San Diego Gots Stuffs

I recently got an e-mail from a guy in England who wants to move to San Diego next summer because he heard our music scene is where it's at, and he was looking for advice on breaking into the scene as a promoter or with a job at a club, booking, scouting, anything to be part of it.

That's the funny thing about media buzz, isn't it? What is 'out there' may or may not reflect what is really going on here. I've tried pretty hard to promote the thing I love most about this town because I know we do have an amazing music scene and community. There are a lot of other people who work hard to convert the masses, some successfully and others, not so much. It may not be all kumbaya- there's certainly competition- and bands have entirely different goals and strategies to achieve those goals, but when it comes down to it, the success of one band usually benefits the music scene as a whole. To me, it would be nice if it came together a bit more...if North Park Music Thing and Awesome Fast could coexist in harmony instead of one being the angry response to the other, but that's just the nature of the game, I guess. I'm just happy to be part of all of it.

There's not really any real point to all of this except that I chatted with CatDirt yesterday. It is because of him that this site exists, so it was nice kinda catching up and recounting how things have changed in the last few years with so many new venues (is Airport gonna be the next new music venue in town??), promoters, bloggers, and bands that have come and gone. Always an interesting conversation. Anyhow, he pointed me toward Vice Magazine that featured Beaters, who are playing a free show tonight at Whistle Stop. I miss talking to him about music because the guy knows everything. It's nice touching base with someone with his ear to the ground.

Incidentally, afterward I hung out with Miggs at Taang! records. I swear if you ever, hypothetically, need to find "that one band with that one guy that was in that other band before he died of a heroin overdose after their critically acclaimed punk album was released", Miggs has it or knows where to get it. There are a lot of people in town like that...Bart Mendoza, Larry Munroe, Tim Pyles, Daye Salani...every conversation is educational to say the least. San Diego may or may not live up to the hype, but I love this town either way.

p.s. I know the listings are getting a little ridiculous (there's SO MUCH STUFF), but hopefully we'll be moving the site soon and can remedy the situation.

San Diego Has A Music Scene?

I was just going to kinda let the whole Rolling Stone article about San Diego pass by without a mention, however a few things happened and I guess I would tie them all together. I'll start off by saying if you haven't heard about the article, you can find a scan of it on the CityBeat blog here, along with Seth Combs' take on the article.

I heard about the article being written via a publicist who asked me if I knew bands in San Diego "that sound like Wavves and Crocodiles". I told her some bands and she responded by saying she forwarded my list to her friend at Rolling Stone who was writing an article about San Diego. To be honest, I kinda cringed. To put our entire music scene in this little pigeonhole seemed pretty lame to me. This entire site exists because of the vibrant music scene that exists in San Diego and one little article could never cover what is going on in this town.

That said, I decided to mention it because while in San Francisco I was being entertained by @PitchforkMedia and their coverage of Wavves at the Primavera Festival in Spain and because the Street Scene lineup was announced today, including performances by Crocodiles and Wavves and Grand Ole Party. If you haven't been paying attention, Wavves is the project of Nathan Williams that blew up in the blogosphere thanks to an 8.1 rating on the coveted/despised Pitchfork site. Subsequently Wavves have been all over the place, including a full US tour, SXSW, and were starting a behemoth tour of Europe when there was a total breakdown.

Here's the Twitter feed from @PitchforkMedia at the Primavera Festival:

5:42 PM May 28th: Wavves' Nathan giving ultra pissy performance, drummer Ryan pours a beer on his head. And someone throws a shoe. Well deserved.

5:57 PM May 28th: Holy shit, Wavves! Ryan runs off stage, throws drumstick at Nathan who shouts, "No! Come back here MF we're not done yet!" He doesn't.

6:00 PM May 28th: Crew comes up and breaks down drumset. Nathan tells them to stop, they don't. He tries to continue on... They cut his mic. Disaster city.

