Anti-Monday Recap: Pete Stewart, Arckid, The Gift/Curse, demasiado

San Diego's music scene has always been broad, but lately I just can't get my hands around all the good shit happening here. This town is ripe with the ingredients to nurture the music, too. Just think of how many things are happening that weren't just 5 years ago...added music festivals & street fairs featuring more edgy bands, competition in the alternative radio market (as much as we complain, two similarly formatted stations in a market is rare and benefits all of us), the resurrection of old venues (like DeVore stadium -good job 94/9, and the Starlight Bowl), and the creation of lots of new venues that are now competitive music venues, or just rejuvenated by new promoters, like Beauty Bar, Sports Club, O'Connell's...all of this is making this city feel more alive in my eyes and I hope other people are feeling it, too.

In this respect, there are always "scenes within the scene" and sometimes I know I'm only capturing maybe 20% of the pie in the music here. For this reason, I love Tim Pyles and his Anti-Monday League. Always a bargain and covering the spectrum of San Diego music, I know I'm gonna go and have a good time every time.

All that said, I was blown away last night. I arrived while Pete Stewart and the Plastic Saviors were on stage, and since I'd only heard Pete on the radio with an acoustic guitar, I had no idea the pipes he'd have and wasn't expecting even a full band to rock out that hard. I was never that familiar with The Accident Experiment but this material is more to my tastes than what I've heard of that band, maybe it just feels more accessible. I was feeling kinda early 90's rock...Chris Cornell definitely came to mind. Unfortunately, I only caught a few songs, but I hope to catch Pete doing the acoustic thing soon. (He's at Lestat's on Friday)







Arckid was the only out of town band of the night. Featuring members of Spacehog, Arckid is not a whole lot different than that band, if only because Royston's vocals are so center to both band's music, despite his brother doing a whole lot of singing, too. They're really intense onstage and it was nice that the lights were up a bit to better capture them.









I recorded this song, but they called it their reggae song and the rest of the songs they played adhered to their style more, so this is a total deviation, but I'm posting it anyway.




Part of my ramblings about "the scene" stem from being impressed with Casbah crowds that seem to come to support the local bands and just happen to be there to support the touring acts instead of people only coming to see the touring band and bailing on the locals. It was a good night at the Casbah with lots of people out to support all the bands and for me, it was all fun being introduced to bands I've never seen but with members I see out all the time at other shows.

The Gift/Curse played their first show and were pretty impressive. Tim told me the singer was from Classified but I've never heard of that band yet he was so familiar. The music also felt familiar in a good way, and all that I could associate the sound to was Mangravy-ish Fluf stuff. I feel like these guys might've been part of the CVXSE scene back in the day, but I can't place it. Doesn't matter, just make sure to check them out next time they play.









Last up, I finally got to check out demasiado, who I'd wanted to see for a while, if only because that was one of those words in Spanish I always particularly liked. I loved the singers vocals but halfway through the set, my friend came up and goes, "They're pretty good, except for his voice." Funny how different tastes can be. I liked them and the singer was a bit of a spectacle, which got me thinking- with a name meaning too much, maybe they mean "demasiado drogas" or "demasiado cerveza". After a while, I started thinking the singer reminded me of an ex-boyfriend a little demasiado, so I called it a night by 12:20, assuming they'd be wrapping up soon. I would like to them again soon. I'll just make sure its not on a night when all I'm drinking is water.