This was supposed to be a quiet, peaceful morning - a relaxing respite from the 21st century’s annoying concoction of curs, vipers, vermin, polecats, mongrels and insects that whore of the will of the people. Maybe its just my brain demonstrating its independence. Maybe I’ve finally reached curmudgeon enlightenment years ahead of schedule. Maybe it’s just the goddamn news, but I attempt to start the day with a renewed sense of calm. I don’t read the paper. I don’t turn on the radio. I don’t turn on the TV. I don’t read my emails. It’s a blather free morning.

But while I sit at my desk wondering what I should write about next, the sound of jack hammers suddenly emanates from the house directly behind us. My neighbor is actually tearing up his entire cemented backyard and plans on putting in a garden! There you have it: gentrification!

Anyway, here is one last look at some of the art work on our boxes of used 7 inch records. I wish I had done some of this artwork myself but, like the jackhammers, my only true talents are more in the nature of noise: the ability to make those kind of sounds 5 year olds forge and the aptitude to blather - like the venerable curmudgeon chain smoking at a bus stop in Hollywood, nursing a cup of coffee from 7-11, jawing about the flotsam and jetsam that has decimated some of the finer gutters in Los Angeles. “Strength through blather! Strength through blather!”

But back to the subject at hand—art. Enjoy.

 

Legendary Bay Area graffiti artist Mike DREAM Francisco, who was shot and killed in cold blooded murder in 2000, would have celebrated his 38th birthday today (August 15th, 2007) had he been spared his senseless murder on the streets of Oakland seven years ago.  Dream was not only an amazingly talented artist and integrated part of the Bay Area hip-hop scene (collaborating with countless hip-hoppers over the years), but he was also one of those really cool-and-always down to earth, caring people who took time out for others. All of which made his passing so much more painful for all who knew him.  One of those was his longtime partner from TDK crew SPIE (who is one of the authors of a forthcoming book on DREAM)  )  who I ran into today in the Mission District as he was finishing up a mural project on 24th Street (b/w Capp and Lilac) and about to head over to a meeting at the SF Planning Commission over funding of the H.O.M.E.Y. Project (more on this with pictures over the next two days here on this AMOEBLOG).

  Born in Alameda, CA DREAM was one of the pioneers of the beginnings of the Bay Area graffiti scene from the early eighties up until the time of his death as a solo artist and with his crew TDK.  But despite his tragic passing his legacy grows and grows each year. A few months ago the RX Gallery in San Francisco had a tribute exhibit to DREAM organized by fellow TDK graf artist WIllie Maze.  Meanwhile outdoors around the Bay Area there are countless pieces dedicated to the late great artist including out under the junction of the 280 and 101 freeways in SF - coincidentally the place where DREAM, along with SPIE, did one of his very last pieces (see below).

Charles Saatchi, with his brother, founded the international advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, but Charles' greater fame is as an art collector who has dominated the contemporary art market in Britain since the early 1980s. In fact, the the 1999 retrospective, “Young British Artists: The Saatchi Decade,” uses his name to define an entire contemporary art scene. Yeah, it would be cool to convince him to “invest” in our arty 7 inch record boxes and help us poor old ‘45 Room’ employees with our kid’s college funds, but word on the boulevard is he’s a recluse. In my book that’s just a fancy word for record geek. And that is a compliment.

Here we are, once again with more examples of the fine artwork rendered on the sides of our used 7 inch record boxes. Some of these formerly plain/primitive white boxes are on the Amoeba Hollywood floor available for your perusal; others are, for now, hidden away in what we call The 45 Room, or to those with less enthusiasm for the little record with the big hole 'that used 7 inch pricing room.'

However, romantics everywhere simply whisper in hushed tones: “vinyl Shangri-la!”

The question I’m often asked: “Hey, Whitmore, if the 45 room is actually a Shangri-la, a heaven on earth so to speak, is there an afterlife, like a 7 inch heaven? And if there is a 7 inch heaven, is there a 7 inch god?”

I always answer with a glint in my eye and a friendly smile on my face, “You know, I’m not sure, but I’d like to think there is one somewhere out there in the dark.”

Hopefully you’ll enjoy this further examination of Amoeba’s own home grown outsider art. And just like there is always another used gem of a record coming on down the pike, there’s always some new artwork gunning its engine, ready to lay some rubber down in Amoeba Hollywood.

The great Amoeba Hollywood enigma that is  “The 45 Room.”  Some simply refer to this veiled   room as the “used 7 inch pricing room,” but for others:
“Vinyl Shangri-la.”

Does it really exist, and if so, where? What goes on in there? Who are they?

Questions abound yet few answers come into the light under ampoule fluorescente compacte.

Enquiries try to penetrate this mysterious place of secret societies revolving/evolving from a tiny room, hidden from public view, but to no avail.

There are so many myths. Startling tales and conspiracy theories abound, sounding not unlike the outlandish yarns associated with Area 51, Skull and Bones, the Bohemian Club or the Maury/Vashon Island incident of 1947 (look that puppy up!!) ….

One 45 room rumor has a ceremony involving a stack of power-pop 45’s sacrificed at the feet of a giant forty-foot statue of Murry Wilson (aka Daddy Beach Boys). Can this be true?

What about the reported appearance of “men in black” canvassing, i.e. shopping, in the area and the complex chain of events dating from last July 2, on what would have been Murry Wilson’s 90th birthday … once again, there are no coincidences….  Management promised those fellows were just from Accounting. Really? 

Well, let’s look inside this long misunderstood milieu (a den of vinyl antiquity, if you please) and analyze The 45 Room culture. Western anthropologists argue culture is “human nature” and that all people, even record store employees, have a capacity to classify experiences and encode classifications symbolically. Let’s start with an appreciation of their art and how The 45 Room decorates primitive white cardboard boxes, used to display 7 inch records, in an attempt to define a multitude of music genres’ hysteron proteron.