Western Scene "Listening" (Free Download)

It is always sad when bands break up or go on hiatus or disappear without any information, but sometimes a project just runs it's course and it is time for something new. With Dynamite Walls' last effort shelved by their label, Tom Pritchard wasn't satisfied to sit around and wait for something to happen, so he started a new project. He moved to LA and joined forces with friend and one-time D Walls manager, Jason Burkhart to form Western Scene. They've been in the studio recording with some notable players and producer Hugo Nicolson (Primal Scream, Radiohead) and finally have a single to share. Check it out, and keep up with the band on their site and through Facebook.

Dynamite Walls w/ Bear Hands & Lights On @ Casbah- 07.28.11

Just got back from a very relaxing ten day trip to New England where I finally had some time to get through the last of my pix from past shows. In the latest (and hopefully last) edition of 'shows from three weeks ago', the Casbah hosted SD-based Lights On as the opening act for Bear Hands who (surprisingly) opened for local boys Dynamite Walls.

As the show was some time ago, specific details are somewhat difficult to recall. Lights On has been playing around town pretty frequently over the past few years. I had most recently seen them open up for The Fresh & Onlys and Clinic on the same stage a while back and they seem to have come a ways in their stage presence and delivery.

Lights On:






It was interesting that Bear Hands was listed as the second act if only because the last time they came through town (about nine months ago at Soda Bar) they played as the headliners to a pretty impressive crowd. Their debut album Burning Bush Supper Club had just been released to a good bit of critical acclaim and they backed up the hype with a great live show. It may be a case of poor management (they play again as the first of three bands at the Casbah on November 9), but it seems that they should definitely be going in the direction of headlining bigger venues. Regardless, they put on another great set, playing a healthy portion of their album along with a couple of new cuts. Very much looking forward to see what they come up with on their sophomore effort.

Bear Hands:








I don't know how Dynamite Walls' shows usually go but if their performance this Thursday night was any indication, I probably won't be checking them out again. I should have taken a hint when more than half of the crowd took off after Bear Hands' set, and again when they brought up a former band member (?) to bring them on only to have his intro rapidly devolve into shitty dick jokes and ramblings about how everyone who was left in attendance wanted to either be in the band or sleep with them. Not a good first impression. I will say that they do have good energy on stage and have their roster of songs dialed in pretty well, but I only lasted about four songs in before I left the ten or so remaining people to finish off the night without me.

Dynamite Walls:








For more pix from the evening click here and the rest of my concert photography click here.
_______________________
All images copyright © Nate Vandermeulen, All Rights Reserved.
Please ask for permission before downloading or linking to them.

Save The Date: August 13 at the Ken Club with Dynamite Walls, Jesse LaMonaca & The Dime Novels, The Morgansterns

I know I've been all over the place this week but gotta keep chugging along. I'm always trying to navigate this existence and how to make ends meet and the one thing I completely left off the list was the simplest of all: show up. Whether that means coming to shows that I'm involved with or not, the validity of this whole site is best demonstrated by supporting the local music and shows that are posted here daily.

That said, I've got a slew of shows coming up and one I'm particularly excited about is taking place next Saturday at the Ken Club. Dynamite Walls, Jesse LaMonaca and the Dime Novels and The Morgansterns (from LA) will all be performing for your enjoyment. If you haven't been to the Ken Club in a while, I suggest you change that. My showcase at Eleven was fine but since they brought in a new talent buyer, I was left to fend for myself and my dear friends at the Ken Club stepped it up to let me host some fun shows. I know that it sometimes seems like all the good stuff happens in North Park, but for your information, I've walked from Kensington to Bar Pink and The Whistle Stop and it's not that far (1.7 and 2.7 miles, respectively.)

This week I'll post videos and such from all three bands, but in the meantime, enjoy your weekend after you add August 13th at the Ken Club to your iPhone, BlackBerry, Droid, or whatever it is that you use to keep track of where you need to be.

