Curious about what your favorite artists are shopping for? Wonder no more...

You will recall the great "Amoeba Music" from one of my earlier posts about the best places for vinyl shopping.

Amoeba in San Francisco

Recently I found out that, for 10 years now, they have been doing a wonderful video series called the "What's In My Bag?". The idea is to make short movies about the shopping bags of their famous patrons.
And here's how it works; a musician, actor, comedian or other celebrity comes into one of Amoeba Music's three California locations (Berkeley, San Francisco or Los Angeles) and sifts through the store's gigantic inventory of music, films, TV shows, memorabilia and, sometimes, food. Then they reveal their selections and their reasons for choosing those specific cultural artifacts.

Amoeba Music in LA

I think it is really a good and inventive show to attract the music lovers to real music shops to physically check out what's out there (maybe I am too old fashioned but no digital means can compete with the actual touch of a vinyl record...).

Amoeba in Berkeley, CA

The series date back to 2008 and started in a very casual way when Weird Al Yankovic visited the LA shop for shopping. The crew in the store asked him if he would like to share on camera what he bought in the shop. And that recording was the first episode of the long running series.

First Episode with Weird Al Yankovic

It is so fun to watch all these musicians and artists explaining their purchases, why they picked those items and what those items really mean for them.

The series also let you to discover many different artists that you wouldn't hear about so easily and in my opinion even only this could be a good reason to watch.

I did not manage to watch all the episodes obviously, but I really plan to. Of course I started with the people I was curious about, so check it out yourselves and find someone that might be of interest to you to see what they got in their shopping bags...

Here is my top 11 for the moment...Not in any particular order, just out of curiosity what's in their bag...

• Gary Numan

• Moby

• Kamasi Washington

• King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard

• Ethan Hawke

• Belle and Sebastian

• Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

• Jean-Michel Jarre

• Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer (yes, Amanda F. Palmer)

• Johnny Marr

• Myrkur

Please visit the below website to reach all the episodes of the "What's In My Bag?" series. I am sure you will enjoy all and discover many new stuff...

What's In My Bag?