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
Gonzo Report: Downtown thrift shop offers three bands in one show
Come nightfall, Humble Heart hosts The Beat
The Beat goes on, despite the sticky-fingered souls in the crowd.
Two days after we got a new (old) President, I found myself back Downtown to check out a new live music space called The Beat. Despite all the noise leading up to the voting, the Downtown streets were mostly calm — with the notable exception of a woman dancing topless on a Broadway sidewalk about a block from the venue. I was on the opposite side of the street watching people enter. A jumbo rat ran across my feet and into the street. This must be the place.
The Beat is located within the walls of the Humble Heart Thrift, Music, and Café. At night, after the day-walkers have all gone home, the space opens for live music: clothes racks get pushed out of the way, old DVDs get stacked on John Grisham novels, and discarded vinyl gets set aside. There was a little something for everybody in the funky little joint. When I asked the owner if he was worried people might steal store merch during the show, he replied “It’s happened already. I had a cool-ass boom-box a guy ran out with. I chased after him, and he pulled a knife on me. It wasn’t worth it. I had to take the L.” But he kept up with the live music, so that’s a W in my book.
As I entered, I noticed the dude taking the $10 cover was wearing a Sub Pop shirt. Sub Pop, of course, is the record label that launched all those early-nineties grunge bands out of Seattle. “That’s a dope shirt,” I told the guy.
“Thanks, man,” he said. “I got it here. I get first dibs on everything that comes in.” It made sense he would wear that shirt on that night: one of the bands on the bill was a Nirvana cover band called Pen Cap Chew. I never had the chance to see Nirvana live; I was cruising the fourth grade when they tragically wrapped it up. So I figured, why not check out somebody covering their simple, timeless tunes?
Before going out to the show, I sat at home with my acoustic guitar, playing some Nirvana songs from the Unplugged album. You know, getting into the spirit of the night. The last song I played before stepping out was “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam.” Coincidentally, Pen Cap Chew opened their set with the same song: a cover of a cover of a parody — Nirvana tweaked the Vaselines’ original, itself a riff on a Christian children’s ditty. When they played, PCC used signature Kurt Cobain Fender Jaguars and feedback-filled amps. Frontwoman Zea wore her blonde hair long, approximating Cobain’s greasy yellow mop. Eventually, they started asking the crowd for requests, and they closed out their set with “All Apologies.” It was a solid performance, and the unwanted extra feedback made for extra authenticity. If only Zea had bashed her guitar into the drums, books, and thrift store lamps strewn about, it could’ve been the complete Cobain experience.
The night didn’t end there, though. There were still two acts to go. The first was a two-man band called Olmecs. What the hell is an Olmec, you ask? It’s an early major Mesoamerican civilization. I looked it up. These guys hardly looked like their descendants, but they did give off a ‘90s alternative experimental art flavor. The singer held up a piece of paper between songs and yelled, “It’s been a rough couple of days!” He then tore the paper apart. I turned to my friend and asked what the paper had scribbled on it. “Bigot traitor,” she told me. It was, surprisingly, the only political statement all night. I was expecting much more. Maybe people were just tired.
The last band on the bill was a group from Santa Barbara called Syanide. The name kind of gave away the type of music they pushed out. If you guessed thrash metal, ding ding ding, you won. But it was still a step up from the alternative rock playing before. Weed wafting on his breath, guitarist Jimmy told me they were stoked to be playing in San Diego, even if it was only in a thrift store café. He also rocked a Megadeth hat that I sincerely admired. “It’s only me on guitar, so we’ve got more of a Pantera thing going on,” he said. (Jimmy shredded a Dean guitar that Dimebag Darrell would have approved of.)