6:01 PM May 28th: Bottles thrown. Verdict: Spain hates Wavves. Spectacular.

The thing about the whole fiasco is that Pitchfork curated the stage, so they kinda have to do damage control. I don't personally know Nathan and I've not seen Wavves perform live, so I can't speak to his behavior, but it just sounds like he was launched into a world that he wasn't mature enough or mentally prepared to handle. The internet will shoot you down just as quickly as it can launch you into (relative) stardom.

Anyway, if you wanna follow along, here's the complete story of the breakdown, the subsequent cancellation of their next show, some coverage and comments on Stereogum, and a cached apology from Nathan's blog which has been removed. I hope that if Nathan is having drug/alcohol issues that he deals with them and I hope that his story isn't over because he does some interesting music, but I'm here to say that the San Diego music scene is alive and kicking with or without Wavves, and we don't need Pitchfork, Fader, Spin, or Rolling Stone telling us so.

Favorite Local Bands of 2007 As Told By The Best Bands

So, I did this little informal poll of some of my favorite San Diego musicians. "Tell me your top 5 local bands that were active in 2007, but you can't include your own." Some people took "Top 5" to mean 'best', while others maybe considered 'hardest working', 'personal favorite' or some other standard. I was gonna use this for my CityBeat column, but I liked the idea of posting it here to make sure I included every response, instead of having to condense it into a neat little column. All of the bands named are well worth paying attention to, although some are no longer around or have had some lineup changes over the year. Still, I think 2008 will be an even bigger and better year for San Diego's thriving music scene and I hope you all continue to support the scene. If you're there, I'm there...we're all in this together.

Christian Dines, Firethorn
Someday Assassin
The Long and Short of It
Hostile Combover
Demasiado
Homeless Sexuals

Erica Putis, The Predicates
Long Live Logos
Swedish Models
Truckee Brothers
Frantic Romantic
The Modlins

Aaron Thompson, The Stranger’s Six
Reeve Oliver
The Drowning Men
Pierce The Veil
The Prayers
The Holy Boys

Matthew Binder, Hotel St. George
The Muslims
The Vision of a Dying World
The Sess
Grand Ole Party
Delta Spirit

Michael Rennie, Roxy Monoxide
Swim Party
Wendy Darling
Billy Midnight
Squiddo
Secret Apollo

Cullen Hendrix, The North Atlantic
Fkenal
Get Your Death On
Sirhan Sirhan
Donkeys
Firstwavehello

Adam Gimbel, Rookie Card/Cover Me Badd
Vision Of A Dying World
Matt Curreri & The Ex-Friends
Billy Midnight
Grand Ole Party
San Diego School of Rock

O, Reeve Oliver
Grand ole party
Mr Tube and the Flying Objects
Kill me tomorrow
Bartender’s Bible
The Long and Short of it

Dustin Paul, Swedish Models
Cory Wilkins
Bunky
The Gift/Curse
New Loser Studio
Hialeah

Fred Mintz, The Postals
The Bugs
Rich White Males
Hostile Combover
Syndicate
Dan Padilla

Matthew Strachota, The Long and Short Of It/Bartender’s Bible
vision of a dying world
red feathers
batwings
kill me tomorrow
hostile combover

Tate Ziff, Di Nigunim
Vaginals
Bologna Ponies
Fantastic Magik
Trashcan Fires
Grim Luck

Sean Myott, Firethorn
Someday Assassin
Hollywood Begs
The Long And Short of It
Hostile Combover
The Mojave

Adam Rusch, Life Crisis
crime desire
sleeping people
bumbklaatt
homeless sexuals
the mice

Andy Ralph, Writer
the softlightes
swim party
joel p. west
drowning men
the album leaf

Abraham Nunez, Team Abraham
Bartender’s Bible
Pinback
The Long And Short Of It
Grand Ole Party
Golden Hill Ramblers

