality control problems with LPs would doom it. This started what was to be known as “The War of the Speeds” in which both companies spent a ton of money on print ads to woo the public before RCA conceded and converted to LP. When it was settled, it set up the paradigm that lasted for nearly 40 years: LP for albums, 45s for pop singles.

CIIS Public Programs & Performances and Amoeba Music present Creole Choir of Cuba in concert at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco on November 3rd!

With soul to burn, each member of this rocking ten-person group is directly descended from Haitian immigrants. The choir energizes their singing with a variety of percussion instruments from congas to clave, and enriches their tunes with movement and costumes that reflect Caribbean and African sources.

Don’t miss your chance to see this dynamic choir!

For tickets and more information, visit them HERE. (Group discounts available for 10 or more.)

Come into Amoeba SF to get passes to a sneak preview screening of Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life.

Preview passes are available at the Amoeba San Francisco info counter and in the DVD room...but only while they last! Limited to one preview pass per person (each pass admits two)!

Screening Info:
Thursday, October 20, 7:00PM
Lumiere Theater
1572 California Street at Polk 
San Francisco, CA 94109 

About previews:
Please arrive early to the screening and bring the pass. The theater is overbooked to ensure a full house and seating is first-come, first-served (the pass does not guarantee seating).



**César Awards 2011 - Best Actor, Best First Film**
**Tribeca Film Festival 2010 - Best Actor**

Renowned comic book artist Joann Sfar’s Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life is a completely original take on one of France’s greatest mavericks, the illustrious and infamous singer-songwriter, Serge Gainsbourg (Eric Elmosnino). Born Lucien Ginsburg to Russian-Jewish parents, Gainsbourg evolves from a precocious child in Nazi-occupied Paris, to small-time jazz musician and finally international pop superstar. Along the way, he romances many of the era’s most beautiful women, including Juliette Greco (Anna Mouglalis), Brigitte Bardot (Laetitia Casta), and Jane Birkin (Lucy Gordon). With a witty surrealistic style and a soundtrack showcasing many of the musician’s greatest hits, the film is a sensual delight and a quintessential time capsule of the eras he enjoyed.

Given my recent essay on Whiteness in alien invasion flicks, I can't think of a better film example than Larry Cohen's Bone (aka Housewife) that demonstrates the way Whiteness is defined negatively through its imaginary other, Blackness. So here's a review from the past of that movie:

Replace the repressed white male anger of Fight Club with that of the repressed white housewife’s in order to explore the terrain of Jungle Fever and you get the gist of writer/director Larry Cohen’s debut. Instead of fitting squarely within the genre of blaxploitation, the film examines some of the stereotypical representations of the black male which helped make the genre possible to begin with. 

1) J. Cole Cole World: The Sideline Story (Roc Nation)

2) Evidence Cats & Dogs (Rhymesayers Ent.)

3) 9th Wonder The Wonder Years (It's A Wonderful World Music Group)

4) Madlib No.12-Raw Medicine-Madlib Remixes (Stones Throw)

5) Blu Open (Nature Sounds)

Thanks for this week's Amoeba Hollywood hip-hop chart go to hip-hop recording artist & recent dad Ray Ricky Rivera (aka RRR) who really looks quite well rested (as you can see in above video) despite his sleep patterns been drastically altered of late -ever since he and his wife Lily had their young son Diego born a little over two months ago. Again congrats man! As RRR mentions the number one album at Amoeba, which is also the number one top selling album (of all genres) in the country this week, is the brand new J. Cole album Cole World: The Sideline Story on Roc Nation. In close second is supertalented LA hip-hop artist Evidence who came to fame as part of Dilated Peoples and is now down with the revered Rhymesayers crew with whom he was touring recently and who just released his recommended new album Cats And Dogs which also comes in a vinyl format. Another LA hip-hop treasure, Madlib, is among the other entrants in this week's Top Five (with Medicine Show #12) which is rounded out by releases from both 9th Wonder (The Wonder Years) and Blu (Open).

