I'm finished with Amoeba.

San Diego: more dumb rednecks in monster trucks than you can shake a stick at, that about says it all for San Diego, IMO

 

Well El Cajon is not really San Diego.

 

Re record store clerks

i hear ya. i have a friend who worked at Amoeba for three years. maybe we can have a chat at Yahoo and she can address all of the CRAP she had to put up with from Amoeba shoppers. i'd turn into a righteous dick in a New York minute, too, if i were her. the whole notion of 'the customer is always right' is a bit anachronistic in today's uncivil society (at least in big cities). giving the benefit of the doubt is more like it, but the customer is definitely not 'always right'.

PS. today's Amoeba find:

• Todd Rundgren - Runt - The Ballad of Todd Rundgren (Ampex 1971, $4 and not a bootleg, sleeve VG/record M-)

 

If that's all you can take away from living in SD then I feel very sorry for you.

 

If you want rude, go to PREX. PREX is very hit or miss. And it's no Amoeba either in size or selection.

 

Interesting observations. Real estate costs have always kept record stores on the small side and nowadays New Yorkers seem particularly eager to switchover to mp3 and unload their music collections... probably to free-up some valuable space in their "cozy" apartments.

The club scene has become dispersed... there are probably more interesting clubs in Brooklyn now than Manhattan. Tonic was drummed out of business recently by the landowners and clubs like Brownies have closed and become rank-and-file neighborhood bars... it's a more profitable business model than selling drinks only to those customers who are willing to pay a cover charge for the bands.

And you're right about the brewery thing... that never gained any traction here. There was one place down in Soho that started years ago, but even as a beer drinker I only went there once. I think there's a place on Union Square too - Heartland Brewery or something.

Many of the things I love about NYC are changing or disappearing.

 

Here's a quote i found on a website listing the shops in Dublin to check out.

I think it covers about all the posts in this thread:

''Yes, Comet USED to be great but hasn't been for about 4 years now. I remeMber the staff used to be really grumpy. They had that knack of making you feel completely stupid anytime you asked a question or (God forbid) asked to listen to something. However I'd prefer the grumpy staff if they still had the good tunes.''

LONG LIVE AMOEBA!

JG

 

I don't know about the record stores in Ireland, but you sure have lots of great brews to go around!

 

My finds from Amoebas LA two days ago:
Elvis "His Hand In Mine" original mono $5.99
Bjork "Post" WLP $20
Bob Dylan "Blood On The Tracks" Japanese w/OBI $9.99
Beatles "Let It Be" first 2U/2U red apple logo on back for $7.99 (notice the avatar?)
plus a few I don't recall at this hour...

 

Ha -- you have me to thank for that!

I saw that on Tuesday night and passed (I already have a "first 2U/2U red apple logo on back" of it, but considered buying it to sell in the Classifieds).

 

Thank you kind sir!

 

Just think how much more money would be made on one end and saved on the other if the two of you had dealt directly with one another!

 

I went up to L.A. over the weekend and actually hung out with a knowlegable older guy who works there, who's a friend of my friend. I told him about what was being discussed on this forum. He said Amoeba like everyone else is feeling the squeeze of competition from the internet. Most interestingly, he said that there's around 250 people who work there and that each employee has a certain amount of "indefinate holds" on anything they see before it goes in the bins. He said that practically everyone is over their hold limit, so multiply whatever that is (10? 15? 20?) by 250 and you'll know why there doesn't seem to be any good finds there anymore. He also said that a lot of the newer, younger hires aren't really knowledgable about music beyond the current alterna-tripe, so maybe that's a good thing. I for one didn't find anything except 2 Herbie Mann CDs and everything I was interested in that was used wasn't cheap at all like I would assume it would be about 3 years ago. I think San Francisco and Berkeley always had a better selection of used stuff than L.A., though, but I haven't been there in 3 years....

 

Not too long ago, the only way to sell your old music was to either place an ad in some sort of printed media, or take your lps and cds to a music store. that is no longer happening.

 

I like the place a lot. Very, very grateful they're there. May that be the case for a long time to come.....

Lonnie

 

That can happen here in Berkeley, too. The trick is to get into the store after the manager throws a fit and puts all the holds back out. It happens There are probably only 10 staff per store with those 'hold' privileges.

Previous poster is right about the knowledge, though. Almost everyone in the stores I'm familiar with has a different agenda - some are collecting, some acquiring for investment, some are on their fifth UK pink Nick Drake, or King Crimson.. and some really either have enough or don't care. I've seen some stacks of Butcher covers. . And fortunately I have a very wide taste band from UK punk through to vintage and modern audiophile classical and jazz so I can always find something good.

 

I visited Amoeba on Telegraph last week and came up with a pretty good selection of used vinyl, all first editions, for about $20 total:

Stones - Aftermath, Hot Rocks vol. 2
Beach Boys - Today!, Live in London, 15 Big Ones

However, a new CD copy of the Sundazed Gene Clark and the Gosdin Brothers reissue went for a whopping $15.98. I normally would never pay that much for a domestic CD, but I just had to have it that day so that I could hear the new bonus tracks.

