Amoebapalooza
And all this time, you thought retailers didn’t know how to rock.
By Jennifer Leggio

Until recently, I always felt appreciated by my employer. He’s supportive and grateful for my hard work. He rewards me with incentives and title changes when I have earned them. He allows me to have a pretty flexible schedule given all of my outside interests. In the past, he even took a group of us to see A Perfect Circle at the San Jose State Event Center. I thought that was so cherry!

Screw all of that. He needs to take a lesson from the owners of Amoeba Music in order to make this girl happy.

Every year, the owners of Amoeba, one of the most popular independent music stores in the Bay Area, produce an event called Amoebapalooza (in the spirit of Lollapalooza, only without as many condoms). Rather than merely take their employees to a concert, they make sure their hardworking folks get a chance to “really get the party going” by performing in a concert of their very own. Not only do the employees get to perform for each other, but the event is also open to the public so they have a (very slight) chance to get signed and leave the drudgery of music retail behind them.

According to Ursula Rodriguez, events coordinator for Amoeba Music, the event was born around the same time the Berkeley store opened five years ago. The theme of the evening is for the employees to “party and get crazy” with each other. It’s the owners’ way of rewarding the teams for doing such good work, and since a lot of people who work at record stores are musicians themselves, it also gives them an avenue to showcase their talent.

(Note: My boss is currently denying me the opportunity to “party and get crazy” with my coworkers. Sure, I work for a public relations firm and not a music store, but if I can write a press release shouldn’t he naturally assume I can play bass? Unacceptable.)

“The owners rent out a medium size venue, such as Bottom of the Hill, buy about 400 drink tickets, and send us out to play music and just have fun,” Rodriguez says. “A few years back, all of the employees in gigging bands would sign up, but now it’s become a free-for-all talent show.”

Rodriguez said the acts range from crazy cover bands to experimental performance art, and even to spoken word and folk acts. One year the show featured a Guns ‘n’ Roses tribute band, and another year there was a Nordic black metal band, complete with corpse paint.

(Note: My boss is currently denying me the opportunity to perform for my coworkers in corpse paint. Unacceptable.)

“Everyone is incredibly supportive because we draw mostly friends and coworkers who want to see what the staff is made of,” she said. “Usually the general public doesn’t care about coming to see what we put on, but we leave the option open for them. We do bring in about 300 people.”

The bands get roughly 15-minute sets and this year there are about 16 acts. With a start time of 10pm, that makes for a late night of crazy music. Some of this year’s acts include bands called Arboretum of Calamity, Jim Jones & The Magic Kool-Aid, Anal Spring Break, Coke Machine, Fuck-You-Up! Relax Bitch!, Muviturluzit (“Move It or Lose It” for the translation impaired), Beer Garden and Lazytron Preszentz: Hot Chonch Review.

The style of music is pretty unpredictable (though “Fuck-You-Up! Relax Bitch! must be the most extreme new age band ever). So, according to Rodriguez, it’s pretty difficult to say what the show will be like: “We’re usually just pretty wasted. It’s our chance to really cut loose and not worry about work.”

(Note: My boss is currently denying me the opportunity to perform for my coworkers and get wasted in their presence. Unacceptable.)

Rodriguez is slated to be the co-host of this year’s event, which pretty much gets her off the hook as far as performing goes. Though in other years, she was a go-go dancer, who entertained on stage between bands.

(Note: My boss is currently denying me the opportunity to perform for my coworkers as a go-go dancer. Unaccept… eh, it’s probably for the better.)

The festivities start up at about 6pm on June 21 and the cover is $5. Drinks for Amoeba employees are free but spectators have to do their duty and make the bartenders happy. So if you want free drinks, you have about three weeks to get a job at Amoeba.

Where else could one potentially see hip-hop, butt rock, and Nordic black metal in the same night? I for one am taking my boss. He needs to see what real employee appreciation is all about.