Get Involved, Internet: Help save Amoeba Music
If you aren’t used to seeing headlines like this by now, you aren’t paying attention. Retail businesses are struggling all over due to the COVID-19 pandemic and California’s iconic record store chain, Amoeba Music, is only the most recent to turn to their loyal customer base and ask for some support. This week, Amoeba co-founders Marc Weinstein and Dave Prinz launched a GoFundMe campaign in an effort to raise the $400,000 necessary to support their 400+ employees and keep its Berkeley, San Francisco, and Los Angeles locations afloat.
“All three of our stores have been closed since mid-March and remain closed indefinitely,” Weinstein and Prinz write in a post detailing Amoeba’s trajectory from a single dusty used record shop on Berkeley’s famous Telegraph Avenue to something of a vinyl-lover’s Mecca that provides free concerts, blowout Record Store Day events, and a place for music obsessives to hang out and dig through crates. “We’re exploring every possible means of support, including federal and local grants and loans,” they continue. “But these funds are not guaranteed to come in, and they won’t meet the needs of our short-term future.”
It’s almost hard to believe that a business as popular as Amoeba could be struggling so much. While other independent record stores fell victim to the advent of the internet and streaming platforms, Amoeba soldiered on and remained a favorite retail shop of musicians and celebrities, as seen in their “What’s In My Bag?” YouTube series.