Last month I was in Los Angeles and today in San Francisco. Now it's time to see how the two cities stack up for record shoppers, in this case, based on visits to Amoeba Records and Tower Classical Cloister, er, Annex, in both cities.
Let's start with the weather. It was 63 degrees, windy and foggy in SF. Advantage LA.
Parking was easy except for Amoeba/SF where parking in the Haight is always a hassle. Advantage LA.
In a huge building, the atmosphere at Amoeba/LA was professional if a bit subdued ("Electronica, call on line six") and jazz and classical were segregated in their own room. I found myself lost in what appeared to be a rock section where I neither recognized the artists nor even the genre. At Tower/LA, I was the only customer and the clerk was jabbering on the phone. Tower/SF was the most sophisticated; a shopper and the clerk were discussing the differences between English, German and French...were they comparing styles of oboes, oboists, or oboe music? I didn't want to interrupt their conversation to ask. Amoeba/SF was a mob scene, in a fun kind of way, as Most Chill Slackmob were playing a spirited, loud in-store appearance for their Urban Mind Expansion CD:
Most Chill Slackmob is a rugged, live band that throws down rump-shakin, block-rockin parties. This San Francisco created Los Angeles based crew fuses the influences of hip hop, raw funk and dub to create a universal sound.
I did wonder if the older guy next to me browsing the Brahms bin enjoyed the program much. Advantage SF for Amoeba being cloister-free.
The drive from Amoeba to Tower in LA on Sunset Boulevard through Hollywood is exciting and colorful (I described it here). The drive from Amoeba to Tower in SF via Pacific Heights has several spectacular views of San Francisco Bay. Also, it was amusing to see cars lined up for blocks on the straight, boring side of Lombard Street waiting for the opportunity to drive down the crooked side. Advantage SF.
As for actual purchases, I bought the most by far at Amoeba/LA and lesser amounts at Amoeba/SF and Tower/SF. To be fair, I was so satiated from Amoeba/LA that by the time I got to Tower/LA I even passed on the new Michael Jon Fink single. No advantage.
Most important, I counted the "Adams Number" for each store. When I go into a record store, I head for the John Adams bin and count the number of CDs (note that the multi-volume Adams Earbox only counts as one). This number serves several purposes: as an Adams completist, I need to know if there are any CDs I don't have; based on that, I gauge the budget left for other purposes; finally, the Adams Number serves as a proxy for the rest of the shopping experience, since it correlates with the amount of both traditional and contemporary music in stock. The typical Best Buy has an Adams Number of zero or one, the local library is four or five, Tower/LA was sixteen, Amoeba/SF was seventeen (disappointing this Bay Area loyalist), Tower/SF was eighteen and Amoeba/LA was 36. Advantage LA
Ok, overall, a slight preference for LA even if we did beat their soccer team in the greatest Major League Soccer game.
After all this shopping, the surprise track from my cornucopia of new CDs is violinist Leila Josefowicz playing Smile from the Charlie Chaplin movie Modern Times. The work is short, serene, and poignant; the violin and piano arrangement by jazz composer Claus Ogermann. I found the CD at Amoeba/SF in the bargain bins for $1.99. It turns out this piece has also been recorded by Perlman, I Salonisti, Kunzel, Kremer et al. I never knew. Josefowicz I did know from her playing of Adams' Violin Concerto. Amazon samples.
36!
