Record Store Day at Amoeba was a success as usual, with a long line of shoppers waiting outside to be able to buy all sorts of limited releases, and the Amoeba blog even wrote that some of these people were waiting since midnight the night before!! This event is getting out of hands, really! Inside the store, there were many shoppers browsing the aisles, a prize spin wheel, a cartoonist and animator drawing caricatures of kids, a printing t-shirt section, and of course some special guests.
Lucinda Williams was announced at 3 pm, so I decided to arrive before that time to check her performance out, but I was disappointed to learn she was only there to pick out a playlist of her favorite songs! I think I wasn’t the only one, as some people were visibly waiting to see her play, but I guess that a live set would have been too distracting during this non-stop shopping day! And I shouldn’t complain as I already see tons of artists playing at Amoeba for free. Anyway, Lucinda explained she wanted to bring all her support to record stores, especially because she used to work at some of them, like Rockaway records which still exists on Glendale boulevard. She was talking slowly, and announced right away that the store would be playing her handpicked playlist.
And if you want to know, her choices were interesting, starting with the Laurel canyon melody of Jonathan Wilson, ‘Can we really party today?’, Father John Misty’s ‘Fun times in Babylon’ and his bright Fleet Foxes’ harmonies. Meanwhile, Lucinda was casually meeting people, kindly talking with everyone. Also in her playlist were Joe Henry’s jazzy dark ‘Tomorrow is October’, Tricky’s ‘Joseph’, a quiet track off Yo La Tengo’s last album ‘Fade’. There was also a little bit of rock with The John Spencer Blues Explosion ‘Bag Of Bones’, and a little bit of soul with Clarence Carter’s ‘I stayed away too long ‘, a little bit of country with The Kenneth Brian Band’s ‘Welcome to Alabama’, and a little bit of blues with Junior Kimbrough’s ‘Sad days lonely nights’
‘She is old school’ said someone,… yes and no, on the list I also read Chelsea Light Moving’s ‘Groovy and Linda’, Cold War Kids’ ‘Fear and Trembling’, and Mark Lanegan’s ‘The Gravedigger’s song’, but they didn’t play these, may be by lack of time. Next was Redd Kross’ Jeff McDonald, doing basically the same thing, spinning some of his favorites (probably a lot of punk), but I had to leave. If these special DJ guests attract people, it’s not the same than a performance of course! However, the focus wasn't on performance but on buying records all Saturday long.
