Like I said, personally, I prefer Mod Lang in El Cerrito here in East Bay NoCal - which has great imports - it's run by an old 100club goer and Brit music scene guy, and although everyone in there seems to have an attitude, I always find that actually they're kind of ok if you start talking to them. And they're in behind a rhinoplasty place which just adds gobs of fun to the equation when they're blastiing something. Don't get me wrong, Amoeba's great, but they *are* a big record store, and they don't seem to know which import is which generally; they just kind of go with the strategy: buy some of this, buy a little of that... UK, German, Japanese, Danish (a new one) bah! it's all import, isn't it? Plus that, Mod Lang always gives me good leads on new bands when I talk to the counterpeople. For jazz or whatever I always go over to Grooveyard in Claremont, or Jupiter on college which does used and has everything from Germs to 78's. In San Francisco, Amoeba can't be beat, but Streetlight always has the best underground stuff. Amoeba just doesn't seem to "get it" when people walk in with a hundred pressings to sell of their bands debut, which they put together themselves.
