D/WOLVES Release New EP:

D/WOLVES have released a new EP and you should definitely check it out. I know I haven't talked about the boys in some time but there's no love lost here and I'm still always impressed with the stuff they do. I know they have shows between now and 2012, but I'm super excited that they'll be opening for the Handsome Furs at the Belly Up in January. Get the download.

Video: D/Wolves "Buzz Lightyear"

Remember when I went to Vegas with D/Wolves for The Rumble? Well, Patrick was vlogging the whole time, and when I went downstairs to work using the hotel's free lobby wi-fi, the boys were upstairs in the room. And what do four guys in a free hotel do when nobody else is there? They challenge themselves to food eating competitions. Patrick stacked 8 crackers with EZ Cheez and then choked as one of the crackers lodged into his throat sideways. When I got back to the room they were all, "Rosey! Patrick almost died! It was hilarious! You totally missed it!" Fortunately, the camera was rolling. They posted this a while ago, but I finally remembered to get the link, so here's some aerosol cheese antics soundtracked by their song, "Buzz Lightyear".

My Friends Done Good: Josh Damigo, Jesse LaMonaca, The Heavy Guilt, D/Wolves

As my life has evolved from media assistant to media buyer to media planner to unemployed to this around the clock barely-paying-rent music lifestyle, my refusal to get a day job has forced me to wear many hats...blogger, booker, social media manager, consultant, stage producer, merch girl, door girl, band manager, band momager, publicist, and people connectress. That last one is my favorite...putting people in touch with each other to do good things for San Diego music (though I still haven't figured out how to make that one pay the bills). While all of these things leave me broke as hell, I get to share the pride when my friends do well. Here's a little roundup of some exciting things happening with Josh Damigo, Jesse LaMonaca and the Dime Novels, The Heavy Guilt, and D/Wolves.



D/Wolves recently recorded their EP at Black Box with Mario Quintero. Today they were featured on This Music Doesn't Suck based out of Brooklyn. They were also featured on the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang e-zine last week, getting two "Agents' Number One Bullets" for the week. I posted about our trip to Vegas last week and hopefully they can do some more out of town gigs soon.



Jesse LaMonaca and The Dime Novels have been busy in the studio working on a recording and video for their song "Other Side of The World". He invited guests to watch the process and it was a pretty great night in Pacific Beach. The video is still being edited but will be available soon and then Jesse's got some decisions to make about recording a new record or EP or live album before he heads to the East Coast for an as yet undetermined amount of time. Crossroads, I suppose you could say. For now, along with Jesse's bar gigs all over town, I'm happy to say he's opening for The Builders and The Butchers at the Casbah on Tuesday and will be playing with my twitter friends The Morgansterns on Wednesday at the Redwood Bar in Los Angeles. Hope there's room in the car for me for that one! He also went to Dirty Boulevard Recording Studio and recorded some songs for their podcast. Check it out here (Use the full Podcast download, as I couldn't get the stream to work past 3 minutes).



The Heavy Guilt have recorded a new record and though I only have my paws on an unmastered version, it is AMAZING. Plans are in the works for a big summer release party, but in the meantime, check them out in 944's Music Issue (go to page 60-61) as one of "San Diego's Bands To Know If You Don't Know". They're playing tonight at Winston's if you wanna gimme a ride :)




Last but certainly not least, Josh Damigo has been ALL OVER the place since he's moved to L.A. and it is so exciting to see someone so deserving getting so much love. Whether it's the San Diego Troubadour cover story, Wechter guitars bragging about him or SESAC calling him a "Social Media Powerhouse" or some of the killer gigs he's been getting all over Southern California, I've never seen anyone so aggressively yet gracefully steward their own career.

I'm happy to say that all four bands will be performing on the Main Stage of the North Park Festival of Arts. This is a free all ages event on May 15. There's also a Bar Pink/FM 94/9 stage in the ticketed Craft Beer Block, so I suggest you buy tickets for that portion here.

Keep rockin, San Diego. You make a broke and tired blogger proud.

Roadtrip: D/Wolves Face The Rumble in Las Vegas

I realize I never posted about my last roadtrip to Vegas to see Transfer; somehow my post disappeared, but I'll recover it and post this week. In the meantime, I'm sitting in the car with D/Wolves and we have a couple hours to go and everyone is feverishly texting or facebooking, so I might as well join 'em.

As you know, sd:dialed in is one of The Rumble partners for the San Diego, which D/Wolves played on Saturday night along with Vanaprasta and New Mexico. That night was pretty awesome, especially after spending time at CityBeat's festival of beer, Revolver to catch Josh Damigo, and Analog to visit A-Fresh.

