Wednesday 12 September 2018

USA Trip, Part 8 - Los Angeles (Part 3)

Sunday in LA started well. We hiked up Runyon Canyon, which was a lot of effort but well worth it. Amazing views, good exercise and some sun. What more could you need on a Sunday morning?

Afterwards we drove down the road to check out Amoeba Records in Hollywood. I'd heard of this place as they sometimes get their own exclusive pressings of records (e.g. the last Dinosaur Jr LP) and because my dad went to the one in San Francisco years ago. I knew it was pretty huge and had pretty high expectations.

Well, as if often the case, high expectations are rarely met, and Amoeba certainly disappointed. It was indeed a huge store, but the vast majaority of it was of zero interest to me. There were lots of CDs and 'rock and pop' records and every other genre of music that I don't really care for. The hardcore / punk LP section was (unsurprisingly) new releases. And after eventually locating the 7"s, they couple of hardcore boxes were full of pretty low quality stuff.

I did manage to find one item that was a good price though - the Integrity / Vegas 'Love Me, I'm Bedazzled' split 7" on orange/black vinyl. This was a band exclusive colour out of 100 copies. The copy in Amoeba was cheaper than any copy I have ever seen for sale online, so it was worth grabbing... although the concept of 'mystery sales tax' reared its head at the till, meaning that amount on the price sticker was not the amount that I was asked to pay.

So that was Amoeba - a single 7" among thousands of items. Probably on reflection it was good that they didn't have much, because I'd bought way more than I intended up to this point anyway, and the next day we were scheduled to go to RevHQ...

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