Wrex The Halls 2016 Tickets On Sale Now!

I'm not gonna lie, last week was crazy busy and I was a little checked out with my birthday and work and everything going on. So Wrex The Halls 2016 announced two dates this year, and tickets went on sale Friday. And I know if you know me and know this site you're not going to believe what I'm about to say, but Band of Horses ACL set on Friday night was pretty amazing and on point. Anyway, details and ticket links are below.

91X Presents

Wrex The Halls

December 10 - 11, 2016

Valley View Casino Center

Tickets now on sale to the public!

NIGHT 1 - December 10:

Beck

Band of Horses

Local Natives  

Glass Animals

Bishop Briggs

TICKETS

NIGHT 2 - December 11:

Blink-182

Pierce the Veil

Jimmy Eat World

Kaleo

TICKETS

**Thanks to the reader who caught my error...this is WREX THE HALLS, not X-Fest. Duh. 

Southern Comfort Music Festival Returning To San Diego

San Diego can expect another amazing show when the SoCo Music Festival comes back to town this summer. It promises to be another great one. And, once again, the music fest is completely free to you, so there's really no excuse not to check it out and have one of those slushy hurricanes.

Here are the official SCMX dates for this summer:

Atlanta May 17th

Denver June 28th

San Diego August 23rd

Madison September 6th

New York September 13th

Tempe October 18th

Who Knew? Old Navy Sweater Song is H.O.T.

Friday this site netted (is that a word?) 708 hits, and more than half were searches for "Old Navy Sweater Song"...I'm hoping that post cumulatively surpasses my "Band Of Horses Hates Me" post. That shit is so tired.

Thanks to everyone who came out for my birthday last night and tonight. I hope everyone takes the time to check out the Adams Avenue Street Fair this weekend. It will not disappoint.

Band of Horses Poo

I thought I was never gonna write about Band of Horses again, but the dude just can't let it go. I saw this story on Stereogum a couple days ago about Band of Horses selling "Funeral" to be used on the Walmart website as well as an upcoming Ford commercial. I wasn't gonna say nuthin'. Then I see that it was addressed on Pitchfork and as they do there, they gave him a chance to voice his side of the story, or at least respond to accusations of "selling out" or whatever. Since he kinda brings me up again, I'm posting his letter here.

Dear friends,

As you may have heard, there's been some recent discussion of a couple of licenses for BoH songs. Just to provide some clarification...

I did allow Wal-Mart to use a song for a new website they created and have also given permission to Ford Motor Company to license a song from our new album. Because some people see Wal-Mart as a huge, evil corporation, they seem to be especially bummed about this license and see us as posers and/or corporate whores as a result.

I'd like to just state for the record that we let all kinds of folks use our songs in all kinds of mediums - TV, films, school projects, etc... My personal stance is that once that music is recorded and released to the world then I don't really care where it goes. "The Funeral" has been licensed to death (ha, wretch) at this point and if somebody wants to throw down some duckets for it, then feel free. It also beats the hell out of stealing batteries from Wal-Mart to sell them back for 8 bucks.

As for Ford: I drive a 1986 F-150 that still runs great. Maybe I'll get the a/c fixed with the cash they kicked down. I'm also stoked that people will hear our song on TV and we might pick up some new listeners in the process. I see no negative.

That's our reasoning and I'm okay with it. I hope fans of the band are, too.

We promise to use the money to buy camcorders (at Wal-Mart) for people to film "The Funeral," so I can get mad and crap my diaper. Fuck it.

-bb"

Does the guy have the biggest chip on his shoulder or what? Yes, Ben, the world is out to get you.

Incidentally, Band of Horses will not be playing San Diego on their fall tour.

One Thousand Posts! Trying to Make It Special

So this is my 1,000th post on this little blog, three times as many posts than I had on my original (and now offline) blog that I wrote for three years. I wanted this post to be special, but checking my sitemeter, I discovered that the whole Band of Horses thing just can't be put to bed. I made Rolling Stone Mexico! I'm half Mexican, but with a Polish dad, I, like everyone else, learned my Spanish in school, taking six years of it, allowing me to test out of the foreign language requirement in college. So here's the link. And to Chris, who left a lovely little comment which I deleted (thanks, but your insults had all been used before and that was SOOO last month...), if you'd like to chat, feel free to IM me on AOL at rosey928. Your positive energy was astounding and your comments were oh so constructive.