After D/Wolves finished and loaded their gear, we went to Brian & Patrick's for a few hours (we should've slept) and then hit the road to Vegas, where they were scheduled to play The Rumble again with Vanaprasta and a Vegas band called A Crowd of Small Adventures. The Vegas Rumble was at The Royal Resort for the first time and closer to the Strip than the previous location, near Wynn's Encore. The show was billed as a daytime pool party but there was a permit issue, so it was still a daytime show but moved inside into their cool living room- feeling lounge and bar, complete with a cool pool table and shuffleboard.

We arrived around 9 am Sunday morning and the hotel let us check in early where we tried to relax and nap (didn't really happen). When it was time for load-in, we were notified that Vanaprasta wasn't gonna make it, but the bands played on anyway with D/Wolves "headlining" to a small crowd of Small Adventures' fans, random hotel guests, and a few bloggers and Rumble supporters.

Though I'm not the band's manager, I've been helping them out with some things and after the show, when the boys clogged then subsequently overflowed the toilet and didn't know what to do, I kinda adopted the term 'momager', fixing the toilet to stop running, and getting things taken care of. The hotel decided the carpet was too wet and moved us to another room. Fortunately the toilet was actually broken and we were actually not the cause of the great flood.

For half the band, it was their first time in Vegas, so after more failed nap attempts, we explored Vegas- grabbing buffet at Main Street Station (our first meal since 6 am), walking Fremont, then driving the length of The Strip. We were wiped after being awake 35+ hours, though we still ended up staying awake in the room till about 3 am. At one point I was downstairs working on wi-fi, and when I came back up, they told me how Patrick had choked. He was vlogging the whole time, so I'll link to those when he uploads, and you'll see all of their silliness and how aerosol Easy Cheese could've killed him.

We slept solid, checked out around 1, went to the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop (of Pawn Stars fame), had a late lunch, and now it's nearly 9 pm and we're rolling through San Jacinto.

It's been a really fun trip, and what I really love is getting to know these creatures a little more deeply- Joel and his hot/cold moods (do NOT mess with him when he's hungry/tired or if he thinks he's getting sick, which is almost always)- Patrick and his constant goofball antics- Jessie, the conservative one, always a bit more collected and serious- and Brian, the sensitive one who takes the brunt of their pranks, is the first to apologize or take the blame when something goes wrong, and who doesn't have much, but will share whatever he's got. I love these kids and hope next time they hit the road that they might still have room for a momager.

More pics later when I can upload.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

This Saturday: The Rumble Returns to Bar Pink

The Rumble returns to Bar Pink this Saturday and this time around, Vanaprasta has followed the Rumble trail down the coast and will be joined by our own New Mexico and d/wolves. It should be a pretty stellar night if you consider that 2000 of your closest San Diego friends will be drinking the day away at Citybeat's 2011 Festival of Beers over at the Lafayette and will be in close proximity to Bar Pink (I think you can catch the 1 to 30th, then hop on the 2 south if you feel like using public transit).

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this one because d/wolves were also asked to play the Rumble the following day in Vegas, so if we can just find a drum kit for them to share, I get to exercise my band mom powers and travel with the boys. We'll see if that works out.

You can take a listen to all of the bands here.

The Rumble San Diego is brought yo you by Future Sounds, Indigenous, Owl & Bear, Bedouin Vintage Collective, Friends With Both Arms, Strong Screen Printing, Eventbrite,Veoba, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and yours truly at sd:dialed in.

There will be PBR specials all night, and you can tag your pics, videos, tweets, and twitpics with #rumblepabst

Tonight: Celebrate Sara's Birthday with Swim Party & d/wolves at the Whistle Stop

Tonight is gonna be a good night at the Whistle Stop, and I'm not just saying that because I booked the bands ;) Come on out and celebrate Sara's birthday, hang with Robin Roth and friends, and have some stiff cocktails. d/wolves will kick off the night at 10:15 followed by Swim Party at 11:15. As always, Pussy Galore is free.

San Diego Music Newsy Stuffs

That last post was supposed to be this post, but when you're inspired to write, you just gotta go with it. This is another photo from yesterday, up on a bluff above OB.

I do have some news to share with you, however, so now that all that other stuff is off the brain, here goes.

First, the great CityBeat Demo Review issue is coming up and MONDAY is the final deadline for submissions. That means you have FOUR DAYS to find a friend with protools and get your shit on a CD for Peter Holslin and the CityBeat crew who will either gush and love you or chew you up and spit you out. Both are great PR for your future EPKs, so just do it already! All the details are here, and here's a little writeup I did to remind you how to properly package your goods.

