Cake!

One of the two cakes we had made for our AQ40 party. Not the best-lit picture, but you get the idea. Very nice work, King's Bakery on Mission St.! And it was yummy too.

New Arrivals #357.13: Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Don't forget to Freakout

We know we've got an event here at the store tomorrow too, but we also want to remind everybody that the 2010 edition of the Frisco Freakout psychedelic dance party all-day festival at Thee Parkside is tomorrow!! Along with Arthur mag, KUSF, and um, Ice Cream Man, we're proud to be sponsors. Here's the lineup, with set times:

12:30 AM Wooden Shjips
11:15 PM Howlin Rain
10:00 PM Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound
9:00 PM Carlton Melton
8:00 PM Strangers Family Band
7:00 PM White Manna
6:00 PM Greg Ashley
5:00 PM JEFFERTITTI's NILE
4:00 PM Young Prisms
3:00 PM Sic Alps
2:00 PM Glitter Wizard
1:30 PM Mass At Dawn

MSN's metal blog talks to AQ

MSN's metal blog, Headbang, recently had a chat with Andee and Allan about Aquarius, and metal, and stuff. Thankfully the video has been edited to not be too embarrassing. Though, as always, as soon as the camera stopped rolling, our conversation got a lot more interesting. Really. Still, if you're curious, check it out. The blogger guy, Phil Freeman, was really nice and we enjoyed talking with him, even if our discussion about obscure technical death metal ended up on the cutting room floor.

Double Live On Valencia posters

We'll have these rad posters for sale ($25) at the instore Saturday (and they'll also be for sale across the street at Lost Weekend, 1034 Valencia, where Superchunk will be going to do a Q&A and screen the Quest For Sleep documentary at 6pm, after their acoustic set here at 5pm). Thanks to our friends at Lost Weekend for making these posters happen!

AQ 40th Birthday Show!! Oct. 25th!!

In case you didn't see our email about it...

Lordy, lordy, look who's 40! 



Us, that's who. 



That's right, aQuarius has been "getting the music to the people" since 1970 (hence our Age-of-Aquarius moniker). 



So 2010 marks our 40th anniversary. 



Wow. 



Of course, none of us here now have been at AQ quite that long. But still, it's a milestone worthy of note. And we're certainly proud of aQuarius' history as San Francisco's oldest surviving independent record store. aQuarius was SF's punk rock/new wave store back in the '70s (when we were located on Castro St.), and over the years we sure have seen lots of music trends/scenes/formats come and go. All along, doing our very best to bring you the best, music-wise. 



We said "surviving", and we won't kid you, as you can imagine, in the current economy, it's not always easy. But we'd sure like to be doing what we do for a long time yet to come. And thanks to all the folks like you reading this, hopefully we will! 



Everybody here feels like it's a special thing to be a part of aQuarius, a chance to be involved with the music we love, getting it to the people who will appreciate it. And we couldn't do it without you! In fact, there'd be no point. 



So, to celebrate 40 years of aQuarius, we're throwing ourselves a "surprise" birthday party. Real soon. And you're invited! 



It's in a little over two weeks, on Monday October 25th, doors at 7pm show starting at 8pm sharp, at the Cafe DuNord, 2170 Market Street

We've got six great bands lined up for the event (not necessarily in this order): 



THE MANTLES

power pop drone rockers, with records on Siltbreeze and Mexican Summer 


LUMERIANS 


psychedelic hypno dirge space rock, & maybe they'll do "Crazy Horses"! 


DZJENGHIS KHAN 


retro-proto-metal garage rock power trio a la Blue Cheer 


PIGS 


heavy, rifftastic punk-metal radness sorta like a scuzzier Melvins

DATE PALMS 


boy-girl dream-drone duo from Oakland with a fantastic debut lp just out on Root Strata 


PLUS a special, secret headliner!!! We can't tell you who they are just yet, but there's a pretty good chance you bought their new album from us... and their shows are usually at places a bit bigger than the DuNord... and they're on the poppier, sunshinier side of things... huge faves here. 



We'll have some birthday cake to share with folks who get to the show early enough (you'll want to anyway, with six bands it's gonna start on time, if not earlier!). Also we'll be doing a drawing for $40 aQuarius gift certificates at the start of the show as well. 


Admission is just $10, advance tickets will be available here at AQ and at the DuNord box office soon. 
We really hope to see you all there (and tell your friends!). Please come out, see some great music, support AQ, and make it a 40th to remember! 



We'll be posting/emailing you again with reminders and updates, it's really soon though so mark your calendars now. 


Thanks!!! 


(And yes, we know, it's been 2010 for a while now... but as you get older, you start forgetting things.) 


New Arrivals #356

Once more, unto the breach! A new list is up.

Records Of The Week:

MAJEURE "Timespan" (Temporary Residence) 2cd/2lp $16.98/$15.98
Epic, sprawling spaced out sci-fi electronic minimal kraut disco epics from one half of Zombi, total John Carpenter / Goblin / Vangelis worship, propulsive, motorik and psychedelic... on vinyl and cd (& the cd comes with an entire extra bonus disc of remixes, including one by Justin Broadrick of Jesu).
SALEM "King Night" (IAMSOUND) cd $11.98
The poster boys (and girls) of 'witch house' live up to the hype, a dizzying disc of blissed out hypnogogic shoegazey drift, lurching, chopped and screwed style Southern crunk, majestic choral dreaminess, blurred beat heavy collaged electronica, and sample heavy blown out synthbuzz epicness! Wow.
CLAIR CASSIS "s/t" (Full Moon Productions) cd $10.98
Now on cd! The long awaited debut of this post Velvet Cacoon combo, the buzz and blur of VC, jammed into shorter 'pop' songs, with super melodic basslines, transforming black metal buzz into something much more gloomy and melodic and catchy and weirdly fucked up and brilliant!
GERMAN OAK "s/t" (Flash Back) cd $17.98
Also now on cd, and with 3 BONUS TRACKS! A legendary krautrock classic, and ALL TIME AQ favorite, reissued, after being out of print for way too long. Heavy and weird and dark and damaged, hypnotic and bizarre, spaced out and rhythmic, incredible bunker-recorded underground insanity.

Instore next Saturday

Hey folks, there's this obscure new band we think you might like, they're pretty cool, so we thought we'd try and help these youngsters out out by letting them play a free acoustic instore at Aquarius, it's a week from today, Saturday October 16th, at 5pm, so come on by and check 'em out. Oh, they're called Superchunk.

New Arrivals #355.5

The instore yesterday was awesome, thanks White Hills Black Valleys for playing! And, we sent out another "in-between" list, this one devoted to "Attaining tUMULt-uousness", highlighting the diverse output of our Andee's own label, tUMULt. If you somehow missed the likes of Worms, Varghkoghargasmal, Like A Kind Of Matador, the Painted Black comp, etc., now's your chance to check 'em out - and all tUMULt stuff has been marked down as well!