I recently saw the new Cirque du Soleil production IRIS, a show created specifically for its venue, the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Home to the Academy Awards, the Kodak Theatre itself is an ode to cinema. Before you even enter the venue proper, the columns in the Hollywood & Highland mall leading up to the Kodak's doors are chiseled with the names of Best Picture winners of years past. Inside the Kodak lobbies, large photos of memorable moments in Oscar history line the walls. So basically, IRIS has pretty big cinematic shoes to fill. 

It had been many years since my previous (and only prior) Cirque show and I had sort of forgotten that Cirque du Soleil is, above all, a circus. The costumes are more magnificent, the sets are more elaborate, and there aren't any animals to pet or hay on the floor, but at its core it is a circus. Cirque du Soleil started as a small group of street performers in Quebec 27 years ago. Today it employs 5,000 people from around the world and has shows all over the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia (including a forthcoming Michael Jackson show in Las Vegas called The Immortal World Tour).

As an adult, I have seen a fair amount of shows, plays, and musicals, but not a lot of circuses. While we were waiting for the show to start, our section was visited by two women from the cast - one with a very thick French accent and large padded rear who crawled across the seats and somehow managed to stick her bum in everyone's face along the way (oh, a clown!) and a woman wearing a circulating praxinoscope as a sort of tutu. The clown was my first clue that we were on a journey with the circus, and she reminded me of going to the circus in New York City with my grandmother, something I hadn't thought about in years. (My only recent experience with the circus was Water for Elephants - don't waste your time, but if you must, read the book over the movie.) 

Coinciding with the ongoing 2011 DMC World DJ Championships happening currently in London, England at the 02 Arena's Indig02 this is the second in a two-part Amoeblog series on the current state of turntablism/skratch music (here's yesterday's Amoeblog). Note that the results for the DMC World DJ Championship battles (which end by midnight Friday, Oct 7th, UK time = 4pm West Coast time) will be published tomorrow in the Hip-Hop Weekly Rap Up Amoeblog. As you know turntablism is a musical form born out of hip-hop by the DJ but not given an actual name until  the mid nineties when DJ Babu coined the term turntablism to describe the DJ as a turntable manipulation artist - one as worthy of respect as any other musical instrumentalist. By that stage I personally had already been a convert for a good decade and a half to this infectious component of hip-hop music. In fact when I first heard hip-hop in its formative days I was drawn more to the DJ than the MC. And ever since I've been hooked on the sound of scratching and spellbound by beat juggling and all the other skilled moves that the DJ as mixer & turntable master so effortlessly throws down. To me this musical style, unique to hip-hop and whose pioneers included Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, and Grand Wizzard Theodore (creator of the scratch), has always been deserving of its own genre or at least sub-genre.  And as a diehard fan and supporter of DJ scratching from hip-hop's earliest days when I first heard in the late 70's through all the years later up to and beyond including that point when QBert altered the spelling of the word from scratch to skratch, I have thoroughly enjoyed closely following its evolvement; warmly witnessing turntablim/skratch music's creative growth as it blossomed with a seemingly never ending array of new sounds generated by an ever-progressing arsenal of new styles and techniques been added to this vibrant art form. 

SUNDAY SUNDAY



If you find yourself free this Sunday, DJs Larry G (Supercrass) and Timothy L (Modernbrit) of Club Underground (and Amoeba, in the latter's case) are going to DJ a set of post-punk, indie and more at Brightwell between the hours of 3:00 and 7:00.

CLUB UNDERGROUND

Club Underground bills itself as "LA's Premiere indie/britpop/new wave/electropop/twee/60s/soul party since 2001. It occurs most Fridays at the Grand Star Jazz Club in Chinatown.

BRIGHTWELL

Haunting San Francisco's historic Café Du Nord on October 31^st, the SHOCK-IT-TO-ME! HALLOWEEN SPOOKENANNY will, claws down, be the most insidious show in San Francisco this Ghoultide Season! Bringing back a real sense of old skool All-Hallows-Eve fun, event promoter August Ragone (columnist for Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine), has sewn together a monstrous fright night of horror hosts, maniacal music, creepy contests, and more tricks ‘n treats than you can shake a bloody stake at!
 
After a ten-year ban in thirteen countries, Ragone is proud to announce the triumphant return of the legendary Rock n' Roll Rasputin, straight from his heart-stopping performance at the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans: JOHNNY LEGEND & HIS NAKED APES! Johnny's latest musical incarnation (featuring members of The Mummies and The Chuckleberries) will be seizing Café Du Nord’s sinister stage with fellow maniacal maniacs THE UNDERTAKER & HIS PALS, and the organ-blitzing madmen of BEACHKRIEG!
 
Demonic DJ, OMAR PEREZ (Popscene, Shutter, Leisure, Sixxteen) will be spinning the wicked wax through the dark Samhain Eve, from The Cramps to Screaming Lord Sutch, to fulfill your sinister garage-stomping urges! Ragone boasts that in case of sudden monster attack, a team of Resuscitated Nurses will be on stand by, while each and every putrid patron will be insured for $1,000,000 by Wm. Castle & Sons of Hollywood against death by fright. And he warns, “Come early! No one will be seated during the final 15 minutes of the show!”
 
Your horrifying hosts for this night of ghoulish guising are MISS MISERY (Creepy KOFY Movie Time) and THE MONSTER MELONS (Ms. Monster & Her Monster Melons), who will MC the “Scary Screaming Contest” for a crawling cache of putrid prizes — including a real “Dead Body” — and the $200 Cash Prize “Creepy Costume Contest”!

Today and tomorrow (Oct 6th & 7th) one of the most important events in hip-hop and DJ culture takes place in London: the 2011 DMC World DJ Championships at the 02 Arena's Indig02 in which the top hip-hop battle DJs from 21 countries (reppin' the USA is DJ Vajra - full DJ battle details above) battle it out in this Turntablist World Cup in three major battle categories: DMC World Final, DMC Battle for World Supremacy, and DMC World Team. Additionally this two day scratch DJ event will present a bunch of great showcases including ones by last year's DMC World Champ DJ Ligone from France, the 2003 Supremacy Champ DJ Tigerstyle, three time DMC World Supremacy Champ DJ Switch (who'll perform the piece: Concerto for Turntables), plus an anticipated triple threat set from the revered X-ecutioners' Total Eclipse, DJ Precision, & Rob Swift.
 
This year's DMC battle comes at a time when turntablism or skratch music seems to be on a comeback in popularity on a global level. It's always been popular but after its honeymoon with the mainstream in the late nineties it seemed somewhat dormant (in actuality it had just gone underground). But lately there's been a noticeable increased interest in DJ battles like the DMC and turntablist events like Ireland's annual Community Skratch Games of the past few years or the recent Thud Rumble presentedFader Fest in San Francisco with the reunited Invisibl Skratch Piklz as trio (QBert, D-Styles, Shortkut) and showcases from the likes of US DMC representative DJ Vajra. There seems to be a flurry of new turntablist releases lately too including ones from DJ ALF, Teeko, DJ Needlz, ThatKidNamedCee, Jimmy the Hideous Penguin, and DJ Quest who is about to release this month his latest turntablist album Cosmic Parasite (a collaborative effort with the two former bandmates from his original DJ crew Bullet Proof Scratch Hamster (BPSH) - DJ Cue and Eddie Def).

I love Western music. Not "Western music" as in "music rooted in European traditions," but rather the "Western" of "Country & Western." Cowboy Music. In many ways, Country and Western is an odd pairing. The two genres seem to be at complete odds. Sure, the performers evince a similar sartorial sensibility, but the subject matter of Western music is about hard-working buckeroos following honor and dogies out under the wide open sky.