Nick Venti, Republic Of Letters
Dynamite Walls
War Stories
Transfer
Swim Party
The Modlins

Joe Gastelum, The Roman Spring
Swim Party
Fifty On Their Heels
Dirty Sweet
Vinyl Radio
Fing

Martin Niwinski, Republic of Letters
Writer
Swim Party
The Blackout Party
Stripes and Lines
Roxy Jones

Matt Molarius, Transfer
Apes of Wrath
Vitro
Swim Party
Sleeping People
Microphone Mike

Petro Halcowycz, Swim Party
The Vision Of A Dying World
Writer
The Modlins
Roxy Jones
Silverbird

Rob Kent, Apes Of Wrath
Modern Rifles
Transfer
Vitro
Roxy Jones
The Muslims

Dave, Vitro
Transfer
The Muslims
Apes Of Wrath
Grand Ole Party
Jezebel

Cooper, Transfer
Vitro
Apes Of Wrath
Swim Party
Get Back Loretta
The Blackout Party

Jason Cardenas, Transfer
The Donkeys
Earthless
Hialeah
Manuok
Ilya

Andy Robillard, The Tighten-Ups
Delta Spirit
Grand Ole Party
The Roman Spring
Sleeping People
Earthless

Phill Tornroth, SayVinyl
FirstWaveHello
Delta Spirit
The Nurses
Manuok
Helen Earth Band

Matt Sheridan, The Modlins
Swim Party
Matt Curreri & The Ex-Friends
Billy Midnight
The Donkeys
The Vision of A Dying World

Alex Smith, The Modlins
Swim Party
Apes of Wrath
Secret Apollo
The Roman Spring
Frantic Romantic

Keith Hilton, Vinyl Radio
Hotel St. George
The Swedish Models
Writer
The Roman Spring
Transfer

Laura Jane, The Tighten-Ups
Vinyl Radio
The Swedish Models
Hotel St. George
Team Abraham
The Roman Spring

John, Diablo Dimes
Lady Dottie and The Diamonds
The Deere Johns
Bartender’s Bible
Creepy Creeps
MEX

Brian Holwerda, The Blackout Party
Transfer
The Roman Spring
Anya Marina
The Silent Comedy
Lady Dottie and the Diamonds

John Finkbiner, The Stereotypes
Deverb
The Drowning Men
Qu'est-ce Que C'est
The Shambles
Swim Party

PS- If you'd still like to submit your list, e-mail me or comment on this post.

The World Famous Da Bears Give Away Music For Free

I'm loving San Diego bands today; the funny thing is how much national press/blogs are covering what is just under our noses.

The World Famous Da Bears have an article about them on Exclaim!, a Canadian website and magazine. From the article: "...the band have done an amazing thing: they’ve decided to give away their music. No, no, I’m not talking about a couple of MP3s on MySpace or a friend’s blog. I’m talking about two albums and a couple of demo EPs. "

For the link to their free music, click here.

Interview with San Diego Scream-o Band Of Hearts and Shadows

It's pretty obvious if you read this blog regularly where my general music tastes fall and I would never claim to know anything about certain musical genres. Scream-o is one of them. Still, when I came across this interview with San Diego band Of Hearts and Shadows, the band gave me the warm fuzzies. The interview demonstrates that bands can be positive and shine a light on San Diego without trying to front or step on anyone else's toes. Particularly this part:

Jesse- So I see you guys hail from San Diego... is that still your home
base, and what's the music scene like there?

OHAS- Yeah, and we still operate out of San Diego. Most of our families,
friends, and significant others all live here. They say home is where the heart
is, and OHAS's heart is definitely here in SD. The music scene is pretty
cutthroat, but kids love to go out to local shows and support the bands they
love. There's always a show going on in SD, and not just rock shows but anyone's
musical taste can be fulfilled on any given night of the week.

Good for Of Hearts and Shadows and good for San Diego. Nicely done, my friends, nicely done.