Somehow, the whole thing sounds so much cooler in Spanish.

Para terminar, entre verso y coro, Ben exclamó: ´se que me estás grabando´, cosa que no resistió más la fanática y se salió del recinto. Este video ha sido puesto en Youtube y la ex-fanática, de nombre Rosemary, ha puesto en su blog todos los incidentes.

Muchas gracias, RS Mexico. Te amo.

The Final Band of Horses Post

I'm gonna try to make this the last Band of Horses post ever on this site. But, since the whole thing is in this week's Blurt, I thought I would properly direct new readers to all of the links within this site.

From the Reader:

Whiny Foal- Rosey Bystrak's blog (www.sddialedin.com) has fueled the debate over fans shooting concert videos to post online. After a July 6 Band of Horses show at 'Canes, Bystrak posted, "So there I am with my tiny Sony digital camera... While playing the super emotional song 'Funeral,' [singer Ben Bridwell] flips me off and midsong yells, 'I see you recording me.' I look around and at least five other people are taping him, and he calls me out.... There's nothing worse than a...whiny baby onstage." After the song, Bridwell launched into a tirade against concert tapers who post on YouTube.

"Several bands have e-mailed me to thank me for posting pictures or YouTube footage of them," blogged Bystrak, "and [they] even link to me on their respective websites, but apparently Band of Horses is...too cool...to accept whatever publicity they can get."

Pitchforkmedia.com asked Bridwell about the incident. "It was really annoying," he said. "It was just scratching at the surface of what's happening to shows lately. Everybody's got a camera in their pocket, and they turn it on to just, I don't know, exploit us in some way or further their own projects or whatever the fuck they're doing with their websites and shit...as far as I'm concerned, it just looks like someone trying to record a really shitty performance to post somewhere and embarrass us forever."

Pitchfork's report then turned up on Idolator.com and the U.K.'s Drowned in Sound, with readers posting comments defending and/or berating both Bystrak and Bridwell. "In a day, I went from about 250 hits to almost ten times that," says Bystrak. "I opted to not respond to comments, and I still won't, because most likely they've come and gone and are now hating on the next indie-nation whatever."

-- Jay Allen Sanford

Here's the post that launched a thousand blogs. OK, more like 6. And not until a couple weeks after the incident happened. But still, it got under quite a few commenters' skins.

I mention it a little here. Then I read that the singer, Ben, was complaining about having to play his "hit", so I posted about that here.

Then the shit hit the fan when Pitchfork linked to my story and drove a whole bunch of new traffic my way. This post was written at the end of that long day, and has all the links of sites who picked up the story (that I knew about), including the original Pitchfork interview with Ben, and updated links throughout that weekend. Most of those posts have their own comments that are interesting, to say the least.

And here's a very old unrelated post about BoH when they won three Plug Awards. At the time, I thought they were joking. In a way, I now think maybe they were dead serious.

Now, I'm dusting off my hands and I'm done with this. Here's my sitemeter for the last 30 days and life has definitely gone back to normal. Just the way I like it.

Thank You, Friends & Band of Horses Nonsense

Makin' your way in the world today takes everything you've got
Takin a break from all your worries sure would help a lot
Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name
and they're always glad you came
You wanna be where you can see our troubles are all the same
You wanna go where everybody knows your name.

You wanna go where people know people are all the same
You wanna go where everybody knows your name.

I'll be at The Ken Club for last call tonight (after the Swim Party show at the Beauty Bar and the CatDirt show at Kadan) if anyone wants to say hi. Or punch me in the face.

xo.

If you're finding all of this BoH stuff engaging, here's a link to the original Pitchfork Media article, another one on Idolator, and some more comments on a board DoneWaiting.

My San Diego bloggers have my back, too. Here's CatDirtSez and Its Too Sunny Out Here and prolific commenter Cullen has his own site here.

Also, for the record, there are more posts on this site than just the original, so you can find them here, here, and here.

