AMOEBLOG:  How'd you end up working at Amoeba and what exactly is your job there?

PAUL VASQUEZ:  I started working at Amoeba in March of 2006, a year and a half ago. I was fed up with the record store I used to work for, so I spoke to a friend of a friend, and the rest is history. I work in the World Music section, helping our customers and maintaining the section.

 
AMOEBLOG: What makes working at Amoeba unique compared to previous jobs?

PAUL VASQUEZ:   Working at Amoeba has been a huge thrill for me. I've never had a job that I look forward to every day. I know that as soon as I walk in the building, I'm among friends...no, scratch that: among family. I feel like the employees are respected and valued for their contributions to the store. The owners and managers have created a mellow and open environment where we feel that we are taken care of. Being an Amoeba employee has changed my life in so many positive ways; it's hard to imagine not having the support structure the store and it's employees provide.
 

AMOEBLOG: What are the Top Three Items at Amoeba this week that people are seeking out?

PAUL VASQUEZ: 
    M.I.A. - Kala
    Buika -    A Spanish singer recently profiled on NPR.
   The Fania Reissue Series - The classic Salsa label finally gets a proper
                                                       reissue.

Continue reading

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!

New York City: Aug 23rd 2007
You gotta love Amoeba Music recording artist Brandi Shearer  who earlier tonight (Thursday 23rd) treated everyone to cupcakes at her final New York City gig in a series at downtown Lower East Side club the Living Room.  As a thoughtful display of gratitude for her New York supporters the  generous Shearer celebrated her very final night in a month of East Coast gigs  by buying a few dozen cupcakes (from Sugar Sweet Sunshine bakery on nearby Rivington Street) for all who packed into the Ludlow St. venue.  "I bought cup cakes for you all for after the show," she told the delighted Living Room crowd before she and her band, led by legendary guitarist Jim Campilongo and including Richard Hammond on bass, launched into their last offering of the night - another song in the 45-minute set that drew exclusively from the singer/songwriter's brand new album "Close To Dark"  to be released on the newly launched Amoeba Music music label next Tuesday (August 28th).  Fittingly, Shearer's next gig (post album release date) will be back in California at Amoeba Music Hollywood on Saturday, September 1st at 2PM, PST  (Note; that this gig will be streamed online: audio and video).

But for the past few weeks Shearer has been hella busy out here on the East Coast doing an assortment of concerts, radio and TV interviews and performances in Boston, Philly, and New York City where in addition to her Living Room series she also did several other performances including one for ASCAP and another on  New York City's WPIX TV Channel 11.   "I'd never been to New York before recently," she informed me shortly before taking the Living Room stage. "But I like it here."  She said that the New York audiences have been incredibly attentive and well-behaved, especially compared to some of the more rowdy types of crowds that she has witnessed over her rich and varied career.  She recalled the semi-shock she encountered  the first night, three weeks ago, at the Living Room when "In between songs there was not a word, not a word," she said.  "And I am just not used to that. I have strategies for people yelling and fist-fights."  "But  for a complete attentive crowd I have no strategies," she laughed.   But still she had absolutley no problem adjusting to the well behaved audience as proven by tonight's winning performance in which she shone (so did Jim Campilongo who plays the Living Room every Monday) during such songs as the roadhouse blues styled "Oh, Singer" and the sultry and hauntingly beautiful and sad country-soul "Congratulations"  - a song that sounds like it's made to be featured in some movie soundtrack if  ever there was one (You can just imagine it as the perfect backdrop to some sad and moving love story).  Between songs Brandi got a warm response when she told the New York crowd that she herself had become a New Yorker of sorts during  her past few weeks in the Big Apple - proof being that she had mastered how to ride the New York City subway while transporting an instrument.  

One of the most damaging drugs of our age has to be crystal meth (aka Tina, Crank, Speed, Ice,  etc.) - which doesn't discriminate when it comes to those who get caught up and spun into its dangerously addictive web - attracting, and in turn addicting, members of every age, gender, race, economic background, and sexual orientation it can - if given half the chance.  However of all the groups that fall prey to the drug,  it seems that the urban gay communities are the most resourceful in their fight against meth or at least in disseminating useful  information about the drug's dangers. But others are active too including the infamous, sobering Multnomah County Oregon State campaign that shows the before-and-after pictures of meth abusers. -   the visually powerful project that began when a deputy in the Corrections Division Classification Unit put together mug shots of persons booked into Oregon's Multnomah County Detention Center - not pretty.   Although not one of these meth offenders booked into the North West detention center, Mark E. Smith of the Fall (right), who is an admitted longtime speed freak (inspiration for the Fall's classic "Totally Wired" came from somewhere), could easily qualify as a part of this shocking-but-effective anti-drug campaign. One of meth's side-effects is the awful damage it does to teeth.

The Los Angeles bus-stop poster (above) photographed directly outside Amoeba Music Hollywood about a month ago was sponsored by West Hollywood's weholife.org which is funded by the City of West Hollywood.  According to this organization and other US health groups, longterm and widespread methamphetamine abuse can lead to devastating medical, psychological, and social consequences. Its abuse can include such adverse health effects as memory loss, aggression, psychotic behavior, heart damage, malnutrition, and severe dental problems in addition to, according to one health care organization,  "contribute to increased transmission of infectious diseases, such as hepatitis and HIV/AIDS, and can infuse whole communities with new waves of crime, unemployment, child neglect or abuse, and other social ills." 

In contrast to so many rappers today who pride themselves on 'going dumb' and acting 'ignant' Brooklyn emcee Talib Kweli prides himself on staying smart both in his life (along with Mos Def he owns an independent, non-profit black bookstore in Brooklyn) and through his refreshingly conscious music that harks back to the golden age of hip-hop when saying something positive was as important as a laying down a catchy hook for the radio and dancefloor.  It is no coincidence that "Kweli" in Swahili means "true" since the artist is 100% true to hip-hop as a positive black artform meant to uplift rather than dumb-down the masses.

 Like his longtime collaborators and old Rawkus pals Mos Def and Hi-Tek Talib Kweli has always stayed true to hip-hop's roots but yet has managed to stay current and vital. Personally I think he is one of the few contemporary artists making hip-hop that is worth a damn and when I first got his 2006 single "Listen" (off his new album Ear Drum) it just got stuck both in my head and on my turntable for weeks on end. It is the way hip-hop should be: good track and hook with lyrics that actually say something. Check out the video for Listen below. But later today (Monday August 20th) if you are in the Los Angeles area you can probably see/hear him perform it live if you check out his Hollywood Amoeba Music instore. It starts at 6PM but get there early to jockey a good position.  And if, like me, you will not be in SoCal take advantage of the live streaming of his instore via this website which also is scheduled to start at 6PM Pacific Standard Time.