Brad
7ish years of Employment
Rock Buyer

This is a special farewell installment of The Employee Interview.  Don't worry-- you are not going to lose Brad's insightful blogs, it's just that we, the SF store, are losing him to the LA store this week.  Just like in baseball, he's been recruited for their team and will be moving next week. It will be quite a loss for those of us up here in SF to suffer.  Brad, we salute you!  It won't be the same without you.  But at least we will probably still get to watch the Oscars together. (If they happen-- agh what an awards show season!)

ME: What was the first concert you remember going to?

BS: Depeche Mode...Even though my seats were so far away I could barely see them it was one of the highlights of my life. It was just exciting to see that all these other people actually liked the same band as me.

I loved that feeling when I first started going to shows.  I was thinking, "Who ARE all these people?"  I've actually met so many people who work here who were at shows I was also at in the late 90s/early 2000s!  I love it.  That's how I knew Amoeba was my home.  So who was the first artist that really got you into music and why?

I am sure it was probably Morrissey and The Smiths. He was for sure the first person I was obsessed with, other than maybe Michael Jackson or Cyndi Lauper. Morrissey was the first artist where I was actually reading all the liner notes and buying all the magazines with him in it. It was fantastic as a young kid to listen to music and lyrics that you could completely relate to even though they were coming out of a man from a totally different world and reality.

Jimmy
2 years Employment
Cashier/Behind the Scenes/All Around Rad Dude

ME: What music was playing around your house when you were a kid?

Jimmy: My parents weren't really into music, but I do remember listening to and watching The Wiz a lot. A LOT! I loved it. In my mom's car, it was the Pointer Sisters. In my dad's car it was talk radio, or Metallica's Black Album, which is really psychotic because my dad is hella Catholic, and it was one of the only albums he owned!

Do you remember the moment when you suddenly really really got into music?  What was it that made you GET IT?


As soon as I discovered punk, my life totally changed forever. It wasn't just the music: I began a love affair with extreme politics and aesthetics. It was the high of using art (music, zines) and politics to go somewhere unknown. It's super weird how important music is when you're a teen. Recently, I listened to Patti Smith's Horses again, which I hadn't heard since I was a freshman in high school. I kinda freaked in my head! I remembered listening to this album, thinking I might die like Johnny in the song at any moment and that seemed really normal. Basically everything was so literal then: the music was the same as real life. Anything could happen. ('Cause I was crazy and wasted and only fifteen!)

Yeah, when that intensity of youth starts to die out, it's such a strange feeling because by then you've lived with it for so long. You grew up in Alaska. What was the music scene like in Alaska when you were growing up?  What were people into? Did they form bands? What style of music did they play?  Were there any venues in Anchorage?

The music scene was very small, only a couple punk bands that would sound like either The Ramones or Crass. (There was an all ages club in Anchorage called, stupidly enough, "Gigs." Bands would sometimes come to Alaska to play and when they did it was a big deal! I mean a total fucking hootenanny!) In high school, I was reading Maximum Rock and Roll religiously so I knew we were way behind the times.

Kaitlin
4 years employment
Photographer Extraordinaire

ME:  What was the first thing (band/song/moment) that got you into music-- like, really into music? 

KL: The Beatles and The Beach Boys are my earliest music memories.  Actually, I still have a Shirley Temple record that was the one record I would beg my dad to play for me.  “The Good Ship Lollipop” was my song!

ME:  Seeing as you are one of the biggest Beatles fans currently working here, I think this is a really important question for you:  Who is your favorite Beatle and why?

KL:  George.  I wept the day he died.  I think I always identified with him.  John was wonderful, but in a more outspoken way, whereas George was always thoughtful and understated.  He lived his live quietly and peacefully.  I once cut a quote out of a magazine where George tells what he said to the intruder who stabbed him at home: “I just shouted 'Hare krishna, hare krishna!'”  Oh, George.

ME: Yeah he really was the Dark Horse.  Which Beatles track is your favorite?

KL:  Well, there is a different answer every day, but “For You Blue” on Let It Be is one of my favorite George tracks.  “Cry Baby Cry” on the White Album.  “I’m Only Sleeping” on Revolver-- I dig the backwards guitar.

Naomi
9 years employment
Promotions Diva

ME:  I love learning about what has formed people's musical taste.  What kind of music were your parents listening to when you were growing up?

NS: I can't tell you how many Santana concerts I've been to. During my toddler years we listened to the good stuff. My mom was all about salsa, Banda and Freddy Fender. My pops fancied himself to be somewhat of a Pachuco, so it was all about the oldies! Later, in their quest to become more Americanized, we were subjected to the likes of Juice Newton and Sammy Hagar.  Then my parents got divorced and my dad thought he was the Urban Cowboy, so it became all country all the time during our visits, which wasn't so bad. But Ronnie Milsap can be a bit depressing when you're a kid.

I know you have 2 older sisters.  What were they into listening to? Did they have any influence on your listening tastes?

Hmmm, good question. They're 9 & 10 years older than me, so we had very different taste. They mostly listened to rock and metal, but the oldest used to get down back in the day to some disco and soul (let's just say that we spent a few nights working out routines to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack).  The other one was more into the punk classics. I remember when I was 6 my sisters battled out the stereo time between Journey's Escape and the Adolescents. There was no space for me, until I discovered the misunderstood world of teenage angst music. I was sure that The Smiths and The Three O-Clock were writing songs for me. I dyed my hair and shaved my head, only to become the butt of all jokes at the dinner table. 

Who was the first artist you became obsessed with, that really got you into music?

Audra
4 Months Employment
Promotions

Hi Audra!  So you are new here-- let's get to it.  What was going on at your parents' house when you were a kid in Fresno?

Thanks---now everyone will know I'm from Fresno! Ha ha. My parents' house was and still is a treasure trove of antiques and general garbage. Under their influence, I became a collector at an early age -- mostly in order to fit in. When my parents took me "garage sailing," I'd always pick up old Mad Magazines from the 50's and 60's. I had a pretty huge collection. I'd mostly stay inside and try to laugh at the jokes about Eisenhower. 

Did your sister have any influence on your musical taste?

Absolutely! She's eight years older than me and very musical, so she was all about playing her records. My first 7 or 8 years, it was Beatles non-stop, and then it was Bauhaus and Nina Hagen. I stole all of her records when she moved out. I was about 13 then and I started playing Bauhaus' In a Flat Field endlessly. It was also right around then that I discovered my grandmother's old '78s of jazz and klezmer recordings. Some how punk, death-rock, Judaica, and the 20's and 30's all got smooshed together in my world view.
 
I love it.  That makes total sense.  What was the first concert you ever went to?