Amoeba Music will be one of the many vendors at today's big record collector's swap meet in Culver City, CA. The West Side Record Show, produced by Record Collectors News, happens from 10am sharp this morning until 3:30pm this afternoon.  According to the organizers, the show typically promises a lot of rare vinyl finds. Jim Kaplan, who runs the Record Collectors News website that tracks all of the vinyl swap meets across the country, told me that typically vendors "have some very rare collectors items of all genres. There are guys that usually have funk and hip-hop, and a lot of Northern Soul too; usually some very rare stuff." He added that Amoeba Music Hollywood actually plays a major role in the SoCal vinyl collecting world. "Amoeba is such a positive part of the scene here and I don't think Amoeba gets enough credit for the amount of interest and dedication they have generated towards record collecting!"

As both an Amoeba employee and an Amoeba shopper I totally agree. But then, I love digging for vinyl anywhere and everywhere, from record shops to swap meets, and from yard sales to old thrift stores. I also love just visiting fellow vinyl fiends' homes to thumb through their lovingly compiled collections and talking music and record collecting. Interestingly, every record collector has their own way of filing and storing their music depending on what the focus of their collection is or whether they actively use their records to play on the radio or out in clubs. Not everyone files strictly alphabetically. I divide mine by sub-genres of hip-hop such as Bay Area hip-hop, turntablism (including battle records), Miami bass, old school, etc. Some collectors divide by years or decades of release while others divide theirs into genres and subgenres, but everyone has their own unique take.

Questlove from The Roots and Seu Jorge (with his new band Alamaz) visited Amoeba Hollywood today to film What's In My Bag? videos. Look for their videos soon!! In the meantime, here's a sneak peek.

Although technically only around for the past six years, the UK based record label Finders Keepers has been, according to its owners, in the making for the past 40 years! The rich, diverse and offbeat music in the Finders Keepers catalog (a melange of psychedelic, funk, folk, jazz, avant-garde and "whacked-out movie musak to a lost world of undiscovered vinyl artifacts from the annals of alternative pop history") spans recordings from the last 40 (and more) years, and from all over the globe. For example two, of its recent impressive releases are the CD/2LP Pomegranates compilation of 60's & 70's Persian funk, folk, psych and other pop quirkiness; and the avant-pop meets funk-rock soundtrack to the movie Stone, the 1974 Australian biker psych cult classic that, complete with a glowing Quentin Tarantino endorsement, is being relaunched with a big screening at Lincoln Center in NYC this Friday.
 
Both the label's founder, Andy Votel, and Finders Keepers' US rep (and Amoeba Hollywood employee) Mahssa will be at the NY screening event. I recently caught up with Mahssa at the SoCal Amoeba to talk about Finders Keepers and how she got involved with the eclectic and most unique UK label that accurately describes itself as an "accidental world music label with a punk aesthetic and DJ friendly ethos."