Near the end, when only around 10 people were left in the space. Syanide started ripping out songs with multiple guitar solos complementing their mad female vocalist. Those left standing were given the ride they deserved for sticking around.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Gonzo Report: Downtown thrift shop offers three bands in one show
Come nightfall, Humble Heart hosts The Beat
Gonzo Report: Downtown thrift shop offers three bands in one show
Come nightfall, Humble Heart hosts The Beat
The Beat goes on, despite the sticky-fingered souls in the crowd.
Two days after we got a new (old) President, I found myself back Downtown to check out a new live music space called The Beat. Despite all the noise leading up to the voting, the Downtown streets were mostly calm — with the notable exception of a woman dancing topless on a Broadway sidewalk about a block from the venue. I was on the opposite side of the street watching people enter. A jumbo rat ran across my feet and into the street. This must be the place.
The Beat is located within the walls of the Humble Heart Thrift, Music, and Café. At night, after the day-walkers have all gone home, the space opens for live music: clothes racks get pushed out of the way, old DVDs get stacked on John Grisham novels, and discarded vinyl gets set aside. There was a little something for everybody in the funky little joint. When I asked the owner if he was worried people might steal store merch during the show, he replied “It’s happened already. I had a cool-ass boom-box a guy ran out with. I chased after him, and he pulled a knife on me. It wasn’t worth it. I had to take the L.” But he kept up with the live music, so that’s a W in my book.
As I entered, I noticed the dude taking the $10 cover was wearing a Sub Pop shirt. Sub Pop, of course, is the record label that launched all those early-nineties grunge bands out of Seattle. “That’s a dope shirt,” I told the guy.
“Thanks, man,” he said. “I got it here. I get first dibs on everything that comes in.” It made sense he would wear that shirt on that night: one of the bands on the bill was a Nirvana cover band called Pen Cap Chew. I never had the chance to see Nirvana live; I was cruising the fourth grade when they tragically wrapped it up. So I figured, why not check out somebody covering their simple, timeless tunes?
Before going out to the show, I sat at home with my acoustic guitar, playing some Nirvana songs from the Unplugged album. You know, getting into the spirit of the night. The last song I played before stepping out was “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam.” Coincidentally, Pen Cap Chew opened their set with the same song: a cover of a cover of a parody — Nirvana tweaked the Vaselines’ original, itself a riff on a Christian children’s ditty. When they played, PCC used signature Kurt Cobain Fender Jaguars and feedback-filled amps. Frontwoman Zea wore her blonde hair long, approximating Cobain’s greasy yellow mop. Eventually, they started asking the crowd for requests, and they closed out their set with “All Apologies.” It was a solid performance, and the unwanted extra feedback made for extra authenticity. If only Zea had bashed her guitar into the drums, books, and thrift store lamps strewn about, it could’ve been the complete Cobain experience.
The night didn’t end there, though. There were still two acts to go. The first was a two-man band called Olmecs. What the hell is an Olmec, you ask? It’s an early major Mesoamerican civilization. I looked it up. These guys hardly looked like their descendants, but they did give off a ‘90s alternative experimental art flavor. The singer held up a piece of paper between songs and yelled, “It’s been a rough couple of days!” He then tore the paper apart. I turned to my friend and asked what the paper had scribbled on it. “Bigot traitor,” she told me. It was, surprisingly, the only political statement all night. I was expecting much more. Maybe people were just tired.
The last band on the bill was a group from Santa Barbara called Syanide. The name kind of gave away the type of music they pushed out. If you guessed thrash metal, ding ding ding, you won. But it was still a step up from the alternative rock playing before. Weed wafting on his breath, guitarist Jimmy told me they were stoked to be playing in San Diego, even if it was only in a thrift store café. He also rocked a Megadeth hat that I sincerely admired. “It’s only me on guitar, so we’ve got more of a Pantera thing going on,” he said. (Jimmy shredded a Dean guitar that Dimebag Darrell would have approved of.)
Near the end, when only around 10 people were left in the space. Syanide started ripping out songs with multiple guitar solos complementing their mad female vocalist. Those left standing were given the ride they deserved for sticking around.
Comments