Dynamite Walls "Sing Out Loud"

I'm not really sure when exactly I first made contact with Dynamite Walls. I remember seeing the band, maybe at the Beauty Bar, and them reaching out to me from the early days of this site. Over the years, I've seen the bands dozens of times and have developed close ties to the band, especially with the bond that develops when you drive 24 hours in a van straight home from Austin, Texas, as we did last month. It has been really incredible to be a part of the inner circle and share the trajectory of the band as they've grown and evolved and set their own musical journey.

When Dynamite Walls was able to connect with Eric from SoundDiego, it was pretty exciting to not only hear them agree to a SoundDiego Live show, but to connect with The Saloon (HUGE thanks to and make the event a successful video release party punctuated by an energetic live set. If you weren't able to make the party on Thursday night, you can see SoundDiego's photos here and video coverage here. More importantly, the new video is available for everyone to see. I'm making it my personal mission to share this video with the world because it not only highlights the band, but the essence of life in Southern California. The guys are in Dallas at the moment, preparing to play Edgefest. Apparently they just couldn't get enough of Texas in March.

Check out their website, Like them on Facebook, Follow them on Twitter, and share their new video with everyone you know.

Ringside & Dynamite Walls at the Roxy 3/31/2011

A bit of a blog rewind for a second. I am really behind in posting about some of the fun things I've been doing lately, and I don't really have any motivation to go back in any chronological order. The shows keep going into my memory bank, but I feel like I've been away from my laptop, so tonight I'll rewind to March 31. Actually, going a little further, I rode home from SXSW with Dynamite Walls and for me it was such a fun trip to get a little deeper window on the band's dynamics. I've known the band for years now, they were one of the early bands I covered here on sd:dialedin, but outside of shows, we never spent much time together. Time running around Austin and 23 hours of driving home from Texas and I feel closer to them than ever. So when they were playing a KROQ showcase in LA and had room for me in their van, I made sure to tag along. The bonus of traveling with them was that Ringside was also on the bill. To read all about it, see more videos, and see the full photo slideshow, click 'keep on reading' at the bottom of this post.

"Stay Awake"




"Tired of Being Sorry"


"This Time"



I almost missed the opportunity to go with the band because since I don't drive, I'm a giant pain in the ass, but Paul picked me up and we headed to Carlsbad while everyone tagging along arrived. Tom and Allen were already in LA. I think this was my first time at the Roxy. (I'm not 100% positive because there were a couple years in my early twenties where I was going to LA a lot with a friend who was dating a musician that played all over the Strip). But for all intents and purposes, this was my first time there. As we arrived, I heard Ringside soundchecking and got super giddy. I've been a fan of Scott Thomas since I'd heard Ringside on a Landmark Theatres/Filter/KCRW sampler that came out in late summer 2004, but since they'd never done a proper tour (as far as I know), I had never seen him/them live.

Since we had a lot of time to kill between their quick soundcheck and the show, we found our way to Rainbow (adjacent to The Roxy for n00bs like me). We had pizza and beers and then my night slowly devolved into an overindulgence of jager. I won't really say much more about that. (dumb) But the show itself was rad. Dynamite Walls played a great set, and then I pulled supergroupie and was hanging out in their shared dressing room with Ringside and ended up jabbering about who knows what and trying to give Scott the basics of Twitter, which he uses infrequently. I'm pretty sure I was not supposed to be filming at the Roxy, but the bands were cool with it so I just did my thing, and below are the videos.

After the show we wandered to some party and I was supposed to stay with Josh but ended up crashing at my friend Bill's pad. His place was around the corner from Hollywood Blvd, so the next day we had lunch at Musso & Frank Grill, then he drove me to Los Feliz to meet up with Josh, who was driving to San Diego to play that night with Ari Hest. (josh was rightfully pissed that he'd waited up for me and I never showed up, but I think I redeemed myself by walking to Lestat's at 3 am when he forgot his guitar later that night)

It was a fun little road trip (despite my stupid overindulgence) and hopefully I didn't do anything too embarrassing that would prevent future roadtrip invitations.