Lately a lot of bands have been dropping new music online, and while I've already told you about d/wolves having free downloads available, more have trickled my way. Make sure you get new stuff from Lesands and Vegetarian Werewolf. I know that more have crossed my path, but I'm kinda spacing right now. If your band has free downloads, let me know and I'll get them posted.

I've been doing a lot of housekeeping and been talking to a lot of people to try and reorganize a bit here. Some things on the site and in my social networks might get upgraded soonish, though it won't be anything too drastic. Sorry, you're still gonna have my little white font on the black background. One thing I'd like to do is update the San Diego band links. Many of the bands in my list no longer exist or have better links than their old rotting MySpace pages, so if your band is listed, check the link and make sure it is accurate. If you're not listed and would like to be, please just leave a comment and I'll sort them all out soon. Please don't send an email as I get hundreds a day and I really can't keep them all straight at the moment, even now that I've got my little Blackberry. Sometimes it's just too much.

I mentioned last week that we have started meeting for the 15th annual North Park Festival of Arts. (For shits and giggles, you can snicker at that URL). I appreciate all of the submissions and EPKs, but at this point I have a pretty good idea of who I'll be booking, though nothing is solidified just yet. I'll be in touch with some of you, and to the others, I have plenty of booking opportunities throughout the year, so having your submissions is very valuable to me.

Last but not least, I've been following the MIDEM conference that took place in Cannes, France this week. Though a lot of twitter is just loud chatter, it can also be a wealth of information if you know how to look for it. I was following the #MIDEM tweets on Tweetdeck, but you should check them out for a lot of news on startups, labels, and emerging technologies, and general music business information. I already found a couple really cool sites, like get-ctrl, which lets bands create free sites to connect to fans or Discovr, which delivers music information to iPads. (There were countless others, but I can't do all the work for you! Pay special attention to the award winners mentioned in countless tweets.)
You should also take the time to read Deloitte's "Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Predictions: 2011" for a wealth of information.

I'm sure I'm forgetting about 20 other things, but that's all for now, kiddos.
Don't forget to leave your band links in the comments.

Guest Review: Best Coast, Sonny & The Sunsets, Dirty Beaches, D/Wolves

(ed. note: When the Best Coast show sold out earlier this week, I got a grip of emails and texts asking if I had any hookups for the show. If I could hook everyone up, I would, but capacity is capacity. I did however convince Kyle that I could get him in, in exchange for writing about his experience at the show. I think he did a pretty good job, and since I was outside with d/wolves from the end of their set to the beginning of Best Coast, I appreciate that he filled in the blanks. I shot a lot of video but my wi-fi has been failing, so I'll upload as soon as I can get my connection to last longer than 6 minutes. Thanks again to Kyle Lynch for the review.)

Last night was spent with some of my newest and most loved friends. After DJing at Bluefoot for an hour or so, myself and my lady headed down to The Casbah for the Best Coast, Sonny & The Sunsets, Dirty Beaches and D-Wolves show. After pounding a tall can in the car it was time to head inside, we caught the very end of D-Wolves who are now starting to really catch a buzz in San Diego and I expect them to start catching on in Orange County and LA as well.

Mid show smoke break, some hellos and hugs exchanged with all the fantastic people in attendance and it's time for Sonny & The Sunsets. Complete with a white background they took to the stage and immediately had the crowds attention as the colors changed from pink to green and back. Sonny's name couldn't be more spot on, they radiate beach pop that brings to mind buzzy days at the beach with friends and summer bbq's. Their San Francisco influences are all there, the jangle pop that has over taken them and now has that town a flutter is there, the hints of John Dwyer is there and my love for this band is too! Seriously if you get a chance to, go see this band! They deserve every good review, new fan and all the praise they've gotten.

On to the Atari Lounge for Montreal based Dirty Beaches...kind of ironic huh? This was my second time seeing him and he did not disappoint. A one man band armed with just a guitar, backing tracks, killer dance moves and the swagger of Elvis Presley himself! One solid set that included the crowds favorite hit "True Blue" definitely had me dancing and ready for Best Coast.

