By Spensaur Cooper
Photos by Spensaur Cooper & Gene Bae 

The 5th Annual Record Store Day provided Amoeba Berkeley with a reminder that the East Bay loves its music. An hour prior to open on that beautiful Saturday morning, folks had already created a line that passed Cafe Mediterranean, and for good reason too.

Record labels big and small released hundreds of titles specifically for Record Store Day this year. In Berkeley, we seemed to have more titles than we ever had before so instead of our normal corral set up, we provided a few different stations in the center of the store to accommodate the overflowing of new releases. Highlights from our shipments included The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends LP, Phish's Junta Deluxe (Pollock Version) LP, Devo's Live in Seattle 1981 LP, Lee Hazlewood's The LHI Years LP, The Pharcyde's Bizzarre Ride II, as well as countless others.

As the line from outside poured into our RSD aisles, things got hectic but customers worked together, handing albums to others who could not reach and looking out for their fellow record enthusiasts. 

Beginning at noon we kicked off our afternoon of DJ sets with Mike Schulman, head honcho of Slumberland Records, who played everything from cheery reverberant pop, to darker 80's post-punk and even some rocksteady ska to round out his hour.

Last Monday (Dec 15) was an important day for both Jesse "Luscious" Townley and the City of Berkeley. It was the date when, immediately before the first Rent Board meeting since the November 4th election in which Townley got elected to office, that the punk rocker-turned-politician got sworn in to his new position as City of Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner. One of five elected to this position, Townley stands out because of his rich and colorful background and unprecedented deep rooted commitment to Berkeley and its citizens.

Townley, who migrated to Berkeley from Philadelphia back in 1989, initially came out West to attend the San Francisco Anarchist Gatheriing -- but he liked it so much in Berkeley that he never left. From 1989 to 1990 he published the punk zine Berkeley Sucks. Over the years he has volunteered countless hours at 924 Gilman Street. He has also played on the stage at Gilman as a member of such East Bay punk bands as Blatz, The Gr'ups, The Criminals, and most recently The Frisk (who appeared on the Amoeba Music Compilation series). Over the years Jesse has also gained invaluable experience putting in time at local punk labels. He has worked at both Lookout Records and Alternative Tentacles (where he still works) and for a time, along with his partner Kamala, ran his own label Zafio Records.