"Satellite"


"Struggle"


"Dayglo"

All In A Day's Work

What an incredible day I had. It started with our weekly Casbah meeting, so I have a whole bunch of shows to update this week. Be sure to check the site for the "recently added" shows in the pulldown menu. I'll try to update by Friday.

What you should know, however, is that the Lucero show on February 20 is about 50 tickets shy of sellout, so don't wait to buy tickets. They always sell the place out, and with Blackout Party and Low Volts on the bill, it's gonna be a helluva time. You might wanna take a personal day on the 21st if you don't already get it off for Presidents' Day.

From the Casbah, Mr. Pyles and I headed to OB and had lunch with Tom from Dynamite Walls at South Coast. Turns out I'm probably heading to SXSW with the band for my first time ever, so expect lots of blogging from the road. If you wanna help sponsor my trip, click here to donate any amount. Shameless, I know, but you know how you always tell me "Hey, Rosey...I wanna buy you a drink"? Well, this is way better for my liver. I will tweet, facebook, and blog nice things about you. I promise.

From South Coast, we walked over to Hodad's, where Cage the Elephant was playing a free acoustic show. Initially we were going to try and maneuver our way in, with the owner even telling us we could get in through the back door, but it ended up being more fun hanging out with people and listening from outside. We were joined by Jesse LaMonaca, and after our trip to NAMM, I guess now's as good a time as any to mention that I will be managing Jesse LaMonaca and the Dime Novels. We have some exciting stuff down the pipeline and you better believe I will be gushing about it all here as I do with all of the things that I love, whether its my family, my friends, or fantastic new music. (Not to worry, Ladies. This is purely professional and Jesse is still on the market, just to be clear.) Jesse's site is being rebuilt at the moment, but you can check it out in its current form here. I'll share all of his bookings as we go along, but you can come see him tonight at West Coast Tavern, and plan on seeing him open for Rocky Votolato on February 24. We'll announce more when we can.


At Hodad's, we ran into Omar, who took us on a crazy adventure through OB and took us to the top of a hill to some lookout point. The dude is seriously one of the funniest people I've ever met, and though it was just a 30 minute or so detour, it was hilarious.

We headed back to the pier to catch that lovely sunset above and went our separate ways. The night didn't end, however, and Tommy picked me up on his motorcycle and we went to a really fun show at the House of Blues with The Get Up Kids, Steel Train, and River City Extension (not to be confused with locals River City) who totally blew me away. I'll post those pictures in a separate post as well as posting them on SoundDiego.com later this week or next.

So yeah. I might be broke as a joke and I might be tethered to the internet 22 hours a day, but sometimes things are just really, really good. I'm excited about what the year holds and as always, I'll be here sharing it with all of you.

Dynamite Walls Signs With Universal Republic

I started to write about Dynamite Walls a few days ago, but my focus has been hard to harness this week, but since the band has now shared their news publicly, I'm happy to report that Dynamite Walls has inked a deal with Universal Republic. They're up in LA recording with producer Paul Fox and sound engineer John Mosser. I had an inkling something was up when they were billed second next to Switchfoot for the Bro-Am. It couldn't happen to a nicer group of guys. Congrats!

sd:dialedin Presents: Dynamite Walls, The Hard To Get, The Moviegoers Tonight at Ruby Room!

Overdue Recap: Frightened Rabbit, The Spinto Band, Dynamite Walls @ U-31, 11.5.08

Wednesday night I was ecstatic to see Frightened Rabbit, The Spinto Band and Dynamite Walls at U-31. I was all caught up on sleep and had a productive day checking out the new Soda Bar, working on my brother-in-law’s website, doing some job searching, and I was rearing for a good night. I made sure to get to the show early so as not to miss any of the music. Click 'keep on reading' for the full post and videos.


