Take a break from the holiday madness and check out this fine collection of sign shaped stickers...

Starting off with a couple of soulful street signs from duos McFadden & Whitehead as well as Ashford & Simpson...










Now a couple of very similar highway signs from fairly dissimilar acts...







This Ramones sticker is actually kinda rare and it fits into a couple of other categories which I'm working on right now...movie tie-ins and collectible stickers....

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This is really creepy.

Linda S. Stein, ex wife of Seymour Stein, the head of Sire Records (Morrissey, Madonna, Talking Heads, etc), was found dead in her ultra ritzy NYC apartment on Tuesday.  She was bludgeoned to death.  No one knows why she was killed or who killed her.


Linda (on the left) was a manager of the Ramones and a major player in the 70s NYC rock scene.  Just a few weeks ago I randomly saw her profiled on some cable show about high end real estate, as she had become a high rollin' "real estate agent to the stars" (like Billy Joel and Sting) -- it seems really strange that someone would kill her.  I mean, they must have somehow gotten past all the security in her high class building and waited for her in her own apartment.  Freaky.  If the mystery ever gets solved, I will post what happened here.  But something weird is afoot.

Audra
4 Months Employment
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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?

Hilly Kristal has died.

Apparently he had lung cancer. 

It's sad to me that after fighting for years to save the seminal punk club he founded, CBGB's, and losing that battle, he then lost his life less than a year later. 

He was 75 years old.

R.I.P Hilly.


Here's a performance by the Ramones at CBGB in 1977.



And here's Blondie performing there the same year:





It's lame and depressing how almost all the cool parts of New York City are being swallowed up by rents and landlords and all that gentrifying junk.

The first time I ever went to NYC I was 19 years old and super wide eyed and I dragged my friends to CBGB.  I coulda sworn I could still smell Lou Reed and Dee Dee Ramone in the dirt coating the street there in the Bowery.  We didn't have fake IDs and we were obviously too young to get in to the club but I went into the shop next door and got a shirt and wore it proudly for about 5 years....until Hot Topic started hawking them and every mall rat across America suddenly had one...Everything rock n roll started to feel even more hollow at that point.

Located on Telegraph Avenue near 66th Street in North Oakalnd, close to the Berkeley border,  is the uniique hair salon and vintage boutique Down At Lulu's - which is owned and run by the fun music-minded duo of Tina Lucchesi and Seth Bogart - two good friends who both happen to love music, fashion, hairdressing, and retro rock culture. They also clearly love what they do at Down At Lulu's which, while only a little over a year old, has won a Best of the Bay award and gained a strong clientele. The store which is located roughly midway between the White Horse pub and the Smokehouse burger joint, has an ever festive storefront window with the large glittery words GABBA GABBA HEY - a nod to one of their mutually favorite bands, the Ramones.  Inside are records (not a whole lot but carefully selected ones), cool clothing, and of course the hair styling stations.  I recently stopped by the store and caught up with Tina (Seth was away on tour with his band) who talked about Down At Lulu's, and about her's and Seth's interests and passions - especially music.

  AMOEBLOG: How would you describe Down At Lulus to someone who has never seen it?
TINA:  Hmmm !!! A John Waters, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Rock N Roll High School, the Madonna Inn Rock N Roll Burrito!

AMOEBLOG: How exactly did Down At Lulu's come into being?
TINA:  Seth and I have been pals and interested in the same sort of everything: rock'n'roll, hairdressing, the sixties and the seventies, and the eightes - fashion from those eras, as well as hamburgers, Mexican food, the Ramones, girl-groups, boys, boys, boys and men! We had the same vision I think so we decided 'Hey let's do this!"  We are both totally thrift-store maniacs but the hairdressing is our money-maker. So we thought why not combine the two and make it an all round good times and fun?  Work must be fun so why not make it that way if you can?