Living Legends, the LA based hip-hop collective with their roots in the Bay Area, have long had a strong bond with Amoeba Music, dating way back to the nineties when Amoeba Berkeley was the first record store to believe in them and carry their underground tapes when they were still a (virtually) unknown crew living in a warehouse deep out in East Oakland. Back in those tough early days, in efforts to make ends meet, the struggling artists used to slang their lo-fi cassettes on the streets of the East Bay, publish the simple but entertaining Xeroxed and stapled rapzine Unsigned & Hella Broke (UHB)* and throw Top Rawmen/99cent "survivor" parties at their community living space. These inspired events not only allowed them to practice their craft but served as a necessary way to buy groceries (noodles galore) and scrape together enough money to pay their overdue PG&E bills.

That seems like a long time ago to the Legends, whose membership includes Mystik Journeymen (consisting of Sunspot Jonz & Luckyiam.PSC -- the two main founding Living Legends once simply known as Tommy & Corey), The Grouch, MURS, Scarub, Eligh, Aesop, and Bicasso. Through all the good times and tough times Amoeba Music has always supported the Legends, and in turn the Legends have always shown much love for Amoeba. At a 2006 instore at the Berkeley Amoeba MURS made mention of the fact that Amoeba was the first record store to sell his music.

But perhaps the best Living Legends/Amoeba moment was a few months ago, April 8th 2008 in LA, when the collective did a great instore performance at the Hollywood Amoeba Music. Above is the video, which is not just one song but the whole damn instore performance, running almost 33 minutes. The great performance includes the collective doing the song "The Gathering" (also the title of their group album just released that month on their own label, Legendary Music). The Grouch can be seen doing his funny-but-true song "Artsy" (off his solo album Show You The World, which had also just dropped that month on Legendary Music).  The Legends also perform "Purple Kush," featuring The Grouch with Eligh, followed by Murs performing "3:16," The Grouch doing "Never Die," and the Living Legends extended crew closing out the show  with  "2010."  Check it out!

Yesterday evening (Friday August 3rd) I attended both the Amoeba Music, San Francisco instore with super skilled turntablists DJs Platurn and Golden Chyld (pictured left) and also the San Francisco Bay Guardian's 'Best of the Bay" soiree at the de Young Museum, in nearby Golden Gate Park.

I hadn't been at the de Young Museum since it moved locations to its impressive new state-of-the-art facility in October 2005.  Come think of it, I hadn't been in Golden Gate Park, for about as long. And after seeing on local TV news and reading all the recent newspaper reports  about the "homeless problem" in the park, which made it sound like there were homeless people camped out under every bush in the park's confines with dirty syringes poking out of everywhere,  I was anticipating stumbling upon a sort of New Jack  (tent) City  which I didn't.  Instead I only witnessed a small gathering of poor unfortunate homeless down by the Stanyan end of the park (not far from Amoeba).   


But anyway, regarding the homeless situation in SF - I really see both sides.  I feel bad for residents (especially  those with little kids) who have to endure such things as street people pissing in their doorsteps or leaving dirty needles in their front yards or near playgrounds in the park.  But I also feel bad for individuals who have substance abuse problems or who are mentally ill and who have no option but living on the streets (dating back to Reagan as Governor of Cali).  And never do I forget the fact that most of us are just one paycheck away from joining them.

If you've ever checked out the murals on the outside walls of the three Amoeba Music stores (Hollywood, Berkeley, San Francisco) you may have noticed a similarity in styles between all three. That's because the same two artists, Larry Smulian as designer and Brian Blesser as art executor, contributed their art to the outside of all three music stores.  "Larry does all our ad art, and Brian did our murals on the front of Berkeley way back when, and the side of Haight street, and the top of the front of Haight," said Amoeba Music's Marc Weinstein.




Note that these artists contributed to the Ivar side of the Hollywood Amoeba (not the Cahuenga side of building - more on that art and the artist who created it in a later amoeblog) and that they are not responsible for the graffiti art side of the Haight Street store.





 Most of the pics displayed here in this BLOG are from the Haste Street side of the Berkeley Amoeba Music store and are chosen because they are among this blogger's favorites for many reasons including the historical content's significance -  mainly being the fact that they represent the period during the 1960's history of Berkeley's Peoples Park - which is steeped in radical political activism - not to mention that People's Park is directly behind Amoeba Berkeley in the same block bordered by Telegraph & Bowditch and Haste & Dwight.