Cheap And Deep
Rides Again 12” (Norman Nodge / Jonsson/Alter rmx) 12"
Modular Cowboy

This inaugural release on Modular Cowboy features brand new material from Cheap and Deep (a.k.a. Jay Ahern) alongside two remixes of “Words, Breaths and Pauses,” a track originally released as a limited edition 12” via Berlin’s Hard Wax shop, just prior to Cheap and Deep’s live debut at Mutek 2010. The remixes come courtesy of Berghain resident DJ Norman Nodge as well as duo Jonsson/Alter (Henrik Jonsson and Joel Alter) from the Kontra-Musik label in Sweden. The release also marks Cheap and Deep’s return to the scene, with the new track “Beautiful,” a modern take on the Chicago acid house tradition, featuring vocals by Crissy Liu with additional production by Morgan Packard.

Purchase Rides Again here:





Basic Soul Unit
Swept Up 12”
Nonplus Records

A fixture on Toronto's techno scene for nearly a decade, with releases on MATHEMATICS, CREME ORGANIZATION, and MULE ELECTRONIC, this debut on BODDIKA's NONPLUS, marks the label's move toward 4/4 techno. The title cut & "MINDSTORM" are both engaging compositions of deep techno!

Trash Talk – “F.E.B.N.” video

In the spirit of Amoeba Hollywood’s new Punk section, I’ll post about Sacramento hardcore band Trash Talk and the first video, “F.E.B.N.,” from its upcoming album Odd Future Records, 119, on Oct. 9. Odd Future’s Tyler, The Creator directed this bit of black-and-white mayhem in some sort of parking garage. Everything about this music/video is probably upsetting to lots of people. Which means of course that it’s pretty great. The song is less than two minutes long and somehow builds unbearable anticipation in its extended intro — all you want to do is turn it up and face the noise you’re about to hear head on.
 

 

Army Navy – World’s End video
 
L.A. indie pop band Army Navy have a video for the song “World’s End.” I had never listened to this band before; I only knew I might like them because their band name shares a name with a Camera Obscura album. And I do! The song is really nice, kind of sounds like “Blue Bayou” but is less dramatic, more morose, and there’s a key change, which I am a sucker for. The video is awesome for a number of reasons — it’s an old fake talk show, which is a done premise but is done funnily here, as this bizzaro, kind of bleak ’60s swinger thing, and features Freaks & Geaks’ Martin Starr, who I had no idea could be kind of sexy. The singer also kind of looks like Steve Carell. You have to watch it on Entertainment Weekly’s EW.com; I guess this band is getting pretty big. The song appears on a seven-inch with a B-side cover of Yaz’s “Only You,” which is awesome, duh. Their new album is due early next year.

L.A. original power-pop-punks Redd Kross showed up for one of the most fun sets at Amoeba Hollywood in recent memory. The band performed material from their new album, Researching the Blues, as well as from across their catalog, from “Annette’s Got the Hits” to “Stay Away From Downtown.” Fans shouted for favorites and obscurities like “Star Lust” while the brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald still looked and sounded youthful, whipping their long hair around and preening with rock star glee. The band, which also includes Robert Hecker and Roy McDonald, sounded as invigorated live as you might have guessed if you’ve heard Researching the Blues. The more sugary tracks have extra bite live, while songs like the new album’s blistering title track really are meant to be heard live. Amongst the irresistible wahoos and kicks and stick tossing, it became clear, if there’s one thing these vets could show the young guns, you know, besides songwriting and knowing how to play your instruments, is that when you look like you’re having a lot of fun onstage, that energy is infectious. See more photos from the set here; check out my interview with Steve McDonald here.

L.A. band White Arrows released their awaited debut album Dry Land Is Not a Myth earlier this summer. Songs like “Roll Forever” and “Coming or Going” hit hard and take off before floating through a summer cloud on the band’s throbbing beats, spacey vocals and swirling electronics. For a party rock record you won’t hate yourself for liking, look no further.
 
