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Buried Treasure: The Cali-Frag, Part III

Posted in Buried Treasure on April 7th, 2010 by JJ Koczan

Okay, so I never called it “The Cali-Frag” before. If I’d thought about it, I would have, so that makes this part three. End of explanation.

It is currently 1:16AM local time, which makes it 4:16AM back east. My plan is essentially to keep myself awake until I have to get on the plane back to Newark, then to conk out. I don’t know whether it will work. The Patient Mrs. and I have acquired a room at the Super 8 for the next several hours, so here I am. How this is all going to pan out, I don’t know, but at least I’ll get to shower before tomorrow night.

Today was a long day. Aside from driving back from Napa (a valley to humble my own) to return a rental car, catching the BART to the airport to pick up another so we’d have a place to stow our stuff, going to the park, seeing the ocean and catching the Snail/Flood show at Kimo’s, I also revisited Aquarius Records, Shaxul Records and Amoeba Music San Francisco today. As far as days go, it was long enough.

Purely on a record-rundown level, I wanted to pick up some stuff that I had seen but not grabbed already. Bong‘s triple-CD Novum Castellum at Aquarius was especially on my mind, given its limited run. While there, I also grabbed Exit 13‘s 1995 full-length, …Just a Few More Hits, from the used bin, just for the hell of it. I was in and out, but didn’t at all regret stopping. Gotta get it in while I can.

It should be noted that, on the way to Napa Valley yesterday, for an afternoon of tasting and spending entirely too much money on wine (everywhere except the Robert Sinskey vineyard, where the guy was such an unreasonably, unwarranted rude asshole I didn’t even bother to tip him — which, if you’ve ever seen me in a tipping situation, you know means something), I stopped in at the Vallejo store of Rasputin Music and grabbed Daredevil by Fu Manchu. It was the 2003 Cube Farm reissue, but I wanted to get something from the store, and it was $14.99, where everywhere else I’d seen it, it had been at least a dollar more. Record rules anyway, so no regrets.

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San Francisco Buried Treasure Gold Rush, Pt. 2: Aquarius, Amoeba and Rasputin

Posted in Buried Treasure on April 4th, 2010 by JJ Koczan

Just how hip is San Francisco‘s Aquarius Records? Well, I knew going into it yesterday that it was gonna be some hip shit, but if you’d like a real-life example, Aquarius Records is so hip that, in the metal section, there is a section devoted to one-man black metal act Leviathan and not one for Black Sabbath. To be fair, there may have been a Sabbath section under the “Rock” heading, but I didn’t see one. Doesn’t mean it’s not there.

In any case, damn that’s hip.

Being a fan of Aquarius‘ regularly-updated website reviews but never having seen the inside of the store before (unlike either of the two Amoeba Musics around here), I didn’t know what was coming in terms of size. It’s a mid-size store, more on the side of organized than not, with a really good selection of stuff you won’t see everywhere else. Hip is a specialty, but it’s not like it was all girl jeans and swoopy hair in there either. I found some killer discs in a decent environment for doing so. It wasn’t as dream-fulfilling as Amoeba San Francisco was, but it was also roughly one-fifth the size, so I’m not about to complain.

Here’s the full report:

Bong, Gilgamesh Lives
Lord Vicar, Fear No Pain
Planet Gemini, SuperGod DevilMan
Primordial, Spirit the Earth Aflame
Thumlock, Emerald Liquid Odyssey
Unearthly Trance, In the Red
Various Artists, Listen Without Distraction: A Tribute to Kyuss
Yearning, Frore Meadow

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