Update: Links up on Stereogum and Brooklyn Vegan (which are much more engaging in the comments because of the anonymity of the commenters. Who knew so many people would comment on blogs about how irrelevant blogs are?)

Saturday Update: Another link here. I like this one a lot, because the commenters actually pay to use the site. And they all think I'm a bro, which I suppose says a lot for their reading comprehension.

A week later, and the links keep coming. A post in French here, some link from England here, the NY Press did a story here (though they linked to Brooklyn Vegan) and how did I not mention TPB?

Band of Horses: Taking the high road

I was contacted on Friday by Pitchfork and they asked me if they could link to my blog regarding the Cane's show and the "incident" and I actually asked a few friends their advice about it... I mean of course a link on Pitchfork is huge, but I wasn't sure I was ready for the onslaught of hate I would receive. "All press is good press," my friends assured me.

I mean there was the actual incident, then there was my 4 a.m. drunk rant that night on MySpace, then a couple days later, I posted it on this blog where most of my audience are still friends of mine and for the most part supported me. I did acknowledge my whiny rant:

"...resulted in a 4 in the morning rant on my MySpace. In hindsight, I'm less pissed about what went down and the truth is that in reading my rant was chock full of expletives which then makes me no better than the guy I'm calling a whiny bitch. He was doing what he does, I was doing what I do."

But people will skim through that and take from it all what they will. I figured Pitchfork would talk to Ben to get his perspective and all, and of the nearly 1000 posts I have, I'm a little bummed that this was the one to get attention. I mean, it's one thing to rant on a MySpace bulletin, where I know my friends have my back, and then even here on this blog where most people, at least those who've bothered to comment, like what I'm doing here, but it's another thing entirely to have Indie Nation reading here and pitching in their two cents on something that they didn't witness and didn't experience. Worse is that they are only going to read one post, and in that, just the "juicy" shit where I rant like I'm in junior high.

Anyway, they did an extensive interview with Ben Bridwell about all of it and I don't know what to say except I feel like shit about all of it. I know plenty of people who no matter what, will think I'm an asshole, that I'm a thief, that I'm a bitch, whatever. Awesome. I will not censor any of the commentors who link to this site from P4K and hate me. But I did want to thank Ben. Because mostly behind all my rage and anger about what happened, the truth is that it just really hurt my feelings. He could've launched right back at me, because I'm sure he's read my rant (courtesy of P4K), but instead, he took the high road and sounds like he actually cares about what happened and that he's really sorry about the way it all went down. I could go on defending my position about everything, but all of this makes me really just wanna put the whole thing behind me.

So that said, thanks to Randall, because the follow up removes any of the sour I had. Thanks to SubPop for the e-mail and for not demanding that I kill the YouTube. I'll keep the new stuff for myself. Thanks to Pitchfork for the hype. Thanks to my friends for having my back. And again, thanks to Ben for being more of a man than most men would be in this situation.

BoH: Still Whining

So my favorite band played a benefit in New York on Tuesday night, 4 days after my incident. Stereogum wrote about the event and I thought this was too funny not to post:

A brief break later we got some Band Of Horses (or "Brand Of Horses," in Zach's world), whose set was full of Everything All The Time jamz ("Do I have to play this song again?!" big-bearded Ben asked before launching into a crowd-pleasing "The Funeral"), but also roped in lots of
new stuff (from their "southeast record"), a promising peek at their more hooky and rigid rock sound. Ears peeled for that one in October.

Awesome.

Here's what someone commented and I swear to God it was not me.

Ah, I love when indie bands act like it is a burden to play a popular song that
people really want to hear... especially when they only have one album.

My thoughts exactly.

YouTube, VMix, Virb

Just in a little follow up to the whole Band of Horses thing, I got a well written e-mail from a Sub Pop publicist suggesting permission should be granted by an artist to avoid my whole experience. While I appreciate the e-mail, I still don't understand one thing. How exactly does posting a band's material on YouTube, Virb, VMix or any other medium hurt the artist? And am I not doing a publicist's job for free? I know all the "record sales are down" stuff, but I just don't understand how watching a video of a band could hurt an artist or dent their sales. Unless they suck, which you can tell even from the grainiest video. Can someone clarify, please? It kinda reminds me of my first speeding ticket when the officer told me "it's speeders like you that cause traffic". Huh?

