The Prayers Broke Up?

Apparently, The Prayers broke up. When someone spilled the beans last night it was an "NFB" item (not for blogging) but now someone else has spilled the beans on Cat Dirt Sez and I wanna know WTF? After that last Valentines Day show, this makes me sad because The Prayers kicked ass that night. boo.

Writer, The Ringers & This Holiday Life, Beauty Bar, 2-16-08

So I had quite the weekend and have over a hundred pictures to sort through from Saturday, as well as my weekly "things to do" listings to get to, but I'm not really in the mood. I just feel like writing about the rest of the weekend...pics will come later, as well as video of Swim Party from last Monday, The Prayers from Thursday and Cory Branan from Friday.

Saturday night was a Beauty Bar night for me. The bands are starting a little bit later these days, so I had some time to hang out, grab a bite nearby, and post up for This Holiday Life. It was my first time seeing them and I really enjoyed them. They fell in the vein of Agualung for me...beautiful soaring vocals and very piano heavy. I realized that I'd left my camera battery at home, so Abraham and I snuck off mid-set to pick it up. I clocked it and my apartment is 3 minutes from the Beauty Bar.

By the time we got back, we heard there was some mix-up and the Ringers went onstage second instead of Writer. Perhaps it was a weird booking to put the two together, but I know there was a little anxiety that The Ringers super high energy show would somehow overshadow Writer's more melodic and quiet set, but I'm happy to say that not only did both bands play well, but the crowd stuck around for both bands and I think appreciated them both.

The Ringers of course were all over the stage and did their LA brand of rock n roll and they do not disappoint. Again, another dude-heavy fanbase, but it was ok, I strapped my camera around my wrist and did my best to take some pics.












After they were done, I met them outside. Joe, the singer, has a sister named Rosie, so he was really nice to me and we kinda talked about the lineup change, and it just seemed like a fluke- nobody to blame but they had to get back to LA.

Back inside, Writer took the stage and sounded great. I kept joking that after The Ringers, they'd have to keep up the momentum with a few leg kicks, but they did what they do and nobody seemed to mind that they were much more mellow. I freaking love them and really can't say enough about how much I love their CD as well as what great people they all are "in real life."






After the show, Abe and I hit the Ken Club for last call, then hung out until 6 am sitting on my kitchen counter just shooting the shit, before I eventually went to sleep.

Grand Ole Party, The Prayers & Fantastic Magic at the Casbah, 2-14-08

Just as soon as I decide I'll wait to post all my pictures until later, Sharon Jones is performing on Letterman, so I'll be up a while... so here I recount my weekend, starting with Thursday.

My problem is that even though I had a few months between my last job and my current position, my Thursday night mentality never ended. My last job we worked longer days M-Th, and Friday was kind of a gimme. We started a half hour later, met in the morning, then everyone would sit around eating bagels or donuts, then perhaps check e-mail, and then it was noon and our day was over. Easy peezy. It worked well because Thursday has long been my favorite night of the week. That said, it went well that there was a great show at the Casbah on Thursday night. Starting off the evening, Andrea met me at work and we indulged with dinner at Ponce's with their awesome margs and hung out for a bit before heading to the Casbah.

The bar was all decked out like a Valentine's prom, with the DJs playing slow jams like "Always and Forever" and a whole collection of Boys II Men. Aww yeah. Fantastic Magic was in the Atari Lounge when we arrived. We kinda bounced around the bar catching up with friends until The Prayers started. The band has had some lineup changes, and have added the Andrews to the band, at least on this night- Andrew Bernhart and Andrew McNally, both of the Swedish Models. I thought their addition to Brandon, Chuck and Joel sounded great and there was a whole little dance party happening throughout their set.

After there were some more slow jams and more Fantastic Magic, and then Grand Ole Party hit the stage. I got in there a little late, so I only got some pics from sidestage, but the band sounded really great. I was especially impressed by John Paul who suddenly unleashed his inner rock star and owned the stage. I kinda wonder what other venues were like on Thursday because it seemed like everyone was at the Casbah.

SXSW Lineup Announced: More San Diego Bands

Here's the full list from Rolling Stone

I posted this post a couple weeks ago with the list from Austinist.

Here's the San Diegans who made the list on Rolling Stone:

Augustana
Tom Brosseau (out of LA now)
Correatown (Angela Correa was a San Diegan)
AJ Croce
Delta Spirit (listed as Orange County)
Dirty Sweet
Earthless
Grand Ole Party
Greg Laswell
Kush & Jah Bloodfiyah Angels
The Muslims
The Prayers
John Reis (The Night Marchers)
The Shining Path
Steve Poltz

Saturday Recap: Sessions Fest

I have no recap for Friday night. I was sure I had bought a ticket to Wolf Parade when I apparently hadn't. I would've loved to see the band again, but really, truth be told, I'm not in any rush to catch another show at Cane's, so instead, I stayed home and rested up for what ended up being a big Saturday.

