Amoeba Hollywood is holding a sale on recordings released by Bear Family Records, which specializes in re-releasing recordings by such rock ‘n’ roll pioneers as Hank Snow, Johnny Cash, Bob Wills, Bill Haley, Bill Monroe, Webb Pierce, Leslie Gore and Carl Perkins. Now through Friday May 25, Bear Family boxed sets are marked up to 60% off.
 

The German label was founded in 1975 and has come to be known for specializing in Americana, releasing extravagant boxed sets complete with books and rare recordings. Come in to the store and look for the display to check out some sweet Bear Family sets like Tex Ritter’s High Noon, Hank Snow’s The Singing Ranger Vol. 3 and The Osborne Brothers’ 1968-1974!

We had the pleasure of interviewing the legendary Herbie Hancock at Amoeba Hollywood for a What's In My Bag? episode and to talk about his role as the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for International Jazz Day (April 30). During the shoot, Mr. Hancock told us about his Sony 4K 3D projector and his obsession with watching 3D Blu-ray movies.

Born in Chicago in 1940, Mr. Hancock was a child piano prodigy who performed a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 11. He began playing jazz in high school, and cultivated a passion for electronics and science, double-majoring in music and electrical engineering in college. Over the course of his five decade career, his music has influenced musicians across genres, including jazz, soul, and electronic. As the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, Mr. Hancock will kick off the festivities in Paris on April 27, then flying to New Orleans and New York for events in both cities on April 30.

We're screening a documentary about Mr. Hancock called Herbie Hancock: Possibilities for FREE on Monday, April 30 at Space 15Twenty (across from Amoeba Hollywood). More info.

Recently we held our first-ever design contest for our 2012 Record Store Day T-shirt. We were blown away by the creativity and effort everyone put into the contest...not to mention the sheer volume of entries! We received over 200 designs! It was a really tough decision but after much deliberation we are proud to reveal the two winning designs by Adam Thiesen and Erika Themaras!

You can pick up your limited edition T-shirt on Record Store Day, April 21st, at any Amoeba store. We'll be silk screening the shirts live at Amoeba Hollywood and Amoeba San Francisco thanks to our friends at Junk Food Clothing, Family Industries, Anti- / Epitaph Records and SF's Free Gold Watch!

See our full list of Record Store Day events.

	Design by Adam Thiesen.
	Design by Erika Themaras.

Amoeba Music is now carrying an exclusive new T-shirt with artwork by the King of Underground Comics, R. Crumb, featuring the King of the Delta Blues, Robert Johnson!

Amoeba Music has partnered with filmmaker Terry Zwigoff (Crumb, Ghost World, Bad Santa) in producing a T-shirt of iconic Delta blues singer Robert Johnson drawn by underground comic artist R. Crumb from the first found photo of Johnson. This T-shirt is an Amoeba Music exclusive, available only through Amoeba.com or at all three Amoeba stores.


Here's a brief history of the image on the shirt. Up until 1973, there was no known photo of Robert Johnson, the haunting, mysterious Delta blues singer lionized by countless rock and roll bands. A postage stamp size photo taken by Johnson himself in a photo booth in the early 1930s turned up in 1973 and was published in Rolling Stone in 1986. After it was published, underground comix artist R. Crumb, a life-long 78 collector and blues fan, drew it as a cover for a highly specialized collector's publication called 78 Quarterly, a magazine specializing in stories on rare pre-war blues and jazz artists and their impossibly rare, highly coveted 78s. 

Right about now some of us here at Amoeba Music are probably experiencing disconcerting flash-backs of last Sunday nights' Amoebapalooza 2011 extravaganza - our annual variety show / collaborative fete wherein we Amoebites take all of our informed musical tastes and influences and toss them in in a blender with extra heaping helping of dysfunctional family sentiments and exhibitionist zeal often resulting in a veritable battle-of-the-bands whodunnit of epic proportions. For those who couldn't make it, and for those who can't remember exactly what happened, I'm here to commit all of my impressions and observations to the interwebs via personal recollection rendered threadbare by copious rum consumption. [photos by Kaitlin Layher]

First up, right on schedule, we had the elusive "powered by crystals" act Liquid Karma. Now, I know what you're probably thinking - "Liquid Karma? The all-natural plant growth stimulant?" No, silly! I'm talking about the signed-up-by-his-no-good-co-worker, one-man, guru-level experimental drone-core laptop wizard that opened Amoebapalooza 2011 - guess you had to be there, man. The only way he could've improved his performance is with the addition of a fog-machine. I really liked his senior shades.

Following Liquid Karma's wall of WTF we had the good fortune to enjoy fifteen delicious minutes of SCHNITZELKLIT - a newlywed duo performing songs like "Blue Moon" and a heart-swelling rendition of David Lynch's and Angelo Badalamenti's Fire Walk With Me slow jam "Sycamore Trees," complete with an on-hand portable tape recorder playing the sax solo to lend a true Twin Peaks air to the affair. Lovely indeed!

After that we had our very own self-styled "Jesus with a bun" Gabi Back strumming out a solid set of poignant acoustic covers what closed with an especially emotional rendition of Radiohead's "Lucky" proving that, within the span of just three brief acts, the spectrum of musical tastes and talents of our Amoeba brethren is as enthusiastic as it is expansive.

The next act in the line up took their love of George Harrison to new heights as Darkhorse: the one man/three women tribute act that featured our resident Jazz-man/Metal dude/Kate Bush enthusiast (every record store should have one) on guitar, steaming up the inside of his GH mask as he shredded his through the acoustic set accompanied by a Kaitlin, our lady of the Darkhorse tattoo on drums and vocals, with further vocal accompanyment provided by Amoeba ladies both dear and fair of voice. Everyone of them in some way sporting a likeness of Mr. Harrison. I know that sounds like kooky fun, and it totally was, but there are unfortunately no pictures the act to make true said observation. [sigh] I hope the images above, them kooky masks and Kait's Darkhorse tat, make up for it even if it's just a little bit.

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