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On this day in music history: May 14, 1969 - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, the second studio album by Neil Young is released. Produced by Neil Young and David Briggs, it is recorded at Wally Heider Studio 3 in Hollywood, CA, in January and March of 1969.  Recorded in just two weeks worth of studio time, it is the first to feature Young's backing band Crazy Horse. The album features some of Young's best known material including "Cinnamon Girl" (#55 Pop), "Down By The River," and "Cowgirl In The Sand." Young will write all three songs in one day while sick in bed with a 103 ° fever. "Nowhere" will peak at #34 on the Billboard Top 200 and will be certified platinum by the RIAA.


On this day in music history: May 14, 1971 - Carpenters, third studio album by The Carpenters is released. Produced by Jack Daughtery, it is recorded at A&M Studios in Hollywood, CA in late 1970/early 1971. Coming just nine months after their breakthrough album Close To You, it will firmly establish the duo's pop star status on a worldwide basis.  Carpenters will spin off three top five singles including "Rainy Days And Mondays" (#2 Pop), "Superstar" (#2 Pop), and "For All We Know" (#3 Pop). The original LP package is designed to look like a formal party invitation, opening from the top like an envelope with an overlapping flap. Carpenters will peak at #2 on the Billboard Top 200, and to date has sold over 4 million copies in the US.

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I’ve lived in Los Angeles long enough now to notice a two-degree temperature drop and the standard grey, morning haze lasting an extra hour and excitedly exclaim, “Fall is in the air!” It’s what I have to work with down here.

Autumn is my favorite time of year. I’m eager to cuddle up in coats, drink steamy brews, over-do holiday cooking, celebrate Walrus Day, and frankly, I like the melancholic pallor it casts o’er humanity – makes my fellow man seem more relatable than when they’re sweating and spiking balls over nets, behavior which makes me skittish and distrustful.

Of course I know this new chill in the air may be a tease; there’s always opportunity for Mother Nature to Alan Funt the situation. I’m not boxing up my cargo shorts and ice cube collection just yet, but I am eager. To prepare, I’ve hand-selected the finest mini-marshmallows to serve in cocoa (I myself hate eating marshmallows – they’re like sugar-sweetened, antique erasers, but ironically I delight in judging and organizing them), I’ve begun psychologically manipulating the boyfriend with subliminal messages while he watches The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to favor Douglas Firs over White Firs, and I’ve taught my cats to knit their own sweaters. (To be honest, this last effort has been a real power struggle, with both felines putting up a lot of resistance and excuses:

Written, recorded, and released back in 1935 by the great delta blues musician and songwriter Big Joe Williams, the song "Baby Please Don't Go" has been popular with countless artists in the seventy five years since, having been covered by dozens upon dozens of different musicians to the point that it ranks among the top ten most recorded blues songs in music's history. 

Perhaps the most famous or recognizable cover version of "Baby Please Don't Go" is the 1964 recording/release by Them -- the Belfast, Northern Ireland blues-rock ensemble featuring Van Morrison. Them's cover (with "Gloria" on the B side), which was a top ten single in the UK in 1965 and a US AOR radio staple in consequent years, injected a whole rock n roll energy into the classic blues song. 

So influential was Van & co's version that nearly all of the versions of the song recorded or just played after 1965 (including by fellow Irish blues-rockers Taste featuring Rory Gallagher) are rock inflected covers a la Them rather than the original blues version by Williams. Another Irish rocker to cover the song was guitarist / vocalist Eric Bell, who was an original member of Thin Lizzy. 

One of the best things about working at Amoeba Music is all the stories you get to hear. It seems everyone has at least one really great story starring some celebrity or other. Add to that the countless daily recounts of brushes with the bizarre (I'm sure each location has it's own special blend of resident and transient "street life" enthusiasts) and the many stories from the road told by those touring musicians Amoeba frequently fosters; the odd life-altering event/near death experience sort of yarn is spun as often as are the wheels of the gossip wagon. All this and more than enough stupid jokes and "inappropourri" to swell one's ears and imagination for days. Some of the stories I've heard will stay with me forever and some of the story tellers I'd swear have lived multiple lives.

One of my favorite co-workers I like to trade stories with at Amoeba is dear to me for his deep appreciation of all kinds of heavy metal, especially glam/hair metal. Though he's a bit older than me, I'll never forget the day we bonded over our knowledge of obscure (read: tragic) hair metal bands. Floodgates opened and we discussed everything from Bang Tango's singular hit, "Someone Like You," to Pretty Boy Floyd's album Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz and their singular saving grace (ultimately, their hair). Clearly we could go on for days as, it seemed to me anyway, I had no one else at work with whom I could discuss late eighties Hollywood glitter rock and still feel comfortable with myself afterwards. 