I spoke with frontman Mickey Church a bit before the band’s performance at FYF Fest, taking place at L.A. State Historic Park Sept. 1-2 — that’s this weekend, people. They’re playing at 12:30 p.m. on the main stage on Saturday, so get there early to check them out. You can see the full schedule, announced this week, at the show’s official site. And tickets are still available at Amoeba. Buy them here so you’re only charged at $4 service fee; check here for a full list of available concert tickets at Amoeba, although you can always ask and we may just have what you’re looking for. Enough plugs, onto the White Arrows interview:
 


PST: You guys have played live now for years all over the place and just now settled down to make your first album. Was it the kind of thing where stuff just started taking off and you got wrapped up in all the touring and festival shows and whatnot, or did you just want to give it time to develop your sound and figure out how and what to record for your first album?
       
Church: We've been a band for about two years now, and we did an EP, a 7-inch, a couple of covers and some remixes for people. Then it just got busy with touring ... we’ve been out now a number of times. Our first tour was with Cults, then we did a West Coast run with Those Darlins, a full U.S. tour with The Naked and Famous, Northern Europe with White Denim. These were all amazing tours that we couldn't turn down, so we’ve been very fortunate to have had those opportunities to tour the world, and now finally after two years of work, we’ve put out our debut full-length. In hindsight, we definitely didn’t have any idea of what direction we were headed, so it was good that we took that time to grow as a band.
       
PST: How did the band form? Mickey, you were writing songs all along, how did that change when the rest of the band came into play?
       
Church: Now it’s more collaborative. Andy (Naeve, keys) and I wrote all the songs on the record, but my brother, Henry (Church, drums), and JP (Caballero, guitar) played on the record. These are the first recordings with live drums, and all sorts of the other stuff that weren’t accessible to me when I first started writing.
       
PST: Having seen the band play live and hearing old recordings, it’s been a pretty intense evolution to the sound of the album. Can you talk a little bit about how the sound developed?
        
Church: Ah man, those old, old recordings were never meant to be heard ... ha. They were just demos that I gave away for free before I had any intention of being in a band, or trying music for a full time gig. Our first official release I consider it the 7-inch with “Get Gone” and “Save Me a Place on it.”
       
PST: In particular I remember hearing “Coming or Going” and thinking, this sounds a lot different! A lot more electronic, and a much more fun feel. The songs are pretty densely layered too. How did you decide what to edit and change as you went along?
       
Church: I don't know if it was conscious of specifics as to what to change, as much as just wanting it to go in that general direction. We worked with Remix Artist Collective (RAC) on that song as a precursor to see if it would be a good fit for him to produce the record, or at least some song son the record, and it was a perfect fit, I think.
       
PST: It’s very tempting to compare your upbringing, in which you were visually impaired and experienced things in an “impressionistic smear,” to the sound of the album, where things cut through sharply and then get more impressionistic. Like how “Roll Forever” starts so balls-out and has those penetrating riffs throughout, but also these lush verses. Is that something you try to do with your music?
       
Church: No, it’s not intentional. You just start with one rough idea and keep smoothing it out, and adding and subtracting things until hopefully you have something you're satisfied with.
 
PST: And speaking of your background, can you talk a bit about your degree in Ritualistic Shamanism and if/how your studies affected the music you were writing?
       
Church: When I went to school I was assigned an advisor, and it just so happened that he taught a course called Shamanistic Ritual. He encouraged me to take his class to get to him, and so I did. He showed up 30 minutes late to the first class, and was covered in dust with a flashlight on his head, and doctors mask around his mouth; and said, “True story, true story, I just got back from burning man. Janis Joplin was in eagle form flying over the RV the entire way.” Naturally, my mind was blown. Coming from a high school where I had no choice in electives, and got suspended for my hair being to unruly, or my shirt not being tucked in, it drew me to such left of center studies.
       
PST: One of my favorites on the album is “I Can Go.” I love the riffs and melodies but also those flutes at the chorus are just killer. It sort of transforms this more straightforward rocker on the album to have this otherworldly, nostalgic quality. With something like that song, or say the loping piano riff on “Golden,” do you usually start with a guitar-based song and then add those details, or do you get those ideas at the same time?
       
Church: Every song almost starts with something different. A piano line, guitar line, drum beat, synth sound, or bass line ... since we don't write in a live setting you kind of just lay something down and build off of that. “I Can Go” started with that guitar line you hear in the verses, and “Golden” started with that tinkering little piano melody and a drum bit
 
PST: Are you guys playing in LA again around FYF?
       
