Musician Interviews
In the mid-’90s, the band Arapaho were the rock darlings of Durban, South Africa. With multiple chart-topping hits — including “Dump Truck,” which stayed at number one for multiple months, and “Butterfly Angel,” written by …
I often ask musicians about their best, worst, and weirdest experiences while performing in and around San Diego. In the case of classically-trained soprano and mezzo-soprano <a href="http://www.sandiegoreader.com/bands/victoria-robertson/">Victoria Robertson</a>, these three categories melded in one …
“We wanted to be called Brock Samson,” says <a href="http://www.sandiegoreader.com/bands/doc-hammer/">Doc Hammer</a> guitarist Clayton Word, “but the band wasn’t heavy enough to accommodate such an epic killing machine as our avatar,” As fans of the animated …
A strong fantasy life, to offset painful reality. A protagonist escaping into elaborate fantasy because he sadly lacks footing, let alone any happiness, in reality. “That’s a nice description of the Marshmallow Man,” allows <a …
Jonah Paz started playing in his first local punk band in 2013, when he was 13 years old. By the time Covid reared its ugly head in 2020, he had cycled through a myriad of …
Ryan Steel lived in San Diego from 2002 through 2005 before he ended up in Chicago, where he played in The Sky We Scrape from 2008 until 2015. It was during this tenure that he …
David McHank of Styrofoam Records is an artist whose 30-year career includes illustrating posters and album covers, as well as venturing into animated shorts around a decade ago. Mike Molina is a videographer for Robles …
Back when he was younger, Trevor Ginsberg played violin for a short spell — but strings didn’t stick like his love of singing. He started off in choirs, and eventually became a member of the …
Problems in Modern Puppetry Performance : When SDSU English department grad and tech geek Michael Buchmiller turned himself into Professor B. Miller of the Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra, he knew he’d face challenges in the songwriting, …
“I’ve been playing sax for seven and half years,” says Nick Caldwell, a 17-year-old high school senior who attends the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts in Paradise Hills, and who is also …
Blue Largo bandleader Eric Lieberman, who describes the group as Americana Soul, first met singer Alicia Aragon in 1982, while he was in the King Biscuit Blues Band and his future wife was a cocktail …
Drummer Matthew Smith has been a fixture in San Diego for quite a few years, playing with the Matt Smith Neu Jazz Trio, Juice Box, and Fresh Veggies Micro Brass. He gigs often enough around …
“I’m 64 years old with one leg. I don’t need any help falling down,” Social Spit frontman Cliff Cunningham tells me. He’s not spewing random trivia; he’s responding to my question about whether he’s drunk …
Slack Key Ohana didn’t intend to release a live album. But the mahalo groove (aka the Hawaiian spirit of gratefulness for everything) held sway in the end. The slack key guitar band’s new full-length Live …
Lauren Leigh began singing around the age of five, accompanying the songs in The Little Mermaid until she knew them all by heart. Her aunt, local singer-songwriter Eve Selis, told her that she was already …
Missy Alcazar took up classical piano at an early age, and was considered a child prodigy. Her teacher permitted her to practice only “the greats” — composers such as Bach and Chopin. But by elementary …