Country, which I love too, is quite the opposite. Country celebrates the sedentary life - working and dying in the same small town, farm, or trailer court in which you were born -- and to hell with ethical codes of conduct; get drunk, cheat on your wife, and show up for your crappy job hungover.


Musically speaking, they're only distant cousins - no more closely related than Bluegrass and Jazz, House and Rap, Rock 'n' Roll and the Blues  -- but of those examples, only Country & Western get so invariably lumped together as a single genre that people usually omit the "Western" altogether.

Celsius 7 is a longtime Bay Area hip-hop artist who has stayed true to the underground over his two decade long career. Most Bay Area music fans were first introduced to him 16 years ago when he arrived on the local underground hip-hop scene as part of the heralded group Psychokinetics.  Since then he's carved out a rep as both a member of that revered indie group and also as a solo artist. Four years ago, when the Amoeblog last caught up with the artist, he had just released his solo debut album Wanderlust. Last week he released the follow up: the album Life Well Spent that can be found at Amoeba Music. This week I caught up with Celsius 7 to ask him about his personal hip-hop history, all the traveling he's done in recent years, his latest album Life Well Spent, the John Lennon Songwriting Award he won a while back, and how his own life has been going since we last chopped it up.


Amoeblog: Exactly how well spent has your life been?

Celsius 7: Well, I've lived the better part of the last thirteen years cubicle-free, and have gotten to travel and perform my music on four different continents. I've fallen in love and had my heart broken a few times. I've eaten well, laughed heartily, and I've followed my dreams. I've learned a whole bunch and still have a thirst and passion for life. It's definitely been an unorthodox approach, and it's been rough at times, but let me put it this way, if I died tomorrow I would feel like I played the game very well.

Amoeba Berkeley's own Billy Sprague is launching an immersive space and music-themed installation at Oakland's As Is Gallery from October 5th through November 1st. Sprague has covered the gallery from floor to ceiling with over 150 space-themed album covers from the '60s and '70s, which he has collected over the past ten years. Call that an occupational hazard of being an Amoebite! This is a must-see for any vinyl fiend or space age enthusiast.

The opening reception is Friday, October 7th (part of Oakland's First Fridays) from 7:00pm to 10:30 and features Scott Caligure performing live synthesizer music in the gallery’s bay window! Plus fog machine and mood lighting will be in full force to add to the moonscape!

As Is Gallery is located at 4707 Telegraph Ave. in Oakland, Ca. 

Last night's Amoebapalooza Hollywood, which was accurately billed as "one night only annual celebration of musical mayhem" with acts including Byrdsol Taylor II, Prince Kajutu, The Hounds of Hell, Idol Eyez, Tease, Ghouls Night Out, Destination Unknown, Myklehar, and Vum, was first and foremost just a really good fun gathering of co-workers & friends for conversation, laughs, and of course music. Held at the well chosen venue, The Dragonfly on Santa Monica (about six blocks from Amoeba at 6400 Sunset), Amoebapalooza Hollywood Version 2011 showcased an impressive array of bands, all assembled just for the night and each comprised of Amoeba staffers exclusively, displaying such a caliber of talent that several should seriously consider expanding the lifespan of bands beyond last night's Amoebapalooza one-off performance.

