This month we are celebrating 20 years of Amoeba! It's our anniversary! And one of the ways we wanted to celebrate was by highlighting here for you some of our best, most memorable instores of all time! We have been so lucky over the years -- we've hosted shows, signings and events with Paul McCartney, Queens of the Stone Age, The Shins, Flight of the Conchords, John Waters, The Gossip and zillions more. You can find video footage and interviews from many of our instores right here! Read on to find out what three of our most seasoned instore reviewers thought were some of our very greatest.

But first, get further immersed in our 20th Anniversary! To check out our first Anniversary blog post, with testimonials from some of our favorite customers, click here! Our second Anniversary post is an interview with co-owner Marc Weinstein about getting the Berkeley store off the ground all the way back in 1990 and what Amoeba means to him. Read it right here. Our third Anniversary post includes Top 10 lists from some of our old skool employees -- click here to check out their favorites in music and movies from the past 20 years!

Continue reading...

The Castro Theater premiere of Joshua Grannell (aka Peaches Christ)'s brand new film All About Evil was truly the all-out extravaganza of the year here in San Francisco! The 1400 seat historic Castro Theater sold out in record time, and the line was insane outside before the show -- all the way down Castro Street, down 17th Street, and curving around onto at least half of Hartford Street! The line was jammed full of Peaches Christ fans -- some in drag, some wearing wigs, some gothed up, all beside themselves with excited anticipation to feast their eyes upon Joshua's film, which is about a former librarian turned small theater owner whose mantra at ANY cost, even the lives of others in the name of entertainment, is "The show must go on!"


Search lights added to the premiere ambiance as the crowd gathered and the huge "rush" line for those who did not already have tickets was stretching along Castro Street as well. Peaches Christ arrived, stepping onto the red carpet with her flawed sidekick Martiny and a host of actors from the movie, including Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Dekker, Mink Stole and more! There were cameras everywhere, capturing the moment for an upcoming documentary of this world premiere event. I ran into the ever-amazing local legend Timmy Spence, who has a small role in the film as the principal of the high school, and he was beyond excited!

Many of the artists performing at Coachella 2010 have performed live and/or shopped at Amoeba, including John Waters, Dave Grohl, Boots Riley, Aterciopelados, Sia, Vampire Weekend and more!

Check out their instore performance videos, interviews, and What's In My Bag? features right here in Part 1, and get a little insight into these artists' inspirations, what they listen to, and their music! To see Part 2, with Steve Malkmus of Pavement, Zoe, The Soft Pack and more, go here!

Dave Grohl of Them Crooked Vultures - What's In My Bag?

John Waters - Interview

So many amazing artists have performed live at Amoeba over the years!

While they are at our stores we like to take some time to get to know 'em a little better by having interviews, which we capture on video because we want you to have as much access as us! Check out just sampling of the MANY great artist interviews we have on our website below! For even more interviews click here! 

The dance of the day is the once phenomenally popular, albeit highly controversial, "dirty boogie" dance. This clip is from the classic John Waters' 1988 movie Hairspray, in which Ricki Lake's "pleasantly plump" teenaged character Tracy Turnblad and her peers are shaking their thing down in the aisles of Baltimore's small but packed Motormouth Records store in a racially tense America, circa 1962. 

The dance part is for the first minute or so of the above clip, which is a nine minute unedited excerpt from the recommended Waters movie which, as you know, was remade last year by director Adam Shankman with John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, & Christopher Walken, etc. Personally I much prefer the original. Both versions are available on DVD @ Amoeba Music. Ask for help if you cannot locate. Note however that the CD/LP soundtrack of the 1988 Hairspray, also available at Ameoba, does not include the song featured during this dance. And if you missed it the first time around, peep the video below of the interview with John Waters below during his Amoeba Music Hollywood instore last year in support of his CD A Date With John Waters (New Line Records).