More drinks, more smokes, more hugs, more laughs and it's time for the headliner. This year has been huge for Bethany so I won't even bother with that. The white background has now been transformed into a 60's liquid projection show that provided just that perfect compliment to her garage pop songs. I was really excited that she brought out "Sun Was High" and "Far Away" two personal favorites of mine but clearly the crowd was awaiting they're faves from the new album. With almost every single girl in attendance singing along to "Boyfriend" and "When I'm With You" this show was now a full blown lovers party. Best Coast delivered on every plain even amidst hecklers and chants of "Garfield" in reference to her cat Snacks who was not in attendance but the boyfriend was, I give the night an A!

San Diego: Dialed In Weekend Events

I sent out an email blast yesterday, but in case you weren't one of my victims, I thought I'd share the events that I'm involved with this weekend.

Thursday Night- The Heavy Guilt at West Coast Tavern. Free. 10pm.

As you may or may not know, I've been booking Thursdays at West Coast Tavern for a few months now and this week I'm especially excited to have The Heavy Guilt playing. For as long as I'd heard the band by name, I never actually saw them perform until one night when 2 of the members set up a small amp outside of the Soda Bar and played for the crowd moving in and out of the bar between bands. I was blown away and quickly made sure to get their info. If you haven't seen them, check out my attached video from that night. The shows are free and they start around 10pm and I recommend arriving hungry because the food at WCT is delicious.



Friday Night- San Diego: Dialed In 4 Year Anniversary at the Casbah. $8. Doors at 8:30pm.


I can hardly believe that it's been four years since I created sddialedin.com. My layout hasn't changed much over the years, but I've always thought that continuous content was my priority. To date I've posted over 4,000 posts and have over 1400 videos on my YouTube channel and have amassed somewhere close to 400 gigs of photos and video, not to mention mountains and mountains of incredible music. It has been a pleasure taking this from just being an online diary to what it has evolved into and I appreciate all of the continued support. To celebrate four years, I've asked my friends in White Apple Tree, Swim Party, and d/wolves to perform. Come rock the Casbah with us. The show is $8.

Saturday Night-The Rumble at Bar Pink. Free. 9pm.




The last event is the final Rumble of the year at Bar Pink. This one features Ume from Austin, and San Diego's Shapes of Future Frames and Raw Moans . As always, these shows are free and feature $3 Trumer Pils. It's been a pleasure being one of the Rumble partners this year so let's go out with a bang and I'll keep you posted about what my friends at Future Sounds, Indigenous, and Planetary have lined up for next year.


Again, thanks for all of your continued support. I look forward to seeing you this weekend.

Thursday Night Kills!

Tonight is 30th on 30th, a bunch of killer shows, and two events that I'm sponsoring. I know where I'll be. Do you?

My FM 94/9 Coup d'eTat

I have had such an excellent weekend and I know I have three months of photos to post (not to mention those 200 emails that I haven't gotten to yet), but I need to burn off some energy and try to shut my brain down, so I thought I'd bust out a quick post about my day.

It started in typical fashion, with me firing up the laptop as soon as I woke up, only instead of working through e-mail, I was designing a setlist. On Saturday night I saw Tim Pyles at the Casbah and he told me that they didn't have a scheduled guest to do Sunday night's Coup D 'eTat on FM 94/9, and asked if I wanted to do it. I've never done the Coup before, and of course I love chatting on air with Pyles whenever I can, so naturally I agreed. I played with my iTunes (realizing how much of my music still isn't loaded) and put together a 42 minute set of music, with seven local songs and five under the radar songs, had a couple glasses of wine with my friend Christopher at Kensington Cafe, then headed down to the 94/9 studio.

Unfortunately, there was a mixup at the station and they did, in fact, have a guest scheduled. It was Matt Burke and he was the sweetest kid (and hopefully future sd:dialed in intern!!) and had a great setlist. What Tim decided to do was to have me play my non-local music during FTP and my local stuff (to promote North Park Music Thing) during The Local Pyle.

In case you missed it, here are the songs I played tonight:

FTP:
Frightened Rabbit "Nothing Like You" - I played this song for my friend Natalie. We share a mutual love of this band. They're playing at the House of Blues (presented by the Casbah) on October 14. Find tickets here.

Adam Haworth Stephens "The Cities That You've Burned"- I was always a huge fan of Two Gallants and saw Adam earlier this year in Upland at a place called The Wire as well as at the Casbah. He was touring with my buddy Rocky Votolato so I loved those shows. He has his solo debut album being released on my birthday (!!) September 28, and is playing a short tour to promote. He'll be at the Casbah next Sunday, August 15. Tickets are available here.

Mumford & Sons "White Blank Page"-I've seen this band twice and absolutely love this band. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for another tour...maybe they should play this year's 94/9 Holiday Hootenanny. (Garett Michaels, can you hear me?)