Church: I don’t think so, but we never really turn down house parties, so something usually comes up.

San Francisco indie outfit The Fresh & Onlys today premiere the Dawn Carol Garcia directed, zombie themed, music video for "Presence of Mind" (the audio of the song was posted here by Billy Gil a few weeks ago) taken from the band's new album Long Slow Dance which is scheduled for release by Mexican Summer next Tuesday, Sept. 4th. In support of the new album by the band that features Amoeba SF's own Tim Cohen, who founded the group back in 2004, will kick off a North American tour that begins next Wednesday (Sept 5th) in Santa Ana and will include dates at The Echo in LA on Sept 7th and at The Independent in San Francisco on Sept 8th.

Also on the tour will be Terry Malts, Grass Widow and Quilt. The new album has the distinction, according to the band, of been recorded on the same reel-to-reel that Warren Zevon recorded "Werewolves of London." There is a documentary on the making of the album in the works which you can get a sneak peek below. And for a preview of the album you can pick up releases from the Fresh & Onlys back-catalog here + stream a preview copy here c/o Hype Machine  Fresh & Onlys tour details.
 

In this digital age artists are bestowed much more freedom than in any previous era to control their own destiny with precision, and to get their work out there to a much larger global audience. However this modern age gift can be a two edged sword since with its ease of communication comes a lot more competition into a market that is flooded with both good and questionable contributors. So to get one's work out there these days an artist must be extra innovative and knowledgeable with all of the tools available to help make their work stand apart from the crowd.  Hence an event like the upcoming Bay Area's Independent Artists' Week (IAW) - now in its fifth year - that kicks off next Monday (Sept 3)  is so important.

The San Francisco event bills itself as "a week long celebration dedicated to ensuring that artists, arts organizations, and the businesses that support them have a means to celebrate and network" and in its event-packed week it will offer lots of opportunities at networking /consulting, numerous panels and showcases, live performances, and other events which are all listed below - and all of which are completely free or very affordable with minimal charges. 

This week I caught up with IAW co-founder Melonie Green to ask her what initially inspired her event? "When Melorra - my twin and business partner - and I moved to the Bay we kept hearing about how San Francisco and the Bay is the mecca of independent art," she said. "It was a reverb that continued throughout our first couple of years in San Francisco attending Academy of Art University. We started hosting art mashup events in 2007/2008 called BYOA (Bring Your Own Art) featuring artists of just about any genre including Salsa dancing, break dancing, fine art hanging on the walls, clothes and jewelry vendors, etc. The momentum from these events sparked our desire to start something that boldly said Independent Artists." The next step, she said, was to make it official with the city. "We submitted a proclamation to [SF] Mayor Gavin Newsom's Office, listing all of the qualities the arts community provides to the betterment of San Francisco (and any city for that matter) and he signed it, proclaiming The first week in September as Independent Artists' Week"

Back in June I hipped readers to the fact that one of the greatest TV shows of all time, Get A Life, is finally getting a proper DVD release after previously only being afforded two four-episode volumes from Rhino Home Video. Well, another great, mostly-forgotten, cult show has recently been announced, and that's In Search Of..., which is scheduled to be released on 23 October by VEI (Visual Entertainment Inc).

In Search of... was a quasi-documentary TV series that ran in syndication from September, 1976 through March, 1982. It focused on the paranormal; ufological, supernatural, and cryptozoological subject matter -- but it also included episodes about real missing persons, historical events, cults, &c.

Each episode included the disclaimer,“This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine." Nonetheless, the "possible explanations" were often pretty absurd, which for me is part of the fun. In the 1990s, paranormal TV shows were often hosted like news shows, which is also fun.



Anyway, before In Search Of… launched as a TV series, there were three hour-long, made-for-TV specials; In Search of Ancient Astronauts (1973) and In Search of Ancient Mysteries, and The Outer Space Connection (both 1975). They were narrated by Rod Serling who was a logical choice for a narrator, having famously created and hosted the macabre anthology series The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery.

FYF Fest released set times for this weekend's festival in downtown LA. Download the pdf version to help plan your days (and get damp in your sweaty pockets). Still don't have tickets? Get 'em while you can at Amoeba Hollywood! They're $89 +$4 fee and you can pay with cash or credit card.