There was plenty of time so I chatted with the band outside for a bit since it has been ages since I've seen them. Eventually they took the stage and started the show with a short set and played two new songs, then gave an encore of another new song that they had just been recording and hadn't yet played live. Tom had told me about the new songs before the set so I made sure to have my camera ready to record, so you can hear two of them here.

Razorback


Stay Awake


It was funny, too, because after the song, Tom introduced “Mystery Girl” by saying “This is another new one, Rosey.” In the chorus he sings something like “Her kisses are sweet like Roses” but it sounded like “Her kisses are like Rosey’s” and I felt mildly embarrassed. No, Tom and I have not made out.

The Spinto Band performed second and after having listened to their latest album "Moonwink" about 20 times in the past couple weeks, I was really looking forward to seeing them. They definitely did not disappoint, though I'd retract my earlier assessment that they remind me of Snowden. There's one song that has a similar hook, but overall they are really very, very different. The lead vocals alternate and the voices are so different, they could easily be two bands, but that turned out to be a really good thing because every song sounded very different but unified by the same quirkiness and backing energy.

The Spinto Band Setlist

(funny thing about that setlist...I asked one of the guys for it, and he said, "I even drew California." When I told him it was backward, he laughed and said "It's the dyslexic California.")



And holy shit, they played kazoos!


By the time Frightened Rabbit played, it seemed like the crowd there for the bands had dwindled and people were showing up for the dance party portion of the evening, which to me is just so sad, because the band is incredible. I don't really like to call people out, but to the drunk girl who thought she was so cute by GETTING ON STAGE while the band was playing, you aren't cute, it wasn't funny, and in speaking to the band after, they were not happy. I grabbed Gary to get her off the stage and the fucking gall of this chick to think it was ok to stand first behind the keyboardist, even after he tried to discreetly tell you to get the fuck off the stage, was not cool. Then she moved behind the amps next to the drummer who was clearly irritated. Either way, the set was beautiful. I read somewhere that the singer sounds like Adam Duritz with a Scottish accent and I was glad someone else thought so, because I could listen to Frightened Rabbit alongside "August And Everything After" without any change of mood or emotion.

You can hear the singer pissed off here at the end. "We've got a brand new member. Don't what the fuck her name is."





I highly recommend checking out their Daytrotter Session, too.

Anyway, despite the dumb broad onstage and despite the too loud DJs between bands and despite the crowd who was just waiting for the bands to be done so they could dance, it was a great show. Should've been at the Casbah, but that's the way it goes sometimes. After the show I attempted to hit the Beauty Bar, but it was closed early. The Ken Club was also closed because a pipe had burst. So I went to Pink Elephant where it was completely dead and decided to call it a night. Maybe I'll get back on a life schedule.

Tonight! The Spinto Band, Frightened Rabbit, Dynamite Walls @ U-31

Tonight, Casbah presents a stellar lineup. The show is gonna be at U-31 and tickets are still available, so show up early and don't miss out.

The Spinto Band, whose latest release Moonwink is getting rave reviews from blogs, magazines, and was called "the hottest record in the world right now" by Zane Cook of BBC1 Radio are headlining. They've been a Spin Magazine "Band To Watch", compared to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and personally I've been loving the album because it reminds me a lot of Snowden with a little more pop and a little less dance.

Single for "Summer Grof" here.
Check out their MySpace.

This is the band toying around with their single "Later On". Pretty cool stuff.

"Later On"


Also on the bill tonight, Frightened Rabbit from Scotland. Not only amazingly talented, but they have great charisma on stage, they tell great stories, and I've been blown away entirely the couple times I've seen them.

Frightened Rabbit "Good Arms vs Bad Arms"


Joining the two touring acts, locals Dynamite Walls will be opening the show. They haven't played a whole lot lately (other than opening for The Black Kids) as they've been recording some new stuff up in LA, so this is a good chance to get a preview of new material from them. In the meantime, here's some video from their last CD release show at the Belly Up.

Dynamite Walls "Faces"


After the show, head over to the Beauty Bar to celebrate the election with $2 Firehouse Drafts, $2 wells, and $2 PBR tall boys all night long! And no cover! Try and beat that!