Note that over the next few days you can expect many more detailed postings on this Amoebapalooza event (with lots of photos and video clips) on Amoeba.com including here on the Amoeblog since there were lots of photographers and videographers capturing the event all night long. With an emphasis on fun and music a total of a dozen acts, each allocated 15 minutes to perform - and all sharing the same drum kit, systematically made their way on and off stage throughout the music packed night.  The live music kicked off following an introduction from Jason Boggs who, with his equally entertaining co-host "Jesus Cat Superstar," provided witty between set banter all night. Jason also became a last minute addition to the musical lineup during the evening when, in one of his numerous drag costume changes of the night, he busted out a hilarious rendition of the theme song from Bye Bye Birdie.  Opening band Bikini Whale (pictured above just as they broke out the glitter) did a truly inspired set, that got everyone charged up and dancing, in which they effortlessly channeled the B52's and simultaneously set the tone for a non-stop night of really tight musicianship that included T.Rextasy's head-nodding, rockin' set of Marc Bolan & company's music, and Topographic Lotion's channeling of Yes, Fragile era that sounded exactly like the original prog rock band's recordings. Adding to their authenticity they even had, as the perfect ontage backdrop, a huge banner of Roger Dean like Yes cover art.  Impressive! For more news and photos on the Amoebapalooza Hollywood check back here over the coming days for more reports.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!  Welcome to The Choice Bin, where only thee most "choice" long-play records traded in over our magnificent buy counter in Hollyweird are considered and discussed as art and a most logical slab of entertainment and inspiration. Now and again a noteworthy compact disc or book will slide across the buy counter, blip my radar and fall into my orbit, but it's 2011, so O.K.  I'll be your host as we ponder the spectacular and the insane. And if we're really fortunate, and nobody's glommed the goods, most of these gems will be available in Amoeba's "Buy Stuff" section, 'cuz after all....we're also a store! Follow the linkage...


Michel Redolfi
Sonic Waters
Hat Art 2002
(2-LP)


Mr. Michel Redolfii is, among other things, an architect of wondrous underwater acoustic installations...sometimes pools, sometimes oceans. This is a 2-LP set on the Swiss Hat Art label in a sweet little cardboard box package with lots of notes that documents Michel's electronic compositions done on a Synclavier II in the studio, and then being performed in a heated pool and in an underwater aquatic parks. The studio recordings are broadcast under the water through underwater speakers, while hydrophone mics pick up the transformation through the liquid medium, and it's natural mixing with underwater natural sounds. The stuff is eerie, gelatinous sonic stew that totally delights me with every listen. He calls it an "aerodynamic and amphibian" music. Indeed, Sire!

Maya Jupiter is a classic example of the international influence of Hip-Hop. She was born in La Paz, Mexico to a Mexican father and a Turkish mother. Her family moved to Australia where she lived until a few years ago. Her first release in 2003 received much critical praise that lead to steady career both as a rapper and a radio host for the better part of ten years. Wanting to explore her Mexican roots, Maya moved to Los Angeles where she started to collaborate with L.A.’s Chicano/Latino community. Her new self-titled album is a result of those collaborations. It is a mixture of Soul, Dancehall and Son Jarocho, which she calls, “World Hip-Hop” Maya Jupiter will be performing on October 6th at the Little Temple in Los Angeles with an all-star band that includes Aloe Blacc, Martha Gonzalez and Quetzal Flores of the band Quetzal, and many other great L.A. based musicians. I caught up with Maya to discuss her new album, her upcoming show and about life in Los Angeles.

Your new album takes a different route than your previous releases. What was behind that?

I wanted to push myself vocally and artistically and I wanted to make an album that reflected all the music styles that I enjoy, not just Hip-Hop. My brother-in-law, Victor Valdes, is a harpist from Xalapa, Vera Cruz and introduced me to the world of Son Jarocho ten years ago. I knew it was a style I wanted to incorporate as well as Soul and Dancehall. All of these genres come from the community and have a history of being socially conscious.
 
There are many Afro-Caribbean influences in your album such as Son Jarocho, Dancehall Reggae and Cuban Son. What was the process of writing like?

We had some jam sessions with Aloe Blacc as well as Quincy McCrary (keyboard player for Mayer Hawthorne) Juan Perez (bass player for Son De Madera)
Quetzal Flores made songs out of the jams. The music came from the heart and is a reflection of everybody involved.
 
You left behind what seemed to be a promising career in both music and radio in Australia. At one point you were a host of a Hip-Hop show on Australia’s Triple J Radio network. What was behind that move? What do your fans in Australia think of the new album?