More to report

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Halfway from SF to LA and after a few days in Monterey (sadly not in time for the jazz or artichoke festivals) I have a few more discoveries to note.

  • I have never seen so many limo’s
  • Public transport seems more useful/reliable than Australia (sure to be tipped upside down in LA tomorrow)
  • (good) coffee is hard to come by
  • White guys seem pretty comfortable with hip-hop parlance. For example, they will sign off with “Peace” or sprinkle their sentences with phrases such as “that’s how we do”, etc

I went to SF with a box of Cyclic Defrost mags and traded them (figuratively, guys) for a bunch of records. Plus great mags like Arthur, Mule and even a copy of Lillian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopedia.


Amoeba Records on Haight St, San Francisco

I bought Ornette Coleman’s ‘Twins’, Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s ‘Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata’ and ‘I Talk With the Spirits’, Quarteto Novo’s eponymous LP, Yuseef Lateef’s ‘Eastern Sounds’, Lonnie Liston Smith’s ‘Cosmic Funk’ and Pharoah Sanders’ ‘Journey to the One’ from Amoeba. Some old, some new, but, yes, a lot of jazz. I’m a freak for it at the moment.

At Aquarius Records in the Mission district I picked up Konono No1’s ‘Congotronics’ (finally) and on the way down the coast, in Santa Cruz, I picked up a couple of mariachi and Tex-Mex records - a compilation called Conjunto and a record by El Banderillero.

Now for something to play them on.

Written by matt

May 22nd, 2008 at 11:38 am

3 Responses to 'More to report'

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  1. oh i want to hear the tex-mex stuff! good coffee is hard to find yes, apparently austin, seattle and chicago have the best. (at least according to my research). a flatwhite equivalent btw is a “double short latte”… also the buses in LA aren’t so bad, run relatively on time and decently priced (it’s no SF though!). word.

    LT

    22 May 08 at 1:29 pm

  2. showed the amoeba pic to my beloved, covering the caption, with a “guess where this is?”

    Being an ex-SFian, he got it in one. He says the layout hasn’t changed in the 6 years since he was there and that he is completely madly jealous of you.

    There’s apparently a totally awesome “Gould’s books” sized second hand vinyl store just a couple of blocks down the street - without the mankiness of the Gould’s books vinyl offerings.

    And I guess you’ve learned not to ask for a Long Black ;)

    carol

    23 May 08 at 5:47 pm

  3. Public transport was pretty good during my North American holidays last year esp San Fran & Toronto. for only $1.50 you can go so far (and you get transfers), so civilised. Enjoy the galleries and nature stuff!

    Rozie

    29 May 08 at 12:01 pm

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