Recap...the rest of the weekend

Look, I'm only human. Cullen says I'm unguarded and it's true, but I can only be me. But sometimes that means being sensitive, grumpy, angry, and generally unbearable. It's these times you should hope I'm hiding at home under my covers with Ryan Adams' new CD on repeat (which for at least part of my weekend, I did). The Band of Horses show irked me big time. It's nice to hope being called out is something you can just brush off, but the truth is I probably slept about an hour last night because that and other weekend stuff was on my brain and I tossed and turned all night long. I appreciate all the people who messaged me about my rant and understood my need to vent about it. Fortunately I can predict that my funk was just a weekend thing and by the time I'm watching Jim James tonight at the Belly Up, everything will be all good again.

I did mention that the Band of Horses pre-show was a good time, so I want to still post a couple funny pictures we took out on the patio while the two opening bands did their thing.









Other than that video on the other post, BoH gets no pictures posted. Sorry. Once the incident occurred, we booked it outta there. We headed to the Ken Club and were able to catch most of Fifty on Their Heels and all of Vinyl Radio.







It was good to see friendly faces; for me that means friends and the bartenders, I'm sorry that other people continue to have issues there.



It's not that I measure the bar with a different stick, it's just I've never personally experienced any problems there. Yes, the sound could be better. The band room could use a couple good lights, some a/c, and better sound equipment. Don't even mention the constant suggestion that the bathroom needs more stalls. I know all this. But then it wouldn't exactly be a dive bar, would it? And vodka tonics would cease to be $3 bucks. And when all of you aren't there for a show, us locals are the ones in there essentially keeping the lights on. Just the way it goes. Also, the sound isn't nearly so terrible if you buy some good earplugs. Just a suggestion you might consider.

Saturday was Sophie's birthday at the Beauty Bar and I thought I was in a better mood butI guess I really wasn't, so I did my best to fake it. It was nice to get there early (thanks for the drinks, CatDirt) so one could actually have a conversation before the DJs raised the volume to 11 and all parts of a conversation are prefaced with "what? I can't hear you!"





When the bands started, I watched passively. During the Vultures I was tucked in the back where there was a gap in space and I could breathe. I did take a couple pictures of Fifty, but since I'd just seen them the night before, I was pretty passively watching them, too. I stuck around as long as I could, but while attempting to pass the dancefloor, I got popped in the face...a definite sign I was not supposed to be there one second longer. Learn from my lesson...do NOT attempt to pass by the dancefloor while sipping your drink. A flailing conversive arm came up under my drink and slammed my plastic cup into my bottom lip while drawing a tiny speck of blood from biting my lip. The boy whose enthusiactic gesture knocked my drink was very apologetic and he raced to get me napkins (in case there was more blood) and then promptly replaced my drink, so it definitely wasn't any bad on his part, just wrong place at the wrong time, but when the cosmos speak, I listen and I bid adieu to the birthday party.

When I got to the Ken Club (I didn't say I was totally done for the night), Roxy Jones was playing in the band room. "Don't you dare bring out that camera," Peter joked, but it wasn't coming out anyway. The BoH thing definitely knocked me down a few pegs and I'm gonna be a little shier with the camera, I suspect.

Anyway, nothing particularly exciting on Sunday, unless you wanna hear how easy it is to drop serious cash at Target on kitty litter and toiletries. I watched the very hilarious and ridiculous "Sweet 16: The Movie" after catching pieces of the "Blingest Sweet 16" countdown. The winner: the son of Pebbles whose dad is a record exec...they spent over a half million dollars on his party. It's really disgusting actually, and I hate myself for watching any of it. Feeling shame, I realized that I should make something of my night and finally saw Firethorn play at the Zombie Lounge.

I was happy that when I walked up, the guys were all outside and hadn't played. I missed the opener, but did get to catch the full set of Tigers of Wrath. The singer's voice was a little high on the register for me considering his speaking voice was deeper, and he would pull his head away from the mic as a sound effect, which didn't really work for me. When he did belt it out and directly into the mic, they sounded 10 times better. They're doing a west coast tour, so I hope the experience helps them and I can catch them





Firethorn played next and I liked that they were more melodic than 97% of the bands who play the Zombie. That doesn't make them soft, it just means they actually sing instead of just yell. There were as many girls there to see them as guys, which I think definitely says something positive about the band. Plus, they're three of the nicest guys and completely supportive of other local bands with a near perfect attendance record for Tim Pyle's events, supporting all genres of local music.