This is it, we're entering the hot season for new releases. Next week sees the release of new albums from Cat Power, Animal Collective and Deerhoof, to name a few. But plenty of great releases snuck up on us this week too; here are a few of my favorites:

Wild Nothing - Nocturne
 
Wild Nothing’s Gemini was a warm, digitally enhaned indie-pop love letter to its inspiration, college rock of the 1980s. Since that release, Wild Nothing’s Jack Tatum has had a couple of releases, the Golden Haze EP and the Nowhere single, that have further proven Tatum an equal to his forebears, and that continues with Nocturne, which sands down any outlier sounds and offers a solidified statement of purpose for Wild Nothing. As you might guess from titles like “Nocturne” and “Midnight Sound,” the album is full of swooning nighttime pop, with swirling, delayed guitars, lovelorn vocals and synth washes lapping underneath it all. While the album’s opening three songs (“Shadow,” “Midnight Song” and “Nocturne) set the tone thematically, the more you listen to Nocturne, the more the shier songs stay with you, like “This Chain Won’t Break,” with its freestyle beat and bassline a weirdly perfect fit to its twee synths and melodies, or “Paradise,” a glorious New Wave totem that sounds like whitewashed memories of an ’80s prom. However, Nocturne doesn’t fall into the trap of sounding overly reverential to the ’80s because Tatum’s songs have become more confident, as he pulls off a refrain like “only Heather makes me feel this way” on the Cure-ish “Only Heather.” Nocturne gets so many things right, with its sneaking melodies, dreamy guitar textures and dreamier lyrics are Tatum’s alone, that everything feels like inspiration rather than pastiche.

  Since the above What's In My Bag? (WIMB?) Amoeba video clip with MURS was uploaded to YouTube yesterday it's been drawing a lot of strong, mixed reactions mostly focusing on the bold statement on the art of rap made by the longtime Cail emcee. "Rap is not good enough to be associated with great music," said MURS when asked if he might sample an Ethiopian album he had picked up at the Hollywood Amoeba store. "Rap is like the lowest art form of art on the planet earth," he continued, semi-apologizing, "Sorry. I love it. But it's true." He then qualified this statement by saying that, "There's no other form of music in the history of music that totally denigrates women and promotes violence and killing of one another for senseless reasons." "We have to call it what it is and hopefully by calling it what it is we can improve it." he said adding, while he sincerely felt that way, that he was also a fan of rap and was about to pick up a Waka Flocka Flame album. YouTube comments related to this video, which rated 67 likes to 1 dislike at time of posting this Amoeblog, ranged from "haha this guy is awesome! best explanation of rap ever" and "this guy seems really cool. his views on his own genre are really interesting," to "Completely idiotic point of view" and "WTF?….if you think that murs why the fuck do you want a Wocka Flocka cd?"

To read more Behind The Grooves, go to http://behindthegrooves.tumblr.com.

Join us in front of Amoeba Hollywood on Saturday, September 15th from 12pm-5:00pm for our next Sidewalk Sale! Pick up some awesome deals on CDs, vinyl, box sets, books, and more - all at great savings.

Look for our Soundtrack Clearance Sale with some great offerings at CHEAP prices as well as some nicely priced Latin titles.

The sidewalk sale will also feature a Classical blowout with vinyl for 50 cents or three for $1 and CDs at $2.99 and $3.99 that are buy-one-get-one-free! What a deal! There are many great bargains among these titles, but we just need to clear them out for new merchandise. 

Come out and see the many other deals to be had at the sidewalk sale. Can't make it? Shop our Clearance section online for some sweet finds.

All sidewalk sales are final. Store credit cannot be used to purchase items from the sidewalk sale. Prices apply to sidewalk sale stock only and this offer is only while supplies last.



    

King Khan knows all! Are you a big fan of King Khan & The Shrines AND tarot cards? Want King Khan to read your future? If so, please email the folks over at Great American Music Hall at  info@gamh.com and describe why you want King Khan to do your personal reading.

If you win, the reading will take place on Tuesday, September 4th before their Great American Music Hall show in SF. All entries must be received by Great American Music Hall by noon this Friday, August 31st. 

Get tickets to the show HERE!

