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Indier Than Thou
Thursday 24
San Diego saxman Charles McPherson will blow through Anthology Thursday night. The Missouri native’s formative years were spent with bass great Charles Mingus, whom he toured and recorded with from 1960 through the mid-’70s. Their most memorable sides together are the live takes on Mingus at Carnegie Hall, imho. McPherson was a student of early bebop, especially the alto player’s alto player, Charlie “Bird” Parker. In fact, McPherson’s been tapped several times to blow Bird’s hard-bop lines, including a 1988 stint on Clint Eastwood’s biopic Bird and as recent as last summer, at 71 years young, when he launched Charlie Parker month at Chicago’s venerable Jazz Showcase. Btw, we’re going to have our own Charlie Parker trib here at Dizzy’s downtown. Scroll down to Saturday for more on that.... At the other end of Little Italy, and more to the middle of the musical spectrum, NorWest folkie (and former Waxwing punker) Rocky Votolato rolls into Casbah behind his second Barsuk offering, True Devotion. As far as singer-songers go, Rocky owns ’em.... Else: local garage crew Kabbs follows Minneapolis indie-pop act Sick of Sarah and Portland blues-rock duo Last Watch (Johnny “Buckets” Johnson of Hillstomp’s in the band) into Bar Pink...it’ll be Blitzkid and Zombie Surf Camp rolling out the rockin’ horror show at Brick by Brick...and North County kids the Bombpops playing punk-pop at the Shakedown with the Getdown and, from Los Awesome, CA, slaughter punks Murderland — I wanna eat your brain, I wanna eat your soul, I wanna eat your face, I wanna eat you whole! He did it, officer.
Friday 25
Texas trio Ume (ooo-may) is trying like hell to put the rock and the roll back into the present, indier-than-thou atmosphere. Front woman Lauren Larson has got swagger to burn, combining Marnie Stern’s shreditude with Karen O’s magnetism. They’re out to tout last year’s Sunshower EP. Take a taste (myspace.com/umemusic) and then git it live at Bar Pink Friday night.... Rest of the best round town has tasty psych-pop four-piece the Donkeys clopping into Eleven behind barroom rockers the Midnight Rivals...House of Blues has a healthy hit of ska-punk from the O.C.’s costumed crew the Aquabats and our own Buck-O-Nine...up the Fifth Ave. hill, at the Tin Can, Space Nature, Dahga Bloom, and Trap Gold fill an electropop bill...Fireball Ministry, Night Horse, and Archons will breakdown the Shakedown with their sonic assault (no shit, kids, plug ’em up)...Brick by Brick stages Tampa nu-metal group and “the world’s sexiest band” (oh yeah, just ask them), the Genitorturers...while loft-pop quintet Young the Giant plays, well, the Loft...from Austin, folk-pop five-piece the Ugly Beats joins the Nottinghams and Los Sweepers at the Til-Two Club...and super-rad hardcore supergroup Rats Eyes rage at Whistle Stop. It’s Blackie’s birthday bash and also features Death Crisis and DJ Capn’ Blackie hisself. Go get him one.
Saturday 26
Steve Earle’s dapper lad Justin Townes Earle swings his new thing into Casbah. It’s another Bloodshot Records batch, and it’s called Harlem River Blues, the kid’s first crossover from the country charts onto Billboard’s pop and rock columns. Indie folkie Dawn Landes goes first, and semper fi, people, this one goes off early at 5p.... Angelino hip-hop hits Dilated Peoples put it back together last year after a two-year break. The trio will bring the tour to 4th&B.... That Charlie Parker trib I mentioned before will be at Dizzy’s Wine and Culinary spot and features Christopher Hollyday blowing alto bop backed by all the usual local suspects. Click this for the specifics: dizzysjazz.com.... And alsos: tropical-pop big band Red Pony Clock rides into Tin Can Ale House...Cash’d Out exhumes the Man in Black at Belly Up...Secret Fun Club, Bumbklaat, and Ghetto Blaster fill an art-rock bill at Eleven...and I.B.’s debauched nu-metal band Squirrelly Arts will hang their Justin Bieber piñata at Til-Two.
Sunday 27
Coupla killer Sunday-nighters, kids, as Drag City duo Sic Alps infects Soda Bar with RTX (Jen of Royal Trux) and ex-Apes New Mexico. SanFran garage band Sic Alps in January released its fourth full-length, the v. recommendable Napa Asylum. It’s 22 songs in 45 minutes that’s loaded with Nuggets, crate miners, from two-chord ditties to noisy distorto that’s “less lo-fi than old-fi,” so say the tastemakers at Pitchfork.... And from Kalamazoo, fest faves Greensky Bluegrass rolls into Belly Up. It was GB that first showed me the rocking possibilities of bluegrass. Jam fans’d do well to get your hands on their Live at Bell’s.... New-wave diva Dale Bozzio and her Missing Persons show up at 4th&B to play some “Mental Hopscotch”.... And Dizzy’s downtown hosts the second annual San Diego Drum Summit with just a whole buncha beaters.
