Round 1: Berkeley, CA

My California music shopping began in Berkeley at Amoeba Music and Rasputin Music. I did quite well for myself. It was my first time visiting both, as I hadn't been to the San Francisco area since I was about 12 years old. I didn't get to the stores in San Francisco proper, but to the ones in Berkeley...I couldn't burden my friends with my inability to leave such places without having spent at least 2 hours in them...so this was not the most thorough, but good enough to reap 9 CDs for myself.

I'm a bargain bin shopper. Often I peruse the $3 or less bins and find great things, or at least, things worth buying. It also helps that Amoeba's deal is buy 3 from the bargain bin get a 4th free. I didn't manage to find enough to make this deal worthwhile this time around, but here's holding out for the Hollywood Amoeba! I think the Berkeley Amoeba is smaller than the Hollywood one. This may have just been an optical illusion as the Hollywood one has very high ceilings since it appears to be an old warehouse or something and has a separate room for classical and a partial upstairs for DVDs.

I was able to find a number of things I was excited about. I think the thing I was most excited about was finding something on my "to look for" list in the bargain bin. I purchased Sarah Harmer's "All Of Our Names" album for $2 and I was definitely excited about that.

Here's a sampling of some of the artists I picked up music by while I was in Berkeley (though not necessarily from the albums I bought as some have yet to be sampled and I don't want to be recommended music I haven't given a good listen to already)...

• Loquat - "Take It Back"
• The Sounds - "Painted By Numbers" (left click)
• Dressy Bessy - "Ringalingaling" (left click)
• Mascott - "Baby, Go Away"
• Brassy - "Work It Out" (left click)