King Khan shows off his tarot skills to Tim Cohen


King Khan live at Amoeba SF

All three Amoeba store locations are having a giant poster sale over Labor Day Weekend! All posters will be 25% off September 1-3, 2012. Poster sale is for in-store purchases only and does not apply to online posters.

With our amazing selection of vintage and modern concert posters, movie posters, and reprints from all music genres, we have something perfect for dorm rooms, bedrooms, living rooms, and everywhere in between. Plus, we've handpicked a few new images especially for the sale that have never been in-stock before.

Types of Posters We Carry
Vintage · Blacklight · 3D · One-Sheets · Cult · Head Shop · German Subways · European · Concert · Mexican Film Prints · Historical Reprints · Fillmore · Goldenvoice · Avalon · Autographed · Framed · Limited Edition & Collectible

Sample Poster Artists We Carry
Kozik · Emek · Kii Arens · Coop · Tara McPherson · Randy Tuten · Darren Grealish · Wes Wilson ·
Bonnie MacLean · Chuck Sperry · Shepard Fairey




 

Continue reading...

Head to the Vinyl Beat website to check out extensive LP label guides and wild cover galleries!


Rufus Thomas led a storied life. He started in show business in the late 1930s with a traveling minstrel show. By the early ‘50s, he was a renowned DJ on WDIA Memphis and was also recording on Meteor, Chess, and Sun Records.  


“Bear Cat” - Sun Records 1953 

  His daughter, Carla, had one of the first hits on the fledgling Stax Records with “Gee Whiz.”  Two years later in 1963, Rufus had a monster crossover hit with “Walking The Dog.” Later he recorded “Jump Back,” which became a R&R standard. 

“Walking The Dog”

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Everything you've heard about the vinyl resurgence is true...and we're celebrating! Noise Pop and Amoeba Music continue the biweekly vinyl party Noise Pop Record Collective on Tuesday, August 28th in Oakland at Bar Three-Fifty-Five!

Following the lead of Amoeba San Francisco and Berkeley, Amoeba Hollywood has debuted its own punk section. The section, located in the main room, straight back and on the left from when you walk into the store, has loads of CDs, LPs, Punk T-shirts and patches. Genres include Punk, Hardcore, Oi, Crust, Thrash, Metalcore, and more.









The video below shows some of the shirts you can find at Amoeba.

 
Check out a list of classic punk and hardcore records you can find in the store, many of which have their roots right here in our little corner of the country (more specifically, L.A., especially The South Bay, and Orange County).
 
Adolescents – Adolescents (CD or LP)
 
A supergroup of sorts formed in Fullerton, with members of Agent Orange and Social Distortion, Adolescents’ first album influenced legions with a sound that remained tuneful and dynamic within the hardcore punk rock frame of mostly short songs played hard and fast. It’s difficult to imagine Orange County descendants like Pennywise, The Offspring and No Doubt solidifying the So. Cal. punk sound without this first combustible blast of a record. Plus, their first single was called “Amoeba,” so that’s awesome too!
 

The Soft Pack – “Tallboy”
 
Every taste we’ve gotten thus far of the new Soft Pack album, Strapped, has been an indication that the album presents a leap forward for the band in terms of songwriting and production. “Tallboy” is no exception, with its gently tugging melody and subtle horns that come in halfway through. Strapped is out Sept. 25 on Mexican Summer (preorder here). They're also playing FYF Fest Sept. 1-2; tickets are still on sale at Amoeba Hollywood!











 

 
 

Pinback – “Proceed to Memory”
 
It’s been a minute since we’ve heard from Pinback, since their last album, Autumn of the Seraphs, in 2007. I grew up loving this band and am excited to have them back with a new song and album, Information Retrieved, out Oct. 16 from Temporary Residence Ltd. The same elements I fell in love with before are still intact — great guitar and vocal interplay, intimate sparseness — but I haven’t heard a soaring chorus like the one on “Proceed to Memory” before in a Pinback song. Leaves me hungry to hear the rest of the new album!
 