Monday 28
The sole woman on Rolling Stone’s “New Guitar Gods” list, Kaki King, will reign at the Loft. The Atlanta-born and -bred virtuoso was the guitarist who worked on that stellar Into the Wild soundtrack with Eddie Vedder. She’s out to tout her fifth Rounder Records record, Junior, a textural bed of high-strung, low-slung mood pieces. Hook her up on Pandora (pandora.com/music/artist/kaki+king) and get some housework done.... Soda Bar exposes Bare Wires, an Oaktown trio with a healthy love of glammy garage goo. I hear T. Rex and the Sweet, and it sounds good. The Old In Out and Jungle Fever up first.... Anti-Monday goes to the movies this week, as the Casbah crew screens cult faves Found Footage, compiled by a coupla guys who scoured thrift shops and garage sales for splices of Americana, and Heavy Metal Parking Lot, a 1986 documentary shot in the parking lot at a Judas Priest concert. Cameron Crowe says it’s the best rock doc, like, ever. Movies are the early deal; rocking the spot later on, you got Pilots (neither Stone Temple nor Three Mile, just Pilots) and Tiny Telephones, which features players from Hyena, Shark Attack, and Transfer.
Tuesday 1
You get jazzy, San Diego, as pianoman Chick Corea and vibes virtuoso Gary Burton set up for two nights at Anthology. Chick’s sick with chops and Grammys (15!), y’all — a must-see — and you got four shows over two nights to choose from.... Up the big hill, Tin Can Ale House will celebrate Jean Wilder’s b’day and Euro tour kickoff with Natures Kid, Kynan, and Mystery Cave.
Wednesday 2
Electronic rockers Crystal Castles play a Casbah-curated bill at House of Blues with Secretly Canadian’s Suuns, a droning post-punk quartet that crams Zeppelin into Can. Hit up the merch guy for their new one, Zeroes QC.... At the Casbah club proper, it’ll be Compton kid YG tootin the boot, or whatever it is he says in that song. I like it. It’s nasty. With a full-length debut due, the tatty rapper’s inked a deal with the big East Def Jam, representin’ the West. Goodonya, G.
— Barnaby Monk
Here's something you might be interested in.
Indier Than Thou
Indier Than Thou
Thursday 24
San Diego saxman Charles McPherson will blow through Anthology Thursday night. The Missouri native’s formative years were spent with bass great Charles Mingus, whom he toured and recorded with from 1960 through the mid-’70s. Their most memorable sides together are the live takes on Mingus at Carnegie Hall, imho. McPherson was a student of early bebop, especially the alto player’s alto player, Charlie “Bird” Parker. In fact, McPherson’s been tapped several times to blow Bird’s hard-bop lines, including a 1988 stint on Clint Eastwood’s biopic Bird and as recent as last summer, at 71 years young, when he launched Charlie Parker month at Chicago’s venerable Jazz Showcase. Btw, we’re going to have our own Charlie Parker trib here at Dizzy’s downtown. Scroll down to Saturday for more on that.... At the other end of Little Italy, and more to the middle of the musical spectrum, NorWest folkie (and former Waxwing punker) Rocky Votolato rolls into Casbah behind his second Barsuk offering, True Devotion. As far as singer-songers go, Rocky owns ’em.... Else: local garage crew Kabbs follows Minneapolis indie-pop act Sick of Sarah and Portland blues-rock duo Last Watch (Johnny “Buckets” Johnson of Hillstomp’s in the band) into Bar Pink...it’ll be Blitzkid and Zombie Surf Camp rolling out the rockin’ horror show at Brick by Brick...and North County kids the Bombpops playing punk-pop at the Shakedown with the Getdown and, from Los Awesome, CA, slaughter punks Murderland — I wanna eat your brain, I wanna eat your soul, I wanna eat your face, I wanna eat you whole! He did it, officer.
Friday 25
Texas trio Ume (ooo-may) is trying like hell to put the rock and the roll back into the present, indier-than-thou atmosphere. Front woman Lauren Larson has got swagger to burn, combining Marnie Stern’s shreditude with Karen O’s magnetism. They’re out to tout last year’s Sunshower EP. Take a taste (myspace.com/umemusic) and then git it live at Bar Pink Friday night.... Rest of the best round town has tasty psych-pop four-piece the Donkeys clopping into Eleven behind barroom rockers the Midnight Rivals...House of Blues has a healthy hit of ska-punk from the O.C.’s costumed crew the Aquabats and our own Buck-O-Nine...up the Fifth Ave. hill, at the Tin Can, Space Nature, Dahga Bloom, and Trap Gold fill an electropop bill...Fireball Ministry, Night Horse, and Archons will breakdown the Shakedown with their sonic assault (no shit, kids, plug ’em up)...Brick by Brick stages Tampa nu-metal group and “the world’s sexiest band” (oh yeah, just ask them), the Genitorturers...while loft-pop quintet Young the Giant plays, well, the Loft...from Austin, folk-pop five-piece the Ugly Beats joins the Nottinghams and Los Sweepers at the Til-Two Club...and super-rad hardcore supergroup Rats Eyes rage at Whistle Stop. It’s Blackie’s birthday bash and also features Death Crisis and DJ Capn’ Blackie hisself. Go get him one.
