Brent Dinsdale looks much younger than his age - 40. A friendly smile is always on his round, unlined face. When he sat in McDonald’s and drank a cola, he has such an amiable demeanor that you can’t believe he is the manager of Amoeba, the most successful music store in San Francisco.
As the manager of Amoeba, Brent Dinsdale is quite competent. He is a “walking encyclopedia” of music, and has a good mind for music management. He manages two branches of Amoeba - the one in San Francisco, and the other in Berkeley. Even with the two stores to overlook, he still has time to organize his own band - Brent James.
If you want to meet Brent, Thursday or Friday is a good time, as he might be in the Amoeba store on 1855 Haight St. With his caring smile, he will ask you about the current music you are listening to and try to give recommendations something you are going to like. Later, you can get free samples of his recommendations or download samples from the Amoeba website.
Brent may tell you some other interesting things like which bands will do live shows in the store. He said the Amoeba store welcomes all kinds of bands and musicians to play there. All you need to do is follow the updated news on the website and come to enjoy these free shows. “We have shows that not a lot of people show up to and we have shows where the line coming to my store is all the way around the block. ” he said. Some bands come to tour the Bay Area and submit their album and information, and Amoeba fits them into the schedule. “I have discovered so many acts that I had never knew existed by seeing them in my store... and they have gone on to be huge, huge stars...” the White Stripes is a good example. “He played in my store. We have everybody come through the place. It is really, really, really fun. ” There was a big smile on his face when he mentioned this.
Amoeba has been a cultural symbol of San Francisco. Brent feels very proud of the store. However as an independent store, Amoeba has to do its best by its own. Brent said “there is no outside distribution; we do all of our own mailing, all of our own staffing, and so independent for us, it is us against the world. It is just us. We are in our own little niche... ” and like all of the music stores, Amoeba is in the age where people can download the music and movies anytime. It is not a good situation for the music business, if the stores don’t have enough turnover, it is impossible to hire many employees. “We used to have two hundred people that worked here, now we are down to maybe a hundred, Berkley is down even less than that,” Brent said. Even if the situation isn’t ideal, so far as there are music men like Brent, music stores like Amoeba will be there.
“I'm a music dork. I like everything about it, I love holding a record, I love how it sounds when you put the needle on, the cover, like you not get these little tiny book from online, I need to open up these things and find up the books and stickers, that is how I was, that is how I will be.”
