TO LIVE AND BUY IN LA ANDREW MAST CRUISES LA’S SUNSET BOULEVARD LOOKING TO SATISFY HIS VINYL FETISH. INSIDE AMOEBA MUSIC HE FINDS MORE THAN HE BARGAINED FOR. moeba Music is referred to as “the world’s largest independent music store”. Standing in the midst of its hundreds of rows of new and second-hand records, CDs, DVDs and, yes, cassettes, it’s hard to argue with that claim. The Sunset Boulevard store is the most recent, and largest of the three Amoeba stores in the US (the fi rst was opened in Berkley in 1990, the second in San Francisco in 1997). It’s existed since 2001, completely defying the declining-physical-music-sales odds. How has it survived? Without doubt it’s because the physical nature of the hunt is st ill a rush for many music addicts. Amoeba embraces the physical experience. The LA store lives in the revitalised entertainment precinct of Downtown Hollywood, amidst hipster bars and indie fi lm multiplexes – not too far from the Hollywood and Vine intersect ion where you can gawp at the Walk Of Fame. Housed in what looks like may once have been a theatre designed in the 1950s (historical information is scarce in a town that thinks ‘modern’), st reet level is a warehouse-sized home to vinyl and CDs of every genre imaginable (Japanese mini-albums? There’s a sect ion. Holiday records? There’s a sect ion). Upstairs is home to the largest display of used DVDs and Blu-rays imaginable (as well as Laserdiscs and VHS), and although only a third of the floor size as ground level it’s also microorganised into every sub-genre they could think of (how can you not fl ick through a sect ion labelled ‘Smut’?). A previous visit to the SF Amoeba saw a whole afternoon disappear – today there is only a few hours before a fl ight back to Aust ralia, so the hunt is refined. No time to glean the boxes of $1 vinyl that line the floors beneath every row of record racks. No time to pile up unheard oddities for a listening session. No time to play the “what Aust ralian acts have their own sect ion?” game (oh, too late, already spotted a Hunters & Collectors divider in amongst the pre-loved vinyl). So it’s beelines to the artists’ sect ions most likely to have some vinyl oddities that are rare back home. Also gotta leave time for the DVDs... One slice of new 10-inch vinyl and one rare 90s club 12” later and it’s up the stairs. Pushing past the usual record shop array of glassy-eyed beard-st rokers, nerd grrrls and hipsters trying to figure out whether or not ironic cassingles are really worth the cash-splash, there’s an entire warehouse wall of second-hand TV-on-DVD to be drooled through (sheesh – they sub-divide into region codes and separate British shows from US series). What are new releases at home are already marked-down
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