I didn't stay for Someday Assassin thinking I was completely tired and then as I mentioned, I slept maybe an hour total waking up at least 30 times. It was pretty awful. Maybe I should've stayed and done a shot to knock me out... next time...

Band of Horses Hates Me.

Update: Here's an article about the incident here from KPBS.

So I had quite an interesting experience at Band of Horses that resulted in a 4 in the morning rant on my MySpace. In hindsight, I'm less pissed about what went down and the truth is that in reading my rant was chock full of expletives which then makes me no better than the guy I'm calling a whiny bitch. He was doing what he does, I was doing what I do. Doesn't mean I'll be buying that October release or ever hyping or seeing the band again, but consider this your warning if you proceed to read my following MySpace rant:

There are so many ways to approach what I’m about to write that it’s been stewing in my head all night long. So I’ll just write and hopefully you get the gist of what I want to say.

First, let me rewind. Last year, one of my favorite discs of the year was Band of Horses’ “Everything All The Time”. I listened to it incessantly and was completely saddened by the fact that when they played San Diego on their tour, it was at the Epicentre on my 30th birthday and there was no rescheduling the party I’d planned at my house. I even went so far as messaging the band on MySpace suggesting that after their all ages and early ending show that they were invited to my party. Their failure to respond didn’t really bother me as I’m sure MySpace wasn’t quite their priority at the time.

Fast forward to tonight. Andrea and I scored free tickets to the show (Thank you, Owen!) and I sold off the ticket I had paid for, minus the service charges. We decided to have dinner in “Cane’s Cantina” with our 2 for 1 coupon. Dinner was decent though not great. My sandwich had more bread than meat, but whatever, we were enjoying the fact that we could sit down with some good chips and salsa while we waited for the show.

A bunch of our friends showed up so we completely missed both opening bands, which from what I heard, were less than impressive anyway. We made our way into the venue and maneuvered up to the front and I was posturing for photos. The energy through me was unstoppable, finally getting to see a band whose CD was such a big part of my life only a year ago.

There was a guy in front of me spying on my maneuvering who let me get in front of him because he was tall and let us shorties up front. Thanks a ton to that guy. But then there was the other guy who has only ever heard “Funeral” and was basically just taking up space with his ditsy blonde and somehow we maneuvered in front of him, too.

So there I was, up front, maybe two rows back from the stage, excited to see Band Of Horses. At first I took a few pictures, among the many people taking pictures. There were a few songs I recorded thinking I’d stick them on YouTube and whatnot, like I have with so many other bands before. About 8 songs into the set, BoH finally played “Funeral” which all the bros from Mission Beach and PB kept calling out for.

So there I am with my tiny Sony digital camera, capturing the song, and suddenly I realize I’m getting flipped off by the singer. While playing the super emotional song, “Funeral”, he flip me off and mid song yells, “I see you recording me.” I look around and at least 5 other people are taping him and he calls me out. Fuck you. I duck out and I am fucking outta there. There’s nothing worse than a fucking whiny baby onstage. It wasn’t bad enough that earlier in the set he complained about the sound and the mix, asking his band, “Should we keep playing?” Now he’s gonna be a whiny bitch about me recording his shit. Fuck him. I was outta there.





I was there long enough for the end of the song to come when he went off on some tirade about people YouTubin his shit for “profile cred”.

Actually, NO. I YouTube bands that I like, that I think should be selling more records than some shit ass band like Black Eyed Peas. In my small blog way, I would hope to turn people on to good, quality music, and several bands have e-mailed me to thank me for posting pictures or YouTube footage of them, and even link to me on their respective websites, but apparently Band of Horses is too fucking good and too fucking cool and too fucking awesome to accept whatever publicity they can get.