The self-titled Boxcar Racer cd was available used for $3.99 so I nabbed that as well, and while waiting in line I grabbed the re-issued cd versions of Forever Changes and Surrealistic Pillow for $8.98 each. Not bad!

So basically, the bargains are there if you look for them, and I'm thankful to have Amoeba (as well as Rasputin's) around.

Regarding staff, I guess a few people at the register have seemed kind of snooty, but that's pretty common around these parts. (Seems the phrase "you're welcome" has left the retail vernacular lately!)

 

I once took 80--EIGHTY--LPs to the Amoeba in Hollywood to sell and even left them there overnight so they could look them over and make me an offer. Guess what? They said "we don't want any of them." And this was not garbage.

However, this is the only problem I have ever had there. Amoeba has really been a Godsend for me. Every time I walk in that place I find something I've been hunting down for years and years.

I haven't had the problem others have had with "overpriced" used stuff. Quite the contrary. The first time I walked in, I got a Bis CD that had been out of print for years for a mere five bucks.

I have paid more than that for rare CDs there, but the price is usually justified. For instance, XTC's long out of print "Dear God" CD EP was $15, as were both of the very rare Japanese import CDs of the Plastics' albums (JPN CDs normally go for $30 and up, new).

I got a used "Pet Sounds" box there in pristine condition for about $30. Also found a near mint copy of the original UK vinyl of Thomas Dolby's "The Golden Age Of Wireless" for $3.

I could go on...

 

I've had this problem with one record store in town a couple of times. The in-print edition of the Halloween soundscore on CD was listed as "original pressing, out of print, very rare!" for like 25 or 30 bucks. They were selling the same thing at Barnes and Nobles for like 15 bucks. You gotta be really careful when going to these shops.

 

Hmmmm . . . a revival of a seven year old thread.

I'd say that since 2007, Berkeley Amoeba has gone downhill in a big way. Mind you, it was one of my favorite buy/trade/used stores in the 1990's, thanks to a generous trade-in policy and a constant flow of promos into the pool of 'used' recordings. But the Cut-out circus is no more, and as a classical music fan the upshot is that Berkeley Amoeba has ceased to be a 'Classical Music' record store. The last I looked, two years ago, there was no new stock, the classical room upstairs had been converted to office space and what was left of the classical department was dumped in the darkest back corner of the store. What can I say? Berkeley ain't what it used to be.

San Francisco Amoeba still holds its end up, but most classical music CDs appear to be collected via Amazon and its ilk, hard to find new classical titles in brick and mortar outlets. San Francisco Amoeba still has plenty of Classical LPs but that stock is eroding and not increasing in number.

I now live in Fresno. The local Rasputin's oddly enough is one of the better stores in that chain, go figure.

 

Went to Amoeba SF recently for the first time since this thread was started. Looked to me like the vinyl section was picked over much more than it used to be, but Vinyl collecting has gone sky high since 2007, so i am not surprised

 

I usually have better luck at Rasputin's in Berkeley rather than in Amoeba there. The Amoeba SF will occasionally have stuff I'm looking for but it seems that the stUff I really want is overpriced IMHO.

When I used to drive to see customers in Stockton, I often found more interesting stuff there at Rasputin's rather than SF by comparison and the last time I was at Amoeba LA there wasn't much of interest.

 

+1 Rasputin's in Berkeley has a great turnover of LP's which some is bought in from other stores. I have found great stuff in Stockton and Sacramento as well. Sadly Replay & The Beat both closed. I still go to Records and Dimples (Arden) when passing through Sac Town. I have given up on finding anything in either overpriced Amoeba, but still frequent visiting them for luck.

Record shopping is not what it use to be in Northern California/Bay Area.

 

I go to Amoeba Hollywood roughly once a month since it opened. For the most part, I love the place and in the past have found some decent rare stuff. It's extremely rare I don't walk outta there without at least $50 worth of stuff and it's usually about $150+ worth of goodies. For me, most of the best deals I've found have been multi-CD box sets that go for a lot more (used) on eBay like say, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Cure, ect boxes and import Blu-rays. On the other hand, most of the general used recently released CDs are priced way too high, sometimes more than new at crappy Big Box stores like Best Buy, Even worse for domestic dvds and Blu-rays upstairs in the video dept which can be sometimes *over* retail price.

Probably my biggest complaint is no separate SACD/DVD, DTS Audio hi-rez disc bin. That and the fact they have the best collectable stuff on the walls behind the cashiers which makes it tough to browse (there's been a few times I've noticed something on the wall I wanted while I was finishing paying for other stuff).

IMO, you really have to know what you're looking for and the going rate and availability on eBay when you walk into Amoeba looking for specific items. There's been numerous times where I've found a particular title and it's either priced beyond what I can get it for on eBay, missing things like booklets, dvds or whatever or in just crappy condition for the price and I just leave it and patiently wait to get it form someone's online auction. I think it sucks they don't have an in-store public bathroom but given the area and potential for problems like theft, etc, I guess I understand why.

I've never had a bad experience with any staff at Amoeba.