Tom Lynch
12 Years Employment
Buyer Extraordinaire

Miss Ess: How did you end up at Amoeba?

Tom Lynch: I was working at Car City Records in Detroit, my co-worker, Geoff Walker, had just come back from his vacation to the Bay Area and told me about Amoeba opening in SF and looking for used LP buyers. Geoff had applied on a whim, got interviewed, and offered the job. Geoff came back , decided to go to grad school, declined the offer, and told me that I should give it a go. I was up for a change, not to mention I had just been in a  wreck and had no more van and had no money to buy another one. So fate really forced my hand. I've always felt that they never really got over Geoff turning them down.  

ME: What is the best live show you have ever seen?

TL: Being one of three people in the audience as The Replacements ripped through their set at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit, July 1983. Everyone else was in the bar below the club watching Siouxsie & the Banshees videos. My pal John Maxwell & I and this weird short guy were the only people watching them -- they were opening for R.E.M. -- and this short guy was wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots, doing these sliding dance moves and was yelling at the 'Mat's to get off the stage. They were blazing hot; when nobody was looking they would crush you with their ferocity. They just laughed at him, threw lit cigarettes at him.

Tarin
1.5 yrs employment
Promotions Gal

MIss Ess: What was the moment you really got into music? What were you listening to? Where were you?

Tarin: The first music memory I have was when I was in a car set in the back of my parents baby blue late 80s Mazda. I remember trying to slap my hands on my knees to the beat of the music, and most likely we were listening to Bonnie Raitt, Elton John, or The Beatles… possibly even The Judds. Those were the tapes that always seemed to be in the car when I was little. Once I figured out how to be on rhythm to a beat there was no stopping me, no one could get me to stop singing or dancing. My toes have been tapping pretty much my entire life.

Miss Ess: Whose posters did you have on your walls when you were growing up?

Tarin: I had so many posters on my walls growing up I don’t even know if I could name them all. But from what I remember; Beatles, Dave Matthews Band, Black Sabbath, Bob Marley, Michael Jackson, Hanson (I thought Zak was such a hunk!... I was also 11), typical teen dream pics, and various years of Monterey Jazz Festival posters.  

Miss Ess: What brought you to Amoeba?

Tarin: I was living in LA, going to Musicians Institute and I kept hearing about this magical place where you could find anything you wanted. And even though it was only about 6 blocks from where I was living, it took me a year and a half to finally make it in. When I walked in the first time I felt so overwhelmed and so excited I thought I was at an amusement park… but for music. I ended up spending 4 hours and way too much money but I was instantly in love.

Scott Walker
Years of Employment: "Since the turn of the century."
Jazz floor dude

Miss Ess: What initially got you into jazz?

SW: A horrible answer: I don't remember. Most probably, like many people, it was a mid-era Miles Davis [record]. Pinpointing which one, twenty something years down the road, I would only be guessing.

ME: What album do you consider to be the pinnacle of the form?

SW: To me, there are different forms: Free/Avant, Bop, Trad, so I am tempted to answer one example for each, but won't at risk of boring/alienating readers. I would say an early [Thelonious] Monk recording: one of the late 40s sessions.

ME: What present-day jazz artists do you enjoy?

SW: Seeing Marilyn Crispell last week was pretty heavy: solo piano. I like solo piano stuff a lot, it's kind of like listening to a demo of a song -- it's distilled down to an essence, whether it's Fats Waller, Monk, or Sun Ra. It's hard, because like blues, jazz is so much about re-releases and focusing on history, standards, and regurgitation.

Is there a jazz record you love that crept up on you-- maybe one you didn't love it at first but grew to adore?

I didn't like electric Miles Davis when I first heard it. It was probably parallel to when people first hear electric Dylan: "Is he really serious/allowed to do this?" Now I listen to the electric stuff more often than the acoustic.

Michelle
2 years employment
Floor Gal

Miss Ess: I know you are quite the artist. Whose music inspires your visual art? What do you like to listen to while you draw/paint?

Michelle: I have to listen to music when I draw or paint or am making something. What works best for me at the moment is drone-y, abstract, experimental sounds/different noises. I'm really into Philip Jeck's Surf album this week for sure. 
 
ME: What song describes your life perfectly right now?

Michelle: [What] describes my life perfectly right now is Reverend Al Green! Wooo hoooo! Of course! I'm in love and Al Green pops up wherever I go. One time we went to our favorite breakfast diner and they played Al Green songs the whole time we were there. Fancy beer plus fancy chocolate plus fancy Al Green equals good quality couple time.
 
ME: How did you arrive at Amoeba?

Michelle: When I graduated and got my bachelor of fine arts I quit my job at Borders that I'd [had] for my whole 5 years of college; [I was] in charge of the music department. 

Then, I applied to both the Berkeley and Haight [Street] Amoebas; I love music, it fit my schedule, and [there are] creative people all over the place. [That] is what led me to the store. I'd cut high school just to go to shop at Amoeba; I always admired the people working there too.
 
I wanted to work at the Haight [Street] store but Berkeley hired me first. I was there for about half a year and transferred over to the Haight [Street] store and here I am now.
 
ME: What was it like to meet Mick Jones when he came in the store?

John Garcia
Over 10 years employment, spread across all 3 stores!
New Product Buyer

Miss Ess: What is your pick for best release of 2008 so far?
 
John Garcia: Well, so far it is probably the rather weighty 4-CD box set on the Cleanfeed label that brought together multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton and guitarist Joe Morris together for the first time (Four Improvisations [Duo] 2007). Each disc is one solid uninterrupted hour of improvisation between these two masterful performers. They are both busy players that ironically have a keen sense of space, but they use that space very differently. Listening to them attempt to resolve those differences on the fly is big part of the fun of the album. The critic Whitney Balliett is credited with calling jazz "the sound of surprise." Under the best of circumstances, all great music has that quality somewhere.
 
Also, I am also still quite taken with the new album by the British folk group Rachel Unthank & The Winterset, Bairns. I wrote about it in the upcoming Music We Like (Fall 2008) and just as the Braxton/Morris album is complex and flitting, Unthank & Co. are relatively simple, slow-moving and austere. These qualities are their strength, vocally and instrumentally.
 
Oh yeah, and that Soft Machine DVD, Alive In Paris 1970 is pretty remarkable visually, musically and historically. It documents a performance by the rare quintet version of the band recorded for a then-new half-hour French TV music series. They were the first band featured in the series. Their set was so popular that they aired a second show using the unused footage they shot for the first show. Most of the cameras are onstage and backstage, so some of the angles are unusually intimate and intense. It is only slightly marred by the occasional overdubbed cheers and applause that, apparently, were used to disguise some of the sound editing that needed to be done. At least they resisted using the "psychedelic" special effects that intrude on so much documentary and televised footage of the period.