Sometimes nothing brings more pride and satisfaction to the Amoeba Music experience than browsing the selections in vinyl new arrivals and finding a classic, diamond-in-the-rough title like Now by Kim Jung Mi and songwriter/producer/arranger/guitar shaman Shin Joong Hyun properly reissued with loving care!

Amoeba Berkeley recently bought a large LP collection from a Bay Area collector of mostly Rock and Oldies (with some Soul and Jazz) going back as much as 50 years. It includes many unusual titles and deep catalogue all brought at very fair prices. It's a collection for the imagination to run wild. These titles hit the floor for the first time on Black Friday (November 25) at Amoeba Berkeley!


"This collection is somewhat of a time capsule in nature. A mostly rock collection that I might have seen in the early '80s. Lots of interesting/unusual items that were probably passed by at that time, but now hold intrigue. Some wall items are mega-rare, mostly in the rock/psych rock arena." - Amoeba Kent


   

In a hallmark episode of Mad Men Don Draper said, "Nostalgia -- it's delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, 'nostalgia' literally means 'the pain from an old wound.' It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels – around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved."

Of course, for all of you out there who, unlike me, don't voraciously follow the AMC series, Don was pitching an ad for a slide projector (nostalgia, indeed) to a potential client. However, I like to think that this quote speaks of yet another rotary mechanism with equal validity, both practically and emotionally speaking, though there may be some folks who'd argue the dingus as obsolete. Well, my record player is still alive and spinning, taking me to new places as often as it swings me back, right 'round, home-bound again like a flawlessly sound-tracked time machine. I can offer no better example of this cyclical sentimental journey than the summer season I spent aboard my little hi-fi this year enjoying an endless rotation summer jams beginning with the fresh sun-soaked (and smog-stained) sounds of Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti, what with the extremely timely June 7th release of Before Today on 4AD, and, now that summer is winding down, rounding out the season with a mess of Carolina beach music 7" singles culled from the belly of the 45's bargain bin at Amoeba Music in San Francisco.