I heard from Mary Falcone, my Production Assistant on my KCRW shows, that a friend of hers bought an 8-track player for his car, but wasn’t sure if he could buy 8-track cassettes. So he went to Amoeba Music in LA (SE corner of Sunset & Cahuenga Blvds) and there they were, in all their antiquated glory.
What kind of a music store is this anyway? Well, having visited music stores obsessively since I got my first car back in the 1960s, I can tell you it’s the best record store in the world. At a time where digital downloads of single songs have eclipsed sales of physical cd’s, Amoeba still caters to the melomanes, the musicophiles, the music enthusiasts and obsessives. And you can always tell the obsessives as they pore through the vinyl, hunting for rarities, from teenagers or tourists who are in to buy the latest Justin Bieber , Carly Rae Jepsen, Pink, XX, or Miley Cyrus cds. For one thing, they guard their little turf patch (almost always in the vinyl section) from interlopers who might invade their turf and find a choice album.
ë8-tracks–god bless Amoeba for carrying them…..I remember driving up to San Francisco with friends in my Citroën DS 19 with an 8-track….listened to The Doors all the way up while floating along Highway One. Great memories are made of this.
