Amoeba

More holiday purchases. I used to spend a great deal of time in record shops once upon a time (as my better half will ruefully attest) but these days, like a lot of us I guess, I tend to get most of what I need from the internet. That said, Amoeba Records in Hollywood took me right back to whatever Golden Age of physical music retail you might want to imagine. Apparently it’s the biggest independent record store in the world, spread over two huge floors – not that we got beyond the main sales floor. They make you check your bag in at the door and give you a map. We were pressed for time so I picked an aisle and limited my perusal. Tom wandered around randomly looking at the vintage gig posters and blues albums.  I scored (I thought) a couple of LA punk classics more by way of souvenirs than through a real need to own them on CD. Fear were the original offensive LA bad boys – famously John Belushi got them on Saturday Night Live and their fans trashed the studio – who made a couple of albums in the early eighties including their legendary debut ‘Fear – The Record.’ When my friend Dave and I used to do a fanzine in the early nineties we had this running joke where Dave would ask all our interviewees if they knew what had happened to Fear singer Lee Ving, generally to fairly blank-expressioned responses. I now know that he’s been touring a new version of Fear (Lee Ving, that is, not Dave – as far as I know he’s still living in Beeston) and felt the need for some reason to re-record their first album a couple of years back and release it as ‘The Fear Record’ (see what he did there…?) That’s the CD I bought by accident in my slightly feverish excitement. Had I not been in the UK by the time I realised I’d have taken it back and demanded a refund (and possibly a personal apology) but since I’m not I listened to it instead. It’s actually pretty good (though still basically pointless.) Luckily, Black Flag have not re-recorded their ‘First Four Years’ (though I wouldn’t really put anything past Greg Ginn these days) – and that one Is arguably the key work in American Punk. So, a mixed bag music-wise, all told, but a nice memento of my holidays nonetheless…