Monday afternoon may not be everyone's first choice for party time, but Amoeba San Francisco wasn’t about to let something as insignificant as a day of the week get in the way of a good costume contest!

Amoeba San Francisco’s annual Halloween employee costume contest was kicked off with the spooky sounds of DJ Tay, who came dressed as a Hippie Butcher complete with the head of Jerry Garcia!

Funnyman Sean Murphy served as our Master of Ceremonies and introduced each of our masked miscreants one by one as judges Tony, Donnell, and Suzanne took copious notes.


Julian lead the charge as…a mailman! 


Then we had a special guest appearance by the one and only Tina Turner! Also known as Nick!


Luciano pillaged the stage in Viking gear.

Hours before Amoeba Music San Francisco opened its doors this morning for the highly anticipated fourth annual Record Store Day, a really long line had formed outside on the sidewalk that snaked down Haight Street in the direction of Golden Gate Park, and wrapped around the back of the store through the McDonalds parking lot and across to the next street. This long line was filled with music fans and record collectors all anxious to get their hands on many of the much coveted limited edition RSD 2011 exclusive releases that are available today and while supplies last.

To be fully prepared for when they finally got inside the store, many of these Amoeba SF shoppers had gone online to Amoeba.com and downloaded and printed out the PDF file that meticulously lists every RSD 2011 release.

        
As you will see in the video above, shot today by Audra, the guy who wrangled the first place in line outside Amoeba had driven three hours to San Francisco from King City, CA to secure his coveted spot at 6am this morning. Despite all the folks vying to get into the store for the limited number of releases, it has been civil and "very friendly" according to one person in line on Haight Street, who added that after all the time shared by these strangers in line this morning they had become "all neighbors and friends."

by Audra and Tarin

On an uncharacteristically sunny Sunday in San Francisco, a skeletal hand released a needle onto the crackly ridges of Bauhaus’s “Bela Lagosi’s Dead.” Ghouls flocked from the far reaches of their cavernous haunt to the stage as the lights dimmed over the oldies section. The omnipresent CLACK-CLACK-CLACK of browsing slowed to a near stop. It could mean nothing else…it was time for Amoeba San Francisco’s annual Halloween employee costume contest!

 

The festivities were led by the musical styling of DJ Tay the Ripper (also known as Security Taylor). Luckily, Tay the Ripper was able to take off time from his busy schedule of murder and mayhem to spin spooky songs all afternoon. The set was perfectly chosen to get everyone in the mood for a fierce costume competition. And fierce it was. Kaitlin, our mistress of ceremonies for the afternoon, rallied the ghoulish group together and brought them out one by one.

First up was Willie as "Beavis, from down the block."

Blackpool, England artist Little Boots, who will be making a special in-store appearance and signing copies of her acclaimed brand new debut at Amoeba Music, San Francisco today at 6pm (Tuesday, March 9th), is a most promising electropop artist with a somewhat familiar yet new & unique sound. Already a star in her homeland, where her singles-heavy debut album Hands was released nine long months ago, this former member of Dead Disco saw her Warner Elektra album finally released Stateside last Tuesday (3/2).

Little Boots' sound is new while simultaneously rooted in electronic pop's past, with that past including the not too distant 1980's techno pop of such artists as Gary Numan / Tubeway Army and The Human League. Fittingly, Philip Oakley from the Human League appears on the early eighties sounding album track "Symmetry" -- a track that Amoeblogger Brad cites as one of the dozen track album's best songs. Traces of Kraftwerk surface in the fat synth opening of "Stuck On Repeat," a song that, once it kicks in, is somewhat reminiscent of Kylie Minogue.

Happy Thanksgiving, Amoeblog readers! Above is Gloria Gobbler's reinterpretation of "You Can't Hurry Love" from a turkey's perspective, with reworked lines such as, "You can't gobble me on Thanksgiving Day. Why not eat tofu? Feed yourself the vegan way." And if you enjoy Thanksgiving themed, turkey perspective song parodies done to animation, check out the reworking of MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" -- "U Can't Stuff This" or The Giblets' reinterpretation of Queen's "We Will Rock You" -- "We Will Eat You."  

And don't forget that tomorrow, Friday, November 27th, is when Amoeba kicks off its annual Holiday Toy Drive at all three Amoeba Music stores. When you come in to Amoeba over the next few weeks (cut off dates vary from store to store) we strongly encourage you to spread the love to those not as well off this year by bringing in a new, unwrapped toy for some needy child in your community.

And to help you feel even better about donating a toy for some poor kid, as a thank you for your generosity, Amoeba will give you a $2 coupon valid for any item over $3.99! All toys collected will be distributed to a local charity: Amoeba Hollywood will donate to Five Acres, Amoeba San Francisco will collect toys for Compass Community Services, and Amoeba Berkeley will provide toys to A Safe Place. For full details on the Amoeba toy drive run dates and the charities involved, click here.