Dynamite Walls Tour Diary

Never having any musical talents of my own, the closest I've ever come to "touring" would probably be my college soccer and tennis days. But waking up for 7:30 a.m. matches is certainly light years away from hitting clubs and playing and partying and just the adventures that come with traversing the country. That's probably why I love tour diaries... Tristen Prettyman has some good ones, so does Transfer.

I got a call from Tom Pritchard of Dynamite Walls who was calling from New Orleans and wanted me to share the band's tour diary with the readers of SD:Dialed In. You might recall from some of my past entries that they bought a biodiesel bus and road tested it in the fall. They're back on the road and you can check out the first three of their videos here. To follow along as they continue on their tour, you can subscribe to their videos here. And of course, you can always visit their MySpace page here.







Safe journeys! Catch them when they return home in February for a big show at the Belly Up on February 17.

Dynamite Walls New Track!

Dynamite Walls were kind enough to send me the link to download their new song.

Download: Burning Sea.

You can also download it or stream it from their MySpace page.

Street Scene Saturday: Recap & Photos

When I woke up on Saturday morning, it was to the sound of a heavy downpour of rain and I was scared that Street Scene was going to be cursed. I waited for friend of mine to pick up tickets from my house, so I got to Street Scene later than expected. I was disppointed to see that the venue forced everyone through the south entrance Coors Amphitheater and around, two cars at a time into one parking lot, but I got over it because the weather had cleared up and I was in a good mood.

Entering the venue, I was pleased that I arrived in time to catch most of Dynamite Walls set.







The band was able to get me an artist guest pass for the day, so after their set, we went backstage to the artist area where I explored the areas. There were movie trailer lined up so that every artist had a private lounge, but they're relatively small so we went to the artist tent. We thought it was funny how Street Scene spelled the band's name.



After some time in the artist lounge, I wandered off on my own and watched Dirty Sweet for a while.









It was funny to see that people were lining up for the Pacific Stage which was the actual amphitheatre stage. Lining up was really unnecessary because there were very few times that the staff stopped allowing the flow of traffic into the pit, but the diehards wanted to guarantee their spots.



I caught a bit of Schwayze's set too.



But the appeal of Street Scene for me ended up mostly being the artist lounge.


Dynamite Walls


Fair to Midland


Punk Rock Kid

Then we hung out with Augustana for a bit.









I caught Jaguares for a minute, too.



Then backstage again where I ran into Notorious R.U.G. and Kid Lightning



And everyone in the backstage seemed to like it that MIMS was hanging out.



Here's the Setlist for Jaguares that was being unloaded backstage.



Then I snapped some pics of Dirty Sweet.





Then I just kinda went crazy snapping pics-





I was having such a good time (maybe too much) that I didn't even really explore the other stages at the festival, with the exception of some of Ozomatli.











After wandering, we were hanging backstage and saw this, but it turns out it was not a real injury but was "staged" for one of the bands. I'm not even sure which.



My friend and I ended up on a stage platform during Jack's Mannequin, which is where I recorded that sketchy video that I posted earlier.





That is pretty much the end of my photos from Saturday. It was a great night, though I'm sad to say I didn't last for Muse. I was pooped and knew Sunday was gonna be a big day. I have to say that I was pleased overall with Street Scene. I will say that the guest pass made it amazing, but I thought the food vendor prices were reasonable to the general public and it was nice to use Coors Amphitheatres plentiful and spacious bathrooms instead of port a potties like the old days. I guess if I hadn't had a pass, I would've enjoyed the event a bit less because I would've grumbled over the $10 price of beer, but really if that is the only complaint, I'd have to say it was a success.

What I've been told is that this was Street Scene's final year. The reason LiveNation stepped in was so they could buy the Street Scene name, then bury the name, and replace it with a large festival of some sort next year and similar in scope. Maybe so, or maybe the word will spread that the people there had a great time and they'lll keep Street Scene in this format in the future.