L.A. psych rockers Everest proved they’re really a band to be seen live, with a set at Amoeba Hollywood to promote their new album, Ownerless. Beginning with the first song off of that album, “Rapture,” Everest’s five members hit the harmonies close to perfectly that softly line the song, but the real showcase comes with a heavy guitar freakout that appears in the last third of the song. Such guitar noise breaks are sometimes difficult to convey on record; Everest does, as Ownerless attests, but live, the reverberations from their three-guitar psych attack are more even more untamed, lacking compression and studio sheen. The same went for the band’s second song, and second on the album, “Into the Grey,” whose heartfelt vocals and whistling melody make it a hooky, easy to latch onto song in the band’s catalog. Russell Pollard’s vocals, which compare favorably with My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, make the song a standout, but live, again, guitars take center stage, with the song’s freakout part a lot freakier, lifting off the song’s nicely building momentum and great underlying guitar ambience. Pollard switched to acoustic guitar for some of the set’s relatively lighter numbers, including “Give a Little,” highlighted by nicely ascending melodies. “It’s always nice to come back home,” Pollard said, who used to work at Amoeba. A head-bobbing crowd welcomed him back warmly, appreciative of the band’s lush melodies and spirals of guitar noise. (See more pics here.)

Amoeba Music is proud to once again be an official sponsor of the Monterey Jazz Festival and to be on-site with a Mini-Amoeba store!

The 55th annual Monterey Jazz Festival (MJF) includes a stellar line-up of more than 500 artists performing on eight stages over the course of two days and three nights. See live sets from Tony Bennett, Eddie Palmieri, Esperanza Spalding, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Christian McBride, Trombone Shorty, Pat Metheny, and so many more!

Swing by the Mini-Amoeba between sets for tons of rare, collectible, and out-of-print CDs and LPs for sale from our vaults. Plus, look for a host of artists who will be signing copies of their catalog CDs at our booth after their performance. We have confirmed signings with these stellar musicians at the Mini-Amoeba:

Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Tammi Brown -- 8:00pm Pedrito Martinez -- 9:30pm	Robert Randolph -- 3:00pm Ali Ryerson / Mimi Fox -- 4:00pm Trombone Shorty -- 5:00pm Mingo Fishtrap -- 5:45pm Tierney Sutton -- 8:15pm Christian Scott -- 9:00pm Catherine Russell -- 9:45pm	Ambrose Akinmusire --  2:30pm Esperanza Spalding -- 4:45pm Jack DeJohnette / Bill Frisell -- 6:15pm Kyle Eastwood -- 7:30pm Meklit Hadero -- 9:30pm

Please check back for updates on our signing schedule and further coverage! Also, check out out interviews and coverage from last year's MJF HERE!

Mission Creek Oakland (MCO) returns in September for a month-long festival packed with shows featuring dozens of local bands and showcasing fifteen venues such as the Uptown Nightclub, The Stork Club, and even AMOEBA BERKELEY!

The festival will feature many exciting bands that were selected from a public call for entries, such as Dempsey, Windham Flat, Coast Jumper, and  ++++. Highlights include an all-ages in-store performance from Micachu & the Shapes at Ameoba Berkeley on September 22nd at 2pm, a short film night at Rooz Café, and an art show curated by “Oakland Under $100.” Plus, several shows will feature local standup comedians as opening acts! What more could you ask for?! 

For the complete calendar, click HERE!

More info on the festival HERE!

Micachu & the Shapes


Windham Flats:

Detroit underground hip-hop crew the Stereo Boyz just dropped a new single/video (above) titled "RayBanz" with a vocal feature from Shoua Kue and production by Nick Speed (G-Unit) with scratches and cuts by DJ Los. "RayBanz" is the lead single off the upcoming album Carz, Clubz & Theaterz (the follow up to last year's Live from the Ghettoblaster EP) from the Michigan duo that features the two MCs Mixo (aka Applauze Beetz) and Mic Audio (aka Perfect Hell) who for close to a decade pre-Stereo Boyz were part of another Detroit group called Rhyme Asylum. Wholeheartedly embracing the  DIY hip-hop ethos the Stereo Boyz have traveled round the US and also over to Europe to do a series of underground shows - all the while slowly building their rep and fan-base. I met up with the pair a few months ago when they traveled by car from Detroit to New York City to do a series of shows including one at the Bowery Poetry Club and another in the park. That (informal) park set was one of their infamous Monkey Barz cipher sessions - a true traditional hip-hop event that they hold on a weekly basis back in their hometown. See the video below of their first 2012 Monkey Barz session. For the one-off NYC Monkey Barz session the visiting Stereo Boyz headed to Union Square on a balmy Saturday afternoon with their big white boombox in tow to provide beats, and there attracted a huge crowd - many of them also emcees who joined in the freestyle session.

