Brad
7ish years of Employment
Rock Buyer
This is a special farewell installment of The Employee Interview. Don't worry-- you are not going to lose Brad's insightful blogs, it's just that we, the SF store, are losing him to the LA store this week. Just like in baseball, he's been recruited for their team and will be moving next week. It will be quite a loss for those of us up here in SF to suffer. Brad, we salute you! It won't be the same without you. But at least we will probably still get to watch the Oscars together. (If they happen-- agh what an awards show season!)
ME: What was the first concert you remember going to?
BS: Depeche Mode...Even though my seats were so far away I could barely see them it was one of the highlights of my life. It was just exciting to see that all these other people actually liked the same band as me.
I loved that feeling when I first started going to shows. I was thinking, "Who ARE all these people?" I've actually met so many people who work here who were at shows I was also at in the late 90s/early 2000s! I love it. That's how I knew Amoeba was my home. So who was the first artist that really got you into music and why?
I am sure it was probably Morrissey and The Smiths. He was for sure the first person I was obsessed with, other than maybe Michael Jackson or Cyndi Lauper. Morrissey was the first artist where I was
actually reading all the liner notes and buying all the magazines with him in it. It was fantastic as a young kid to listen to music and lyrics that you could completely relate to even though they were coming out of a man from a totally different world and reality.
7ish years of Employment
Rock Buyer
This is a special farewell installment of The Employee Interview. Don't worry-- you are not going to lose Brad's insightful blogs, it's just that we, the SF store, are losing him to the LA store this week. Just like in baseball, he's been recruited for their team and will be moving next week. It will be quite a loss for those of us up here in SF to suffer. Brad, we salute you! It won't be the same without you. But at least we will probably still get to watch the Oscars together. (If they happen-- agh what an awards show season!)
ME: What was the first concert you remember going to?

BS: Depeche Mode...Even though my seats were so far away I could barely see them it was one of the highlights of my life. It was just exciting to see that all these other people actually liked the same band as me.
I loved that feeling when I first started going to shows. I was thinking, "Who ARE all these people?" I've actually met so many people who work here who were at shows I was also at in the late 90s/early 2000s! I love it. That's how I knew Amoeba was my home. So who was the first artist that really got you into music and why?
I am sure it was probably Morrissey and The Smiths. He was for sure the first person I was obsessed with, other than maybe Michael Jackson or Cyndi Lauper. Morrissey was the first artist where I was
actually reading all the liner notes and buying all the magazines with him in it. It was fantastic as a young kid to listen to music and lyrics that you could completely relate to even though they were coming out of a man from a totally different world and reality.




ge?
part in here-- there's just so many of them. He was one of the first to arrange and manage European Jazz and Blues tours. He worked for Elektra and eventually formed his own production company called Witchseason. He booked an extremely successful club night in London in the 60s that hosted Pink Floyd and The Move, among many others. He went on to produce artists like Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention.
The Newport Folk Festival when he was a stage manager and Dylan went electric. Reading that portion of the book made my heart race! If for nothing else, it's worth buying White Bicycles just to read about this momentous occasion in rock history from a fresh viewpoint. Boyd was truly a part of that evening and remembers it all! He really must have kept a journal. It answers some questions about who exactly was in a physical fight that night, who started what and if Pete Seeger did indeed cut the electricity with an axe. There really was an axe there that night, and that's all I'm gonna say!




1965, which is self titled and beautiful. It's a melancholy collection of songs, but it's one of my favorite records. Frank's voice is strong and deep. I feel like it brings a lot of emotion to the songs he sings. I like the fact also that the songs sound a little faraway, like the equipment they were recorded on was old and on the brink of death. Oh yeah, and it was produced with said eloquence by Paul Simon-- yeah, the Paul Simon.
Although he was American, Frank was thick in the scene of musicians in London in the mid 60s, and that's also where Paul Simon happened to be. Frank was also friends with Sandy Denny, even dated her for a while, Bert Jansch, who covered "Blues Run the Game," Al Stewart and more. Nick Drake also covered several of his songs and Roy Harper is said to have written a song about him.