In a recent CityBeat interview, the band described being homeless and broke. In my own tiny way, I hoped to publicize a band to my readers that is still relatively unknown. This night made me decide that they deserve all the shit they have ever been dished in their lives. Or at least the singer, who apparently got a whole new band for his second album. As far as I’m concerned, he can go fuck himself.

Do not expect any future publicity here for the Bandaid on Horseshit as I’m now calling them. I’m really happy they’re playing with the Decemberists, known for being a cool as shit band, because it will be their biggest show ever and then they’ll fizzle and fucking head back into obscurity. That October release? Fuck you. Good luck with that. I’m not claiming to have any more influence than I do, but nobody likes a fucking dick and that’s all you were tonight. Suck shit, you fucking motherfucker. And while you’re at it, shave your shit. The beard is sooo overplayed. You’re not homeless anymore… or are you?

Band of Horses Win 3 Plug Awards

I'm reposting this because I think its funny, I love Band of Horses, and their photog is a local boy.

What the crap dudes? We won three Plug Awards
thanks to you all! Not to brag or nuthin, but Album of the Year, Song Of the
Year, and Americana Album of The Year all went to your little bearded bro's from
So. Cack! All we can say is thank you soooooo much to those of you that gave
enough of a care to vote for us. We really didn't expect to win a damn thing
considering the talented company we were included with. Remember, these awards mean nothing. Unless you win, bitches! xo boh

For the rest of the winners, go see them listed here.

Wednesday Newsy Bits: CatDirtSez, SD Reader, Vinyl Radio, 91X hires new PD, Band of Horses local connection

*****
Grab this week's Reader. Page 98 features Scott Pactor of CatDirtSez talking about music, the local scene, radio, and music in general and give a shout out to me, ChickRawker, and BlogSanDiego as the best local music blogs. And you'll never believe it, but Fifty on Their Heels isn't even mentioned once.
*****
CityBeat and the Reader listings missed it, and only the Casbah in the Reader shows it, but Vinyl Radio is definitely playing on Saturday for the Bloody Hollies CD Release show, along with The PowerChords and Ari Shine.

In other Vinyl Radio news, the search for a drummer has ended as they have recruited Nelson Cooper on the kit. The band is stoked and feels like he's a solid match.
*****
CityBeat's "local only" has the follow up to the car crashing into the Zombie Lounge last Thursday.
Here's the blurb:

Head Zombie dodges death

“We were doing a lot of the work on the place—moving out a bunch of walls,
putting in a new floor. Me and the guy who was painting went out to lunch, and
that’s when it happened,” said “Denver” Joe Hicks, owner of the Zombie Lounge in City Heights, about the Infinity luxury car that slammed through the wall on
Jan. 19. “We were painting right where she came through. One of us would’ve been nailed. There’s another one of my lives gone, dammit. I’m runnin’ out.”

The luxury-car missile crisis happened at about 4 p.m. “We went to Lowe’s, boarded
it up, and we were open that night,” Hicks said, noting that the crash also
inspired the landlord to give the go-ahead on major renovations to the Zombie
Lounge. “So it may be a blessing in disguise.”

Nobody was hurt. I've seen two near misses directly across the street from The Ken, then there was the Jewel Box, and now the Zombie. Watch out Casbah, you're on a dangerous corner...
*****
Local photographer Christopher Wilson will once again shooting the art for an upcoming Band Of Horses release.

*****
91X has hired a new PD. He will start next Monday. You can read about it on Chickrawker's site here.
*****
Battle of the Bands: Are they worth it??
Last week CatDirt had a lot to say about Battle of the Bands competitions, and while I agree, I still chose to publish the listings for the Emergenza festival at Dreamstreet because two bands I support played: Two Word Name and Hostile Combover. Two Word Name won their night and will continue on at the next round at Brick By Brick. I asked Hostile Combover how they did and this was the response:

it was lame. a total pyramid scam. boo-hoo.

xxoo,
ho-co

Let their lesson be your lesson and don't let your local band get sucked into these competitions.

*****
I had jury duty all day so while I catch up with the news, I thought I would mention that I've volunteered myself to be a field rep/street teamer for Filter Magazine...so keep an eye out for me distributing flyers and schwag all for free mags, music, and tickets. And expect to see me using this little blog here for promotional purposes as well. I don't mind whoring myself out for the music, Man.