On Sunday, September 2nd, Amoeba will be at one of the Southland's biggest and best record swap meets, the 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. And admission is always free!

The Flea Market and Record Swap is from 7am-3pm. Look for the Amoeba booth located in the Bonnie St. parking structure (Lot 5) on the third level. We always have a great selection of vinyl, from dollar records to collectibles in every genre. Come out and enjoy your Sunday with us!

The LA Weekly calls the show “the best source for used records in all of Southern California.

More info HERE.

At some point in the past few weeks, Pussy Riot became the most important band in the world. They’re not “important” in the 9.0 review on Pitchfork kind of way. Rather, Pussy Riot is a band that reminds us that music can, and does, have a very real worldwide impact.
 
I won’t attempt to re-report the tons of great coverage the Russian feminist punk band has received since reaching international attention, but here’s a summation: the Moscow-based band has held public performances wearing colorful masks and clothing while playing songs that directly criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as the politics of the Russian Orthodox Church. These quick concerts are filmed and then put online, having appeared in places like the band’s livejournal page. One such performance, at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, on Feb. 21, 2012, landed three of the collective’s members in jail, and after a widely publicized trial, they were found guilty of hooliganism and inciting religious hatred against the church. 
 
The verdict has been widely criticized as overly harsh. The United States State Department, The U.S. Embassy in Russia, U.S. President Barack Obama, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, among others, have expressed disappointment or disgust with the decision. Artists including Bjork, Madonna, Tim Minchin, Zola Jesus, Patti Smith, Paul McCartney and others have expressed public indignation over the decision, while on Aug. 16 a demonstration was held in New York, where actress Chloë Sevigny, writer Eileen Myles and others read writings and court statements from the detained members of the band — Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samucevich. Vice Magazine editors got tattoos of the word “hooligan” in Russian to show their support. The Guaridan (U.K.) edited together a montage of Pussy Riot supporters with their song “Putin Lights Up the Fires.” Marches and protests have been held around the globe, with supporters donning similar attire to that worn by the band during its performances.

In the music business who you know helps but it isn't enough to get you ahead. You have to have substance to back it up. 20 year old Pensacola, Florida rapper Cozzy found this out when, first starting out recording hip-hop a few years ago, the burgeoning young rapper hit up his successful uncle in the rap biz - Tobin "TC" Coston who was Master P’s manager and VP & GM of his No Limit Records label - thinking his well connected relative would get him a record deal right away. But that was not the case initially.

"I have had many relatives hit me up for record deals," said TC who has turned them all down including Cozzy, at first. But he liked how consistent the young rapper was in both his work ethic and his "promising" vocal flow even though it still had a ways to go. "I told him to keep working because it was really raw. He continued to send me music and I heard something from him I liked." Then after several goes around TC heard his nephew freestyle over some popular tracks that Cozzy totally made his own. So impressed was his uncle he that he signed him to Me & Mine Entertainment; the label known for releasing (among many others) Lil’ Troy’s platinum Sitting Fat Down South. He also signed his rap crew F.B.N. (Fresh By Nature) to the label and is committed to sticking by both and developing them as artists over a long term - something you don't hear of much these days in the financially stressed & ever fickle music biz.

D I S C O S T A N Music from Beirut to Bangkok via Bombay *** DISCOSTAN returns with a unique brand of glamorous shadow disco, drawn from the cross-cultural sounds that stretch from the eastern edge of the Bosphorus, throughout the Maghreb, under the Balkans, down the Bekaa Valley, and all over the Subcontinent.  Golden-era Bollywood filmi tunes Turkish funk and disco Arabic dabke stompers Balkan brass attacks Dangdut edits Bhangra bangers Hot soukous ...and endless more. ***  SPECIAL GUEST DJ: Bei Ru (Musa-Ler Music) www.beirumusic.com RESIDENT SELECTORS: DJ Aruna Irani (Radio Sombra, Sublime Frequencies) Gomez Comes Alive (Radio Sombra/Discos Inmigrantes) Continue reading...