Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Meet the Exbats
Ukulele ditties, then punk
Husband-and-wife duo Pony Death Ride (pictured) invited father-daughter Exbats to San Diego.
“The moment we heard them, we loved them,” says Jaye MacAskill, one half of local comedic rock duo Pony Death Ride, of why she and her husband Joe arranged to bring Arizona's the Exbats to San Diego. “I like their punk rock devil-may-care attitude. As a duo, they do a lot with very little.”
“We normally hate everything,” adds bandmate/husband Joe. “They're a father-daughter duo, but their songs are not what you would expect from a father-daughter duo.”
The Exbats specialize in a Saturday morning cartoon sound drenched in pop culture references, which carry over to titles, lyrics, sleeve art, and video promos. Their debut album, A Guide to the Health Issues Affecting Rescue Hens, was named after a book they discovered from Googling “Exbats,” while the title of their sophomore release, I Got the Hots for Charlie Watts, references the ancient drummer of the Rolling Stones. The latter effort, released in January, has already yielded Spotify party faves like “Kill Yr Boyfriend,” named after a Grant Morrison comic book, and “Mr. Bucky,” a perverted ode to adolescent sex comedies.
Young drummer-singer Inez McLain, not yet old enough to drink in most bars that book them, was supposedly christened by her Monkees-fan mom after a nickname for Mike Nesmith (a Monkees album is briefly seen in their video for “Iolaus,” paying tribute to the Kevin Sorbo TV series). Her dad, singer-guitarist Ken Mclain, clearly shares her love of cultural kitsch, and it helps that he seems to have no problem standing next to his daughter onstage as she screams into the mic “I wanna fuck Mr. Bucky, and you do too, don’t lie it, wouldn’t be yucky at all.”
The Exbats and Pony Death Ride will share a Casbah bill on Monday, April 23. “We were proactive, we contacted [promoter] Tim Pyles and told him we had a band people will love, and we wanted to do a show with that band,” says Joe. “Then we asked the band, and they were stoked. It feels nice to get in touch with a band and say 'Hey, we like you. We want people here to see you play and maybe make this a place to play regularly.' Bands don't hook each other up like that much any more.”
The Casbah date marks a rare milestone for Pony Death Ride. “It’s our first show with a drummer [Mike Kamoo] in seven years, and only our second time ever,” says Joe of PDR’s rare full-band set.
“Most of the time, we don't miss a drummer," says Jaye. “We like having an easy setup and takedown, and we don't have to share the money.”
“It's also nice avoiding that guilt you feel when you give the drummer his cut of the show money, and lie to him about how much you really made,” adds Joe. “And we talked to all 273 drummers in the Reader's Local Music Database. Nobody called us back.”
As for a setlist, Joe promises “We’ll start with a couple ukulele ditties, then launch into our punk stuff, songs we’ve never played live. We’ll play ‘Let Me Tell You ‘Bout My Bike,’ the song we recorded last year with the Schizophonics and Jason Hanna; they’ll all be joining us onstage for that number. And we’ll debut a new song called ‘Crispin Glover, Be My Lover.’” Also expect tracks from their most recent full-length, Cat Sounds, such as “I'm a Cat Guy,” “Your Cats Are Crap” and “Grumpy Cat (Ain’t All That).”
"When we perform as a duo, we need to crowd to be quiet to catch the jokes and subtle humor," says Joe. "It's gonna be nice to just crank it up and go nuts!"
Thanks to the MacAskills, the Exbats will have a place to crash after the show. “We’re hosting them at our house, ‘cause that’s rock and roll,” says Jaye. “We hope they like our cats, because cats are also rock and roll.”
Here's something you might be interested in.
Meet the Exbats
Ukulele ditties, then punk
Meet the Exbats
Ukulele ditties, then punk
Husband-and-wife duo Pony Death Ride (pictured) invited father-daughter Exbats to San Diego.
“The moment we heard them, we loved them,” says Jaye MacAskill, one half of local comedic rock duo Pony Death Ride, of why she and her husband Joe arranged to bring Arizona's the Exbats to San Diego. “I like their punk rock devil-may-care attitude. As a duo, they do a lot with very little.”
“We normally hate everything,” adds bandmate/husband Joe. “They're a father-daughter duo, but their songs are not what you would expect from a father-daughter duo.”
The Exbats specialize in a Saturday morning cartoon sound drenched in pop culture references, which carry over to titles, lyrics, sleeve art, and video promos. Their debut album, A Guide to the Health Issues Affecting Rescue Hens, was named after a book they discovered from Googling “Exbats,” while the title of their sophomore release, I Got the Hots for Charlie Watts, references the ancient drummer of the Rolling Stones. The latter effort, released in January, has already yielded Spotify party faves like “Kill Yr Boyfriend,” named after a Grant Morrison comic book, and “Mr. Bucky,” a perverted ode to adolescent sex comedies.
Young drummer-singer Inez McLain, not yet old enough to drink in most bars that book them, was supposedly christened by her Monkees-fan mom after a nickname for Mike Nesmith (a Monkees album is briefly seen in their video for “Iolaus,” paying tribute to the Kevin Sorbo TV series). Her dad, singer-guitarist Ken Mclain, clearly shares her love of cultural kitsch, and it helps that he seems to have no problem standing next to his daughter onstage as she screams into the mic “I wanna fuck Mr. Bucky, and you do too, don’t lie it, wouldn’t be yucky at all.”
The Exbats and Pony Death Ride will share a Casbah bill on Monday, April 23. “We were proactive, we contacted [promoter] Tim Pyles and told him we had a band people will love, and we wanted to do a show with that band,” says Joe. “Then we asked the band, and they were stoked. It feels nice to get in touch with a band and say 'Hey, we like you. We want people here to see you play and maybe make this a place to play regularly.' Bands don't hook each other up like that much any more.”
The Casbah date marks a rare milestone for Pony Death Ride. “It’s our first show with a drummer [Mike Kamoo] in seven years, and only our second time ever,” says Joe of PDR’s rare full-band set.
“Most of the time, we don't miss a drummer," says Jaye. “We like having an easy setup and takedown, and we don't have to share the money.”
“It's also nice avoiding that guilt you feel when you give the drummer his cut of the show money, and lie to him about how much you really made,” adds Joe. “And we talked to all 273 drummers in the Reader's Local Music Database. Nobody called us back.”
As for a setlist, Joe promises “We’ll start with a couple ukulele ditties, then launch into our punk stuff, songs we’ve never played live. We’ll play ‘Let Me Tell You ‘Bout My Bike,’ the song we recorded last year with the Schizophonics and Jason Hanna; they’ll all be joining us onstage for that number. And we’ll debut a new song called ‘Crispin Glover, Be My Lover.’” Also expect tracks from their most recent full-length, Cat Sounds, such as “I'm a Cat Guy,” “Your Cats Are Crap” and “Grumpy Cat (Ain’t All That).”
"When we perform as a duo, we need to crowd to be quiet to catch the jokes and subtle humor," says Joe. "It's gonna be nice to just crank it up and go nuts!"
Thanks to the MacAskills, the Exbats will have a place to crash after the show. “We’re hosting them at our house, ‘cause that’s rock and roll,” says Jaye. “We hope they like our cats, because cats are also rock and roll.”
Comments