I got to Sessions Fest a little later than I planned after realizing I'd left the house without my phone. Co-dependency at its finest. The crowd slowly gathered at the park and I didn't hesitate to hit the Karl Strauss Stargazer IPA in the beer garden. I came stocked with my two-seater beach chair and a blanket and was happy to set up my post in the beer garden, where I pretty much stayed throughout the entire day.

We couldn't have asked for a nicer day, the cops and security were really cool and supportive of the event, and the music at the festival was also great, but the real highlight for me were the people who showed up. So many people came throughout the day, and though I had nothing to do with the event's preparation, to have so many people say such nice things throughout the day both about the event and about this blog was really nice. I ended up helping on the kegs for some of the afternoon, so thanks to anyone who bought beer and was patient with us as we tried to get the kegs right and allowed my cup to cup pours, it was my pleasure to serve you. The whole day made me really feel part of an amazing and supportive community.

When I take pictures, I usually only upload a few, but just this once, I've uploaded all of them, viewable here.

Most important, I can't stress enough that this event was put on by Sophie. Throughout the day, people asked me questions about the event and people seemed to be under the impression that "the city" had something to do with it. Not so. Sophie got the sponsors (Karl Strauss & SESAC), booked the bands, went through all the city's hoops for permitting (which, incidentally, make it easier to just not do an event because there are A LOT of hoops), hired the security, rented the port-a-potties, paid the insurance, paid the keg deposit, and paid for those cops to be there all day. On top of that, there's the stage, the soundboard, the sound engineers, the lighting, the amps, etc. While I'm sad Sophie has made the decision not to have Sessions Fest again, she really deserves some massive credit for the amazing event, and hopefully the community steps up and takes the reins on similar events in the future. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And to Scott, Josh, and everyone else involved, it was a pleasure.


God, the Emmy Awards are making this post sound like a goddamn acceptance speech. Enough of all that, here are the pictures.


The Corvinas

Free SESAC nuts

Wild Weekend

Nick, Fifty On Their Heels

The Punkboard was represented, too

Red Pony Clock

Al Guerra, 91X Loudspeaker Host

May*Star

Andrew, Swedish Models

Some punk rock poseur (Just kidding. Happy Birthday, Adam!)

MC Flow

Flow's "Incredible" Fans

The Atoms

Fifty on Their Heels

Sadly, when Habitat Sound System and Pizza! (formerly the New Motherfuckers) played, we were busiest in the garden, so I didn't get the chance to take pics of them but they sounded great from behind the taps.

The night ended right around 10 pm and the cops and security were kind to allow us to give out the remainder of the beers and go a little past 10. I stayed a bit but headed off to my next destination- to see The Vision of A Dying World at the Beauty Bar.

Incidentally, I lost my ring. It's silver with tiny little sapphires in it. It was a birthday present from my dad and means more to me sentimentally than it could to anyone else monetarily, so if anyone happened to find it, please let me know.

TNT: The Prayers, The Brisbanes

So why were all you lazy asses sitting at home last night? Not nearly enough of you were at TNT, that's for sure, but those that were I think had a good time. A third band was even added (Long Live Logos) but since I was slaving away cleaning my house I didn't quite make it early enough. I did catch the Brisbanes, who are apparently from Kansas or something. They played catchy pop tunes, but for me it was a little overkill with the whole reggae guitar thing, but if that's your thing, then you should check out the Brisbanes.



The Prayers played second and were excellent with their nostalgic pop tunes. Again, it's always good to see other musicians supporting musicians and plenty of bands were represented. 91X was there and I scored some of their coupons for free 7-11 Go-Go Taquitos and Big Bites. Yay. Free shit.




Oh, and the bartenders are friends of a friend. I'll take that as my 7/7/7 lucky strike.





Bloggers were represented as well...I saw the SanDiegoish guys, the House Party girls, and Natalie was there, too. I caught her in action.



Anyway, it was a fun time and it was 10ish when it ended, so we headed up to Bluefoot, where Duley and Montes and more from their kickball? softball? team were hanging out. Natalie and Indie Pete came to join us and we just chilled. It was nice to be there where for the first time I've ever been there, it wasn't insanely loud from a dj or something. After we left, Andrea made me stop at Jack in The Box which by the time I got home, my dog somehow snaked and ate it. Maybe she did me a favor. I did swing by the Ken so as not to have withdrawals if the Band of Horses show goes late tonight, but quickly the realization that sleep was more important kicked in and I was out. Not too shabby for a Thursday and a great segue into the weekend. See you all out on the town.