Herman Leonard Signing
Sunday December 14, 2008 - 4pm
Amoeba Hollywood

You may not know Herman Leonard's name, but you know his photographs. You know them intimately. Close your eyes, think of Jazz, and thank him.

With a camera as his backstage pass, Herman Leonard photographed the giants of jazz in their golden age, movie stars on set and on their travels to exotic places, the fashion world of Paris in the 1960s, and the inner sanctums of his beloved New Orleans.

His friendships with the jazz greats allowed him to vividly capture the magical moments of the Harlem and Paris jazz clubs in the 1940s and 50s, using his unique command of cinematic lighting to capture the essence of the time.

To Leonard, Dizzy Gillespie was a "monument to jazz . . . a pure soul." In Dizzy Gillespie, Royal Roost, NYC, 1948, Leonard aimed his camera diagonally, catching Gillespie in profile as he played his trumpet below an undulating, metallic ceiling.

"...I just loved the jazz and I would go to the clubs where I could see them." - Herman Leonard.

In the photograph Ella Fitzgerald with Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman Downbeat Club, NYC, 1949, the great lady of jazz sings to her adoring fans a few feet away. All look enchanted, but Duke Ellington, clasping his hands to his chin, is clearly the most enraptured.

Guitar Hero!

The expression conjures denim-y visions of long-haired axe '70s victims on stadium stages, tossing their ringlets while shooting out silvery torrents of liquid metal... Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Ritchie Blackmore, Ted Nugent, Peter Frampton for God's sake... whammy bars whamming, wah-wahs wawwing, while the smokepots explode, the amps overload, the groupies squeal and the wastoids drool... THE GUITAR HERO. A mythical metal man with a Strat, stealing from the rich and shredding to the poor!

The great hard rock and heavy metal guitarists have been well-documented and complimented to death.  BUT DID YOU KNOW... there's another kind of guitar hero out there? Just as heroic, but more flannely?  More of a van- riding kind of hero, modestly sqwawking his stuff on the beer-soaked stages of the alternative landscape?  Not your ordinary guitar hero, I'm talking about.. the INDIE ROCK GUITAR HERO.

Yes, it's true, there are indie rock guitar heroes too! Dare I say it! We self-loathing, mumbling indie types have our own low-budget version of the big-rig metal demigod, and to my mind some of them are just as wanktastic and wailing as the big guys, and deserve a little blogspace. Now, once we get into this, there are gonna be opinions and opinions. I myself am more of a fan than an expert, and I certainly suck at guitar, so I hereby humbly present to you my own biased and incomplete and endlessly revisable list of
indie rock guitar heroes.  Dispute these choices and add your own!

In no particular order... so let's start off with Black Flag founder and serious shredder Greg Ginn. SST founder and SoCal punk legend Ginn is far more experimental and metal-oriented than most of the amateurish guitarists from the first wave of American punk. He's a wild noodler and a very emotive player, with no effects but his lucite Dan Armstrong Ampeg. Often called "the punk rock Jerry Garcia," Ginn does kind of make like a very angry Deadhead with his wandering, mid-range jam-punk, perfectly complementing the angst and musclebound humor of singer Henry Rollins. It's more accurate to compare him to free-jazz players like Ornette Coleman or James Blood Ulmer, especially on instrumentals like Slip It In's "Obliteration." Sweaty, gnarly, rude, uplifting, free-thinking punk axe wankery!

Mixtapes stood for friendship. Connection. Love. Attention to mixology and art.

When you got a mixtape you could not wait to throw it in the cassette player. Unmarked or a work of art, it didnʼt matter. There was gold in those tapes. There was a message. Sometimes there wasnʼt.

(Didnʼt everyone have a Krazy Mix?) Random songs gleaned from the radio, records, and other cassettes always said at least, listen to this! Inherently it was about the music. Sometimes slow hands pressed "record" too late or too early or there were the random ambient sounds of the TV interrupting Motorhead.

Then there were those tapes given to or received from crushes. Songs with subtle or not so subtle messages would attempt to grab your attention and then your heart.


It does sound old to lament the loss of mixtape culture. I think what I miss is the care and attention that friendships used to naturally have. Demands of relationships, bills, and the heavy burden of the future gradually erode the time and space that one can give to friendships. Mixtapes are a sentimental look at a time where what mattered was putting together an awesome tape full of songs and giving it away.

Forget about yer Lollapalooza, Coachella, Bonaroo, yer South by Southwest, yer what have you... once and only once a year it's time for a truly hallucinogenic celebration of musical mayhem, and it's called AMOEBAPALOOZA! Twenty Amoeba Music employee bands in 4 hours -- ten-minute sets, a cavalcade of rock, rap, soul, tributes, impersonations and uncategorizable strangeness! You are there!

The cavernous space of the King King in fabulous downtown Hollywood looms before you... seething with an assortment of delinquents, sickos and lovable kiddies... the red stage lights beckon! The gigantic extended family of Amoeba has gathered here to see what kind of musical freakiness they can come up with, while bewildered onlookers watch in wonderment. Let the show begin!

The festivities got started with the '60s sunshine lady pop of My Mellotron Summer, and rolled right along with the suave sounds of the Amazing Reverb Engine, until they crashed head-on into a white-noise raveup from a knockout Velvet Underground cover band! Very inspired performances from a demented first-time Lou Reed and a frosty Nico, a tom-pounding Mo Tucker and three wailing Sterling Morrison guitars.

Brooke Back Fountain featured the eponymous leading lady busting out some Four Non Blonde covers in a voice bigger than Linda Perry's ego! Folks were pretty bowled over by that (having unsuccessfully blocked those Four Non Blondes songs out of their memories all these years)... those '90s were a golden age of top hats and dreadlocks, lest we forget!

This past Saturday was that special holiday -- Record Store Day.  Amoebites at both the San Francisco and Hollywood stores turned in full reports, so read on to check them out!  SF is up first, then Hollywood:

To celebrate the momentous occasion of Record Store Day here at the San Francisco Amoeba, we had DJs all day, super stuffed swag bags to give to customers, extra special day-only limited edition 10" and 7" from artists like Steve Malkmus and Vampire Weekend, and we also had Mr. Alternative Tentacles, Jello Biafra, sitting at our Information Counter.

The day started off with a bang, with customers flocking to the limited vinyl-only product that artists had created just for Record Store Day.  We quickly sold out of the Steve Malkmus and the Jicks, Built To Spill, Death Cab For Cutie and REM limited edition 7"s.  Other popular items included the Vampire Weekend, Breeders and Teenagers 7"s. 

At 1pm the DJ sets kicked off with  DJ Vinnie Esparza, who brought the party jams.  Balloons and even more crowds soon followed.

The most exciting part of the day though, was when Jello Biafra stopped by to man our Info Counter.  The visit quickly turned into a hero-worshipping signing line, and Jello was kind enough to stick around to accomodate each and every fan who came to see him, signing their records and taking photos with them.  Apparently he recommended a lot of Prog rock, like Magma! He also recommended Triclops to a lot of people.  Triclops is playing an instore here at Amoeba SF on April 25-- this Friday! Superfan and Record Store Day DJ V. Vale even scored a mini interview with Jello!  To see his review of his experience and the day, go here.  For larger versions of the pictures you see here plus more, go here.

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