Britsih rockers Django Django visited Amoeba Hollywood for another special episode of "What's In My Bag?." These guys are serious about their wax selections. From classic '90s house vinyl, including the likes of Roy Davis Jr, to rock favorites like the Meat Puppets, it was strictly vinyl for this bunch. Watch and find out which Django Django member is a Golden Era Hip Hop head and a lover of disco greats like Giorgio Moroder!

                 

Django Django - What's In My Bag?
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Our amazing “What’s In My Bag?” series has been nominated for Best Online Film & Video: Variety Show in the prestigious Webby Awards!!! We’re the underdog facing stiff competition from Conan O’Brien and Rainn Wilson. Not to mention MIT and Fandango rounding out the field. Please vote and help us win the People’s Voice Award!

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From the April Fools' Dept...

It is now official.

The entire vinyl collection of one of the greatest DJs of our time is going on sale today at Amoeba Hollywood. Internationally known DJ, Cut Chemist, decided to sell his entire record collection a few weeks back to Amoeba Hollywood. The collection is approximately 40 thousand LPs, 12s, 45s and acetates, which has been hidden in the Amoeba warehouse underneath stacks of clearance DVD's so that no employees would get to them before the public. Also, as part of the agreement that Amoeba has with Cut Chemist, we agreed that would keep the sale of his collection a secret until today. This was done at Cut's request, so that everyone would get an equal chance at buying these records with no special preferences given to employees, famous DJs or private collectors.

As you can imagine, the collection is immense, with every record you could ever want from any genre you can name. Rare funk 45s, first edition Reggae and Hip-Hop records, obscure private press Free Jazz and folk LPs, International records from Africa, Brazil and Colombia, with every great Salsa, Cumbia and Afro-Beat record ever made. Also many first edition punk/post punk and goth records (which I didn't know he collected) and every collectible soundtrack, prog and psyche LPs that one could ever want. About seventy five percent of these records that I saw would go for hundreds of dollars on E-Bay, and this is just the first few crates into this incredible collection!

Thanks to Arizona based vinyl artist Daniel Edlen stumbling upon the recent Amoeblog on the work done by fellow vinyl artist / Amoeba Hollywood customer Colton Tran (Making Art Out of Records with Colton Tran of TransylVinyl & Broken Vinyl Record Art) I was introduced to the equally (although very different in composition) vinyl art of the SoCal born and raised Edlen. "Good to see someone else do something distinctive with records," posted Edlen in the comments of that Amoeblog on Colton Tran. Since then I have been fully introduced to Edlen's amazing vinyl art, like the Prince piece above, for which he utilizes straight acrylic paint and, as he jokes, "a cheap brush" to painstakingly create this beautiful art on 12" records. Edlen, who accurately describes his work as "creating art on the artifacts of creativity,"  has much of his art on view via his main website.

Dave Paul (Bomb Hip-Hop/The Prince & Experience) is among the vinyl artist's many fans/collectors. "The appeal to me of Elden's work was the artist's face hand painted on the record," said Paul who has bought two pieces of Edlen's art. Like fellow vinyl artist Colton Tran, Edlen is also a major Amoeba Music fan: one of the things I asked him about when I caught up with him recently to talk to the Amoeblog. In that interview, that follows below the video clip of him making his art, I also asked him about the details of creation of his vinyl art, his musician subjects, and his work with both the David Lynch Foundation and VH1 Save The Music.

Unlike the fictional Oakland record store Brokeland Records from the new book Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon, the just opened Stranded is a very real Telegraph Ave., Oakland record store. Opened only in the past few weeks Stranded is already off to most impressive start.

Without a big advertising push but based purely on word of mouth and social networking updates this inviting new record store, located on Telegraph Ave. on the corner of 65th St. a block down from Alcatraz towards Berkeley in North Oakland, has already enjoyed a steady stream of vinyl diggers for its excellent diverse selection of new and used, rare and unusual records. Not only that but Stranded, which has some cool in-stores scheduled, has already produced and promoted a show with the impressive electronic line-up of Neung Phak with Dieter Moebius (Kluster/Harmonia) and Negativ(Wobbly)land that was held across the street at the White Horse Bar. This weekend, Saturday October 20th at 3:30pm Stranded will present the first of many in-store performances when Penelope Houston (The Avengers) will be playing music and Chris D. (Flesh Eaters) will be reading recent works.