One of my favorite stories this person shared with me involves Warrant, a band that almost always suffered comparison to Poison yet never eclipsed, or even slightly reached, Poison's level of glam-rock stardom. Perhaps that explains why my friend saw them playing in a crappy night club in Fresno. The story is short and amounts to this: at sometime during the gig he stole backstage and lifted a number of items from Warrant, namely a bottle of White Rain shampoo. Now, maybe it's not that funny to everyone, but I clutched my gut in laughter upon hearing this. White Rain! The bottom shelf of hair products! These glamorous guys, who obviously pride themselves on their hair, couldn't get it together to get some Panteen Pro-V or Mane and Tail (being the show ponies they were). I have to admit that I was and still am inclined to think the worst of Warrant -- I was never a fan, not even a little, of their music and their frontman, a man called Jani Lane, frightened me in an Edgar Winter way. To me their music was a tepid, obvious attempt at following Poison's lead (and so was Jani Lane's romance with"spokesmodel" Bobbi Brown, who happened to be Poison frontman Bret Michael's ex-girlfriend) and it was even rumored that Warrant's two guitarists Erik Turner and Joey Allen hadn't played even a shred of a note on Warrant's debut album though they received credit for it. To top it all off, the most annoying girl in my school, who was also my best friends' neighbor and confidante, loved them and Warrant quickly became the crux of our rivalry. And so the very thought of Warrant roughing it on the road with dollar store bought White Rain set me snickering. It was too perfect. And to think that Warrant's debut album was titled Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich-- hardly.
 
Later on I got to thinking about all those wanna-be rock stars featured in Penelope Spheeris' documentary Decline of the Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years and my laughing slowly subsided into a kind of internal choke. Remembering all those faces staring directly at the camera proclaiming, "Oh yes, I'm gonna make big one day. Definitely. Without a doubt," really hit home. I wonder just how many rockers made the pilgrimage to Hollywood with a mind to find fame and fortune. I thought of my brother (pictured second from the right with his band Trauma Kamp) and how he moved to Hollywood around that time with only what I can imagine to be the same dream of making it big in the music business (and let me tell you, not only did he survive the strip, he's got endless yarns of killer stories about the madness that is, er was, er probably still is, the Hollywood rock scene). Suddenly I was furious at my friend. How could he steal such vital items from a hair metal band on the road like he's stealing food stamps from the needy? The ridiculousness of my anger started me laughing again and I giggled my way over to my dusty video shelf to look for my copy of The Metal Years, only to find it missing, stolen perhaps by a fellow coworker and metal enthusiast whose name just happens to rhyme with the latter syllable of the word Warrant.
A few weeks later I'd find myself hungry again for a viewing of The Metal Years after being asked for the umpteenth time when Amoeba's gonna have the new AC/DC album, Black Ice. In answering this oft repeated query, I've noticed that customers seeking this release get a cool, terse response: it's a Wal-Mart exclusive. Now, I am as courteous as the next person when manning the info counter and exclusive sales of new releases are nothing new in music retail, it's just that I find it very hard to swallow that a retailer that once used to ban all releases that required a Parental Advisory sticker, a retailer that seemingly backed the PMRC (the Parents Music Resource Center, a committee founded in 1985 by Tipper Gore and three other highly connected political ladies, pictures right) in their endeavors to protect and uphold the morals of America by stifling first amendment rights for recording artists of every genre, a retailer whose name used to be synonymous with right wing, so-called "bible-thumping" Christians could ever, ever sell, exclusively, the new, long awaited record by heavy metal bad boys AC/DC. Maybe the lyrics to AC/DC's hit single "Money Talks" from their Razor's Edge album released in 1990 could clue us in on this retail gaffe: "come on come on love me for the money/ come on come on listen to the money talk." Yeah, and the only way anyone can hop on AC/DC's "Rock N' Roll Train," the first single from Black Ice, is to slum it on down to Wal-Mart 'n' buy it there, or, as it turns out, Sam's Club is selling it too, but only to those who have a membership of course. I understand that a large part of American rockers live in places where Wal-Mart is the only place they can shop for music and I've been reminded repeatedly that times are tough all over, yet Billboard reports that copies of Black Ice are "flying off the shelves" in Wal-Mart and Sam's Club -- money talks indeed -- and I can't help feeling like the "understanding" between Capitol Records and Wal-Mart is a last ditch effort to make mega-bucks on a new release while the mega-bucks can still be made. At least while Wal-Mart is "rolling back the prices" on items like toilet paper you can get the new AC/DC album used at Amoeba for a fraction of what they're flying off the shelves for in the 'burbs. This just in: New York Times reports that Wal-Mart now owns rights to the new AC/DC-themed Rock Band video game, "AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack." I wonder what they'll own rights to next. 

Drummer and Texas transplant Simon has been working at the Hollywood Amoeba Music store for a little over a year now. Recently I caught up with the SoCal Amoebite, whose "best of" lists include AC/DC and Iron Maiden, to ask him about his all time favorite albums and films and the first album he bought (and if he still likes it? -- he doesn't). I also talked with him about living in LA as an artist, about his experience working at Amoeba, and what he sees as the future of the music business. Simon also offered his recommendation for a good spot to grab a bite to eat near Amoeba Hollywood.

AMOEBLOG: How'd you end up working at Amoeba and what exactly is your job there?
 
SIMON: Well, I was working in the service industry for about a year fixing security systems when I found Amoeba Music. I didn't like my job at all and always liked working in record stores. I decided to give Amoeba my resume and in three months I was hired. I was hired April 10th 2006 and I work in the video department, new rock, and on the registers as a clerk.

AMOEBLOG: When not working at Amoeba, what music or other creative type things do you do?

SIMON: When not working at Amoeba I play drums in two metal bands:  Lethal Acts Properly Demonstrated and Mercenary Angel.

AMOEBLOG: What makes working at Amoeba unique compared to other jobs you've had?

SIMON: Amoeba is unique due to the fact that everybody is great to work with and there is no stress at all. I've never worked in a job where i can relax around the owners and managers. They are awesome!