Be sure to tune into KPFK radio tomorrow when Amoeba Hollywood's own Rick Frystak will spin a special two hour set of some of what the ever knowledgeable Amoeba buyer, avid music collector, musician, composer, DJ, and Amoeblogger promises will be a mix of his "favorite internationalist esoterica along with a bit of obscure holiday sounds and greetings." Frystak, who hosts the weekend morning KPFK show Roots and Beyond every second Saturday, will be filling in for Derek Rath's on The Global Village tomorrow Monday, December 24th from 11am to 1pm.

One of the go-to buyers at Amoeba Rick Frystak, who helped open the Amoeba Hollywood store eleven years ago, is a four-decade strong music business veteran who lives and breathes music. Hence he makes for the perfect radio DJ in a setting like Pacifica's KPFK that's not restricted by rigid formats but rather allows its DJs the freedom to program their own shows and take them into whatever direction they see fit during each live broadcast. Today I caught up with Rick Frystak, who also DJ's party gigs - most notably a string of year-end parties for the World Arts and Culture Department of UCLA, to ask him about his approach to putting together music sets, and what to expect during tomorrow's show on KPFK.
  
Amoeblog: Who are some of the artists you will be playing?

  All photos by Kaitlin Layher.

On Friday, May 4th, Amoeba celebrated the diverse talents of the Amoeba family with over 20 Amoeba artists from all three of our stores (and even a few Amoeba graduates) at the fifth annual Amoeba Art Show.

Finding the perfect location for the event turned out to be a breeze as former Amoebite Ryan Stark

Ryan Stark

generously donated the site of his future cafe Black Spring on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland. The cafe isn't scheduled to open until mid-summer after Ryan gets back from touring with his band ++++ (you can see them play at The New Parish with Ceremony on May 27th, by the way), so the spacious and empty future home of Black Spring was ideal for filling with art, DJs, and friends of Amoeba. Ryan even provided a special drip coffee preview for those curious about what's to come in a few months and spoke about plans to feature a new artist every month on the walls of Black Spring.

Guests arriving to the Art Show were greeted by The Postcard Machine (Possibly From The Future), who dispensed original art postcards for just $2. This crafty "machine" also made small talk via microphone to passers-by. Inside, the joint was jumping from 6pm to 11pm, and was punctuated by a couple of performances by glamorous belly dancers Julie Rea and Jessie Loring.

	The Postcard Machine (Possibly From The Future)

Julie Rea and Jessie Loring

DJ Spencer

As DJs Spencer, Rob, and Michael Henning played all vinyl sets (of course) and vegan cupcakes (works of art themselves)were sold by Fat Bottom Bakery, guests

DJ Michael Henning

perused the diverse collection of Amoebite art that adorned the walls of the entry hallway and main room. The range in both style and format throughout the collection was truly stunning, from collage and mirror work by Dereck Donohue to oil painting on wood by Lori Beth Katz to a surfboard collaboration by Billy Sprague and Shahram Imen to photography by Gabriel Wheeler, Kaitlin Layher, Kelly Sweeney Osato, Roberto, Jonah Tice, and Rick Frystak.

If the late great hip-hop producer & famed crate digger J Dilla were alive today he would have been the first in line at Amoeba Hollywood (or first online at the Amoeba.Com store) to scoop up the endless extremely rare vinyl gems that make up the absolutely amazing, treasure trove of "library music" recently acquired by Amoeba. This very rare specialized record collection is of interest to producers, DJs, and avid crate-diggers eternally looking for that never before discovered, perfect beat or sound to sample or manipulate in the mix.

Quietly unveiled a little on June 17th both online and in the Hollywood Amoeba store (in the main room "sampler" aisle + a full bin's worth in the back jazz room) word has not yet really gotten out on this unprecedented collection that will make any true crate digger salivate for days. So there's still time to unearth lots of golden finds among the close to 2000 different vinyl records from this collection that is so rare that Google searches will only lead to data on about a quarter of these rarities that found their way to Amoeba Music care of a Canadian distributor / collector who had been sitting on this rare collection for three decades.
 
Amoeblogger Mr. Chadwick recently described this "music library" collection as; "These LPs contain music produced and owned by production music companies, who licensed the music to film, television, radio, record producers, and other composers. The music was produced with the most accurate attention to a generic style or context, so that it would fit with any precise musical needs of the user." Extremely limited in their respective vinyl pressings the companies who made these sound library collections include the likes of Colorsound, Hibou, Spectrum, Intersound, Telemusic, and Intl. SFX, and boast rare titles like Commercial Music Bed Series by Interwestern Production Music Corp.

In celebration of the Amoeba Hollywood Jazz Blowout sale, I’ve been spending time on my computer checking out older Jazz videos. In the process, I have rediscovered the many great performances from the Montreux Jazz Festival, which is held in Switzerland during the month of July. The festival, which started in 1967, was originally held at the old Montreux Casino until, of course, it burned down in 1971. The fire was apparently caused by “some stupid with a flare gun” while Frank Zappa was playing. You might heard about it in a little ditty by Deep Purple called “Smoke On The Water.” The casino was rebuilt but due to the enormity of the festival, it is now held at the larger Convention Centre in Montreux with two main stages and several small stages.

Perhaps every legendary jazz artist you can think of has played Montreux. Over the years the festival has become less about jazz and has opened its doors to all kinds of music. Still, for any musician, this is the place to be seen. Over two hundred thousand people attend the festival every year and even more see the performances via television, web casts and through the many DVDs that have been released over the years.

Just watching the highlights of the forty-two year history of the festival on Youtube was overwhelming. There have been thousands of solos of all kinds and excellent musicianship throughout; however, it's the vocalists that provide some of my favorites performances. I picked three videos that feature Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone and Elis Regina.