Saturday 26
Steve Earle’s dapper lad Justin Townes Earle swings his new thing into Casbah. It’s another Bloodshot Records batch, and it’s called Harlem River Blues, the kid’s first crossover from the country charts onto Billboard’s pop and rock columns. Indie folkie Dawn Landes goes first, and semper fi, people, this one goes off early at 5p.... Angelino hip-hop hits Dilated Peoples put it back together last year after a two-year break. The trio will bring the tour to 4th&B.... That Charlie Parker trib I mentioned before will be at Dizzy’s Wine and Culinary spot and features Christopher Hollyday blowing alto bop backed by all the usual local suspects. Click this for the specifics: dizzysjazz.com.... And alsos: tropical-pop big band Red Pony Clock rides into Tin Can Ale House...Cash’d Out exhumes the Man in Black at Belly Up...Secret Fun Club, Bumbklaat, and Ghetto Blaster fill an art-rock bill at Eleven...and I.B.’s debauched nu-metal band Squirrelly Arts will hang their Justin Bieber piñata at Til-Two.
Sunday 27
Coupla killer Sunday-nighters, kids, as Drag City duo Sic Alps infects Soda Bar with RTX (Jen of Royal Trux) and ex-Apes New Mexico. SanFran garage band Sic Alps in January released its fourth full-length, the v. recommendable Napa Asylum. It’s 22 songs in 45 minutes that’s loaded with Nuggets, crate miners, from two-chord ditties to noisy distorto that’s “less lo-fi than old-fi,” so say the tastemakers at Pitchfork.... And from Kalamazoo, fest faves Greensky Bluegrass rolls into Belly Up. It was GB that first showed me the rocking possibilities of bluegrass. Jam fans’d do well to get your hands on their Live at Bell’s.... New-wave diva Dale Bozzio and her Missing Persons show up at 4th&B to play some “Mental Hopscotch”.... And Dizzy’s downtown hosts the second annual San Diego Drum Summit with just a whole buncha beaters.
Monday 28
The sole woman on Rolling Stone’s “New Guitar Gods” list, Kaki King, will reign at the Loft. The Atlanta-born and -bred virtuoso was the guitarist who worked on that stellar Into the Wild soundtrack with Eddie Vedder. She’s out to tout her fifth Rounder Records record, Junior, a textural bed of high-strung, low-slung mood pieces. Hook her up on Pandora (pandora.com/music/artist/kaki+king) and get some housework done.... Soda Bar exposes Bare Wires, an Oaktown trio with a healthy love of glammy garage goo. I hear T. Rex and the Sweet, and it sounds good. The Old In Out and Jungle Fever up first.... Anti-Monday goes to the movies this week, as the Casbah crew screens cult faves Found Footage, compiled by a coupla guys who scoured thrift shops and garage sales for splices of Americana, and Heavy Metal Parking Lot, a 1986 documentary shot in the parking lot at a Judas Priest concert. Cameron Crowe says it’s the best rock doc, like, ever. Movies are the early deal; rocking the spot later on, you got Pilots (neither Stone Temple nor Three Mile, just Pilots) and Tiny Telephones, which features players from Hyena, Shark Attack, and Transfer.
Tuesday 1
You get jazzy, San Diego, as pianoman Chick Corea and vibes virtuoso Gary Burton set up for two nights at Anthology. Chick’s sick with chops and Grammys (15!), y’all — a must-see — and you got four shows over two nights to choose from.... Up the big hill, Tin Can Ale House will celebrate Jean Wilder’s b’day and Euro tour kickoff with Natures Kid, Kynan, and Mystery Cave.
Wednesday 2
Electronic rockers Crystal Castles play a Casbah-curated bill at House of Blues with Secretly Canadian’s Suuns, a droning post-punk quartet that crams Zeppelin into Can. Hit up the merch guy for their new one, Zeroes QC.... At the Casbah club proper, it’ll be Compton kid YG tootin the boot, or whatever it is he says in that song. I like it. It’s nasty. With a full-length debut due, the tatty rapper’s inked a deal with the big East Def Jam, representin’ the West. Goodonya, G.
— Barnaby Monk