Newsy Bits: American Idol, Radio Sophie, Street Scene Lineup, Delta Spirit

Last week, I mentioned that FM 103.7 was dropping their Free Radio format for a "K-Surf 60s and 70s format." While Free FM did drop the talk format, the new format is um... not sure what we can call it...I guess it's not quite alternative, not quite triple A, not really top 40. It's called Radio Sophie and it appears to fall somewhere between FM 94/9 and KPRi. Bands like The Kooks, Death Cab, Lifehouse, Rob Thomas, Arcade Fire, and Kelly Clarkson are all featured in their top 100. I might have to drop one of my Rock En Español presets and check her out. FYI, Sophie, wife of CatDirt, is NOT happy about the station name.
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According to CityBeat's Blog (Last Blog On Earth), more Street Scene Bands have been announced. Sean Na Na (Har Mar Superstar's Mellower Indie Band), Kinky, Mika, Biff Clyro have all been added. As I commented on that site, I'd like to see más rock en Español. If ticket sales are sluggish, you can always count on enthusiastic Mexicanos to make up for it with just a couple solid bands...los Jaguares, perhaps? Tijuana local Julieta Venegas, maybe? And you've already got the Sweet and Tender Hooligans to bring out their crowd of "tacobilly" kids, right? LiveNation, I'm trying to help ya out here... Also, I think it would be a good time to remind Zach de la Rocha where he comes from. Rage Against the Machine would be a hell of a headliner and they seem to keep adding dates. Of course, pretty white Republican Del Mar might object and be the biggest obstacle.
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American Idol hopefuls, get ready. For the first time ever, San Diego will be the first audition stop for the next season of AI. The open cattle call audition will be at Qualcomm Stadium on July 30. This the only west coast audition scheduled thus far. Get out your cameras because it's gonna be quite a scene. Last year's Rose Bowl audition drew over 20,000 people. Fortunately for America, I don't make the cut-off age of 28.
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So-cal band Delta Spirit are working on a new album and are featured on KEXP. According to their MySpace blog:

We are back in the studio finishing up the last bit of recording for our record. Derek (the man) and Spot (the dog) are letting us crash here at the cabin again in the beautiful mountains of Julian (San Diego.)

You can read what KEXP has to say about them here.