Blurt: San Diego Music News
A one-time resident of Huntington, West Virginia, Iranian guitarist Farhad Bahrami arrived in San Diego in the early 1980s, bringing Persian music to the experimental Trummerflora Collective and serving as musical director for ensembles like …
The perks of playing for the Padres: Major League Baseball’s season is nearing its end, but musician Bobby Cressey is still living the dream. Not only is he one of the lucky few to make …
Dante Loaiza, late of Agua Dulce and currently of Maracuya, knows both sides of the border, and he allows that weirdness can break out on either side. “In Tijuana, we had one [gig] where some …
When Arizona native Ashley E. Norton moved to Nashville, she landed an interesting gig hosting “songwriter rounds,” gatherings which featured groups of three or four songwriters on a stage. They rotated down the line, not …
Guitarist/singer/songwriter Hugh Noble came to San Diego from the UK in 2014. Over the past eight years of gigging with his band Slum Summer (new album Living in Milk out now), he’s delineated the highs, …
Eighteen-year-old bassist John Murray has won multiple awards over the last few years, including “Outstanding Soloist” at both the Monterey Next Generation and Essentially Ellington competitions in 2018 and 2019. He had his pick of …
“I had a brand and a character that looks very different from the character I portray now,” says Isabella Bennett, who plays Rabbit, one of the musical steampunk robots in Steam Powered Giraffe. The band …
Tamara Hartfield Paige, who is the orchestra director and department co-chair at San Diego’s School of Creative and Performing Arts, has been called a multi-instrumentalist, but that seems like a serious understatement. Asked for a …
Performing Hawaiian slack key guitar music takes dedication, focus, respect, and of course, only the best Hawaiian shirt patterns. “I really like our white-and-red rayon and beach-green shirts with outrigger canoes,” enthuses Kamaka Mullen, co-founder …
Harpist Tasha Smith Godinez took advantage of her pandemic downtime to begin writing original music. “Before, I never really felt I had enough time,” she explains. “So I started writing these ideas down, and I …
“My last album was seven years ago, and money was always an issue,” says Garrison Bailey (Groove Kitties). “I also had moved to Pennsylvania for five years, and music was put on the back burner …
“I had never seen either [Pink Floyd or Roger Waters]; I regret not going when I was younger,” says Robert Walter (Greyboy Allstars, Robert Walter’s 20th Congress), who occupies maybe the best seat in the …
Dubstepping to Step Brothers: Much of the 140 beats-per-minute dubstep and hip-hop-fused stomper “Riddim And Blues,” by Tyler “DJ Bassassin” Williams was created on a computer in his Poway studio. It’s where he pulls beats …
For each successive rockin’ out generation, the search for a band name grows tougher, as scourers claim all the common nouns. Hometown fellows Z Matrix were no exception. “It’s very difficult to come up with …
At first glance, you might not peg guitarist Nate Jarrell as a high school teacher — maybe it’s the modified mohawk. The heavily tattooed Jarrell still looks every bit the punk rocker he was nearly …
“Could you be the one I’m thinking of? Could you be the girl I really love? All the people tell me so, But what do all the people know!” -- The Monroes, “What Do All …