The Kissaway Trail "Beat Your Heartbeat"- I saw this band open for The Temper Trap earlier this year at the Belly Up. In fact, it was the day before their CD was released, but they had copies available and I listen to it all the time. They're from Denmark, so I'm not sure when they'll be back around. This song was a dedication to my new friend Dave who told me he's been a fan of the blog for awhile but we barely met on Thursday. Funny how that happens, eh?

Not played: Jace Everett "Damned If I Do"- I didn't get to play this song, but I wanted to because it was one of my favorite recent shows and apparently this photo was quite controversial among some of my readers and some Jace fans. We didn't make out, it was all in fun, obviously we were just posing for the photo...I wanted to play this because it was in a recent True Blood episode (besides his singing the opening song for the show) and since it was Sunday, being on the radio meant I missed this week's True Blood episode.

We hit the local show and Tim let me hang around until all of my songs were played. I was there to promote my showcase and got a few other participating bands in, too.

The Moviegoers "Big High School"- playing Eleven, 8/13, 8pm
d/wolves "(shock)"- playing Eleven, 8/13, 9pm
Swim Party "Broke Ships Sink"- playing Eleven, 8/13, 11pm
The Kabbs "Golden & Blue"- playing Eleven, 8/13, 12am
Lord Howler "Down (Where You Belong)"- playing Kadan 8/14, 12:35am
The Silent Comedy "Bartholomew"-- playing U-31, 8/13, 12:35am

I also snuck in a couple other bands:
Zoo Seven "Lifesaver"- I've got a whole post to come devoted to Zoo Seven. Stay tuned.
The Howls- I don't remember which track Pyles played, but you can download their EP. I'm booking Thursday nights at West Coast Tavern, so they'll be playing there on 8/12 around 9pm. The show is free. We had fun talking about the awesome food and drinks at West Coast Tavern and I belive I said "Donkey Punch" at least three times on-air...as a drink at West Coast Tavern, it's a double mule, but perhaps you know its other meaning?

Anyway, it was a really fun time and thanks to everyone for the kind tweets and the few people who called in, too. Thanks to Tim Pyles and FM 94/9. I will come back in any time you'll have me. As Tim says, "I'll see YOU at the show".

San Diego Music Roundup

This week some of our San Diego friends have been making waves, so I thought I'd do a little local roundup.

The Drowning Men are kicking off a west coast tour Saturday night at Hensley's Flying Elephant. I don't get to Encinitas very often, but that place is super cool and I throughly enjoyed myself when I checked it out for the first time a couple weeks ago, not to mention my hamburger kicked ass. The band is heading north, with shows at Hotel Utah in San Francisco on 7/20, The Blue Lamp in Sacramento on 7/21, Rotture in Portland on 7/22, Lucky's in Eugene on 7/23, and a huge show on the Neumo's stage at the Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle on 7/24. (The Nightmarchers are also performing.)

Crocodiles have a new video that made its exclusive debut this week at Spin.com. The video is for "Sleep Forever" which you can download here frm Fat Possum. (right-click, save as) The video is super fuzzed out with several layers of visuals, but the live performance appears to be shot at the band's recent Casbah show, or more likely during the soundcheck,since that show was insanely crowded and the lights were barely on.

Tim and I were driving today saying how it's strange how we never see Andrew Bernhardt like we used to. He used to be everywhere. I did see him a couple weeks ago and he's all in love and shit, but he's also been really busy with Lights On, who recently celebrated their CD release and are currently in New York playing some shows with New Mexico (formerly Apes of Wrath). I hope they kill it in Brooklyn, just don't get too comfy because we want you back home. They were featured on Brooklyn Vegan and Insomnia Radio (though the latter has the CD release info incorrect. The CD release was July 3rd at Tin Can).

D/Wolves released their first self-titled CD. It is available FREE on Bandcamp, or you can (and should) buy a physical copy for $5. I seriously love these kids and am so happy they're playing my showcase at NPMT, though I had to fight someone else off who was trying to steal them to another showcase. I feel like mama bear with this band and will do what I can to both help and protect these guys.

The Reader asked me to mention that they are constantly working to make their music database the most comprehensive in San Diego. You can check it out here, where they added a "This Just In" section that has a ton of updates from local bands.

San Diego's Canobliss was High Times Unsigned Band of the Week.

Lastly, I mentioned that West Coast Tavern is hosting music on Thursday nights. I'll be booking these nights, so if you're interested in playing, please feel free to reach out. These are one band shows for about an hour to a crowd as the restaurant winds down restaurant service around 9 or 10 pm.