Once again Amoeba Music has been immortalized in song. This time it is courtesy of the brand new album Show You The World by Cali hip-hopper The Grouch (out tomorrow, April 8, when he and the whole Living Legends crew will perform for free at Amoeba Hollywood @ 7PM).   Amoeba Music is name-checked in the song "The Bay To L.A." that features fellow Living Legends crew emcee MURS. The song -- off the 15-song new album from the LA artist with deep Bay Area history, not to mention Amoeba history, since we were the first store to carry the once struggling mid-1990's young hip-hop collective -- includes the lyrics, "the Bay to LA, like Amoeba player" - and with its distinctly Bay Area- flavored, synth-drenched infectious beat and catchy lyrics, "The Bay To LA" is the hit of the summer of 2008 just waiting to happen. I bet money on it. 

Also on the recommended new album from The Grouch is the observantly sharp & witty song "Artsy" (with lots of LA references) which has an equally great video (shot reportedly for just $3000), which you can see above. And the new Grouch album, his first since his collab with Zion I two years ago and his first solo in five years, is influenced greatly by the 2006 arrival in his life of his young daughter Rio, who is featured both on the album's cover art (see left) and on the new release's intro track.  The album and also the Living Legends new hip-hop collective project, The Gathering, are both on Legendary Music and are both dropping tomorrow (April 8th). To celebrate the two new releases, the entire collective will perform a free show at Amoeba Music Hollywood at 7PM which will be streamed (audio/video) live via this website. Don't miss it!

One of the central figures in The Beatles' lives and career died yesterday. 



Neil Aspinall went to school with Paul McCartney and George Harrison and he remained a trusted confidante until the end.  Neil worked as a personal assistant and road manager to the Beatles throughout their rise to fame and became an indispensable member of their inner circle.  When the boys formed Apple in 1968, they made Neil Chief Executive.  I remember reading somewhere that Neil had no idea what that meant or what precisely he was supposed to do, but in the halcyon days of the late 60s, it was anything goes and he managed to make it work as best he could, though Apple Corps is known to have leeched money from the get-go.

Nonetheless, Neil remained at Apple until last year.  He must have figured out the way to run the company successfully because he saw Apple through the breakup of the Beatles all the way to the lawsuits against Apple Computers and Steve Jobs.  He was behind the fantastic Beatles Anthology series, and contributed his own set of interviews to the documentaries, which was one of the few times he allowed himself to be seen on camera talking about his career.

Perhaps the holiday season has already taken something of a toll on my psyche, (though I do little shopping and I’m more or less done), I’m feeling a tad bit overwhelmed these last few days. I think it’s mostly due to the fact that my trusted computer is in the shop for some repairs, as is my guitar amp … and I think every electronic gadget I own. And on top of that, someone hacked into my own Myspace account. And today a plumber is suppose to show up and take care of a few problems we have here at the old homestead, but how often do plumbers actually show up on the day scheduled, and on time? I should perhaps lighten the mood, quit the blather - or just step boldly forth and augment the blather, and mention that I’m really fond of old school fear inducing literature on subjects like culture shock and modern paranoia, media paranoia, ("the medium is the message") … (my personal favorite faux-cultural-analytical phrase: “media derived fantasies”), conspiratorial governments, and discourses on the mechanization of middle class culture on their efforts to mute class … basically anything on the spooky-spooky future. I’ll just quote some Alvin Toffler here and put up a pretty picture of a galactic spiral. I’ll feel better. Hey, I do feel better!

"Man has a limited biological capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity is in future shock."

In short the definition of future shock is a personal sensitivity to "too much change in too short a period of time". I think Toffler is speaking to me directly, and that’s not a good sign!

I recently came across one of Toffler’s old books in a thrift store, The Third Wave. I glanced through it, and it’s not as richly paranoid as I would like it to be- I need more suspicion. If I was on my own computer, I could just click over to some eerie bookmarked pages, and just settle in with a nice cup of Earl Grey tea. There is a crumb of comfort there, don’t know why, but on some of these sites I find just enough soothing reassurance that whatever the hell is going on, seems to keep right on going on. It’s a disquieting assurance, yes, but it’s consistent, besides you know in this day and age you grab whatever peace you can find, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now ... here's looking at you kid.  

Damn!  It's already November 8th!  Where did the time go?  It seems like only yesterday when this AMOEBLOG corner of the Amoeba Music website started up. But actually it has been jumping off since March of this year - not that long ago, true,  but long enough for the accumulation of a bounty of ever-engaging AMOEBLOGS covering oodles of different topics (music and otherwise) from a stable of gifted and insightful AMOEBLOGGER's including (but not limited to) Mike Battaglia, Job O Brother, Brad Schelden, phil blankenship, Miss Ess, Gomez Comes Alive, Whitmore, and the Bay Area Crew. In all there are hundreds and hundreds (well in excess of a thousand) of AMOEBLOGS posted and available to read in the Archives right here. Just for me alone there are 170 AMOEBLOGS archived and I am only one of a dozen active AMOEBLOGGERs.


Glancing back at some of these AMOEBLOGS I have posted since May I think it is time that I should follow up on a few of them.  First up was the AMOEBLOG  (one of several) posted about the historic Paul McCartney instore at the Amoeba Music Hollywood store on June 27th that generated a ton of COMMENTS from Amoeba shoppers who were lucky to make it inside to witness the former Beatle's memorable performance. Anyways the follow up, good news, is that next week (November 13th) one of the songs from Paul's performance that day ("I Saw Her Standing There") will be released on an extremely limited edition, 12" vinyl only release, titled Amoeba's Secret. This Paul McCartney maxi-single will feature the four songs: “Only Mama Knows” & "That Was Me" (both from his latest release) plus ”C Moon” (the classic Paul McCartney & Wings song), and of course the live-at-Amoeba track, .  The sure to be highly collectable, vinyl-only Amoeba's Secret will be available in all three Amoeba Music stores next  Tuesday (11/13) and also here at   amoeba.com - priced at $6.98. (Note: that this rare release will not be released digitally or as a CD and since it is limited is bound to sell out fast)

Back in 1964 when the Beatles came to the US and Canada they caused hysteria among their fans - including many girls and some of their grandmas while (as is the case in this video clip at least c/o Canada's CBC TV) their boyfriends were often jealous and more in favor of Peter, Paul, & Mary.