Last November, I wandered into the Ruby Room in Hillcrest on a Tuesday evening and had an instant oh-shit moment. Oh shit, I remember thinking when I heard the free-jazz trio onstage shift seamlessly between …

When Ezequiel “Ziggy” Pelayo says, “We started Yeah Buddy Fest because we really just wanted to barbecue and party and hang out all day,” you believe him. When the 30-year-old musical renaissance buddy isn’t pouring …

Let’s face it, line dancing is about as exciting as singing “Who Let the Dogs Out?” in American Sign Language, which is to say, not terrible, provided there is drink. Luckily, In Cahoots dancehall and …

After a year of intermittent recording between hard-drive crashes and rewrites, alt-country five-piece the Western Set released their debut LP, Country Music, on March 3 at the Tin Can Ale House. Vox/guitarist Patrick Conway calls …

The Tin Can Ale House in Bankers Hill recently completed a renovation including new sea-foam green flooring, a shortened bar to make room by the stage, a kitchen, and a revamping of the venue’s namesake …

Being a hockey fan in San Diego is like being a cow tipper in Delhi, which is to say, lonely. Sure, despite their Cool Runnings disadvantage (watch the movie), the Gulls were an impressive flock …

Dixie De La Tour wants to hear San Diego’s dirty stories. The curator of the San Francisco–based Bawdy Storytelling started a monthly showcase of sexual (mis)adventures five years ago after finding inspiration at a Burning …

American humorist James Thurber once said, “One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.” While most of us instinctively know this to be true, there’s no better place to …

Traveling daredevils the Squidling Brothers are currently touring Europe before making their way to the Shakedown on Midway to court death with their entourage of rock-and-roll sideshow freaks. In anticipation of the preternatural pageant, Matterz …

Dan Harumi (aka Room E), a 26-year-old Bay Area native, recently released his debut full-length, Penguin Child, which makes use of live and electronic sounds in what he calls a “dilettante-style instrumentation” — a pastiche …

Burning Man is all about building rad things in the middle of nowhere, Nevada, partying in them for a week, and then dismantling or incinerating them at the end of the festival. It’s in this …

Rose Wine Pub in South Park caught my attention when it opened about 16 months ago. It was a holiday walkabout night and the cozy bar, which seats about 30, was standing-room only. Wanting to …

“I think Hemingway and maybe Bukowski are the only writers who I’ve read all of their books,” says keyboard crooner Sean Davenport, whose new Hills Like Elephants (the name is a Hemingway reference) project is …

Kansas City native Jason “Captain Blackie” Blackmore has been playing guitar and singing in San Diego for over 11 years now, but before the Turf Club doorman began blowing the roof off of local venues …

in November, musicians/promoters Michael Mannino and Arian Banki threw a party called Inner Vibration at a private residence near Vista in celebration of a close friend who passed away in June. Preston Grover was a …

“A few years ago, there was talk in certain music publications about the death of the guitar,” says Sam Lopez, curator of the San Diego Experimental Guitar Show. “Notions were made that this archaic instrument …

The term “dive bar” is thrown around pretty loosely these days and, not unlike “dude,” “epic,” and “excessive force,” the essential meaning has been all but lost. Enter Tobacco Rhoda’s. Famous for its Filipina bartenders …

“The San Diego scene for our sound is all right,” says Beejay Buduan, guitarist and songwriter in Clockart, over coffee at Twiggs on Park Boulevard. “It’s more of a rock city. It was getting pretty …

“Living in San Diego, you hear that there is no scene here, that there is nothing going on,” says musician and freelance graphic designer Miguel “Miguex” Vega, who recently compiled a glimpse of the local …

“San Diego is such a volatile music scene,” says Jesse Kranzler, an organizer of the three-day “I Promise” Che Café benefit show. “One venue or group of bands usually keeps it going, especially in the …

A few weeks ago, Hank, a businessman in his 50s, invited about 30 people out to his rural estate in Valley Center to take part in the slaughtering of two large pigs. “My conclusion from …

“We believe in the Occupy movement and others like it,” says Scott Stephens, manager and vocalist of local pop-rock entourage Liquid Blue. “We’ve been an activist group for many years. We’re really hyped to support …

Analog Bar’s slogan — “Good Food Strong Drinks” — is spot-on. The nu-retro music-themed bar’s cocktails are mixed (and priced) aggressively. The food is creative and, yeah, good, but not great, especially at prices that …

Carl Jung once posited, “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.” It was …

Built as a residential hotel in 1926, Inn at the Park (née Park Manor Suites) in Bankers Hill was bought by Shell Vacations in May and is currently undergoing renovations to give rooms a kitschy, …

Having grown up on the unevent horizon of suburban Rancho San Diego and rural Jamul, I was never accustomed to nightlife in my homogenized hometown. So it came as some surprise when, as a high …

Three and a half years ago, singer/songwriter Tori Roze played her first show with her current band the Hot Mess at the now defunct Portugalia in Ocean Beach. “The owner loved the turnout, so we …

In a city partial to its indie rock, Jamie Minotti is striving for balance. “A year ago, there was no way [Toronto-based progressive/electro/house DJ] Deadmau5 would be in local alt weeklies,” Minotti says. “It would …

“We were the first bar to have Arrogant Bastard,” says Downtown Johnny Brown’s owner Todd Alexander. “Stone had their release party here. John Brown really embraced the local beer movement. When I bought the bar …

because Halloween is the greatest holiday of the year, especially when it falls on a Monday and, therefore, begins the previous Thursday, your humble crasher went to about 39 celebrations this All Hallows’ Eve megaweekend. …

Boasting a weekend happy hour from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m., Last Call’s slogan entreats you to “Go ugly early.” And while easily dismissed as another sketchy El Cajon Boulevard hole, Last Call proves to be …

“I’ve always been seeking out exploratory music,” says Santino (or Sonny, like in The Godfather) Romeri, a Golden Hill–via–Chula Vista experimental beat musician (Illuminauts), promoter, and overseer of boutique vinyl and cassette label Kill Quanti. …

Unless you outright loathe good beer, you probably know the name Scot Blair. In fact, you’ve probably been to his University Heights, South Park, and City Heights bars, which specialize in select local and craft …

Half-pound cheeseburger, $6.25 The champion bar burger, certainly for the money. It starts with the beef: fine grind, loose pack, superjuicy, good grill seasoning that keeps you taking bite after bite. A medium rare that …

At this Five Points hot spot, hefty helpings of flavorful carne asada and shrimp are packed into flour tortillas like a past-his-prime wrestler into fluorescent pink Spandex. It’s a fitting analogy for a venue that …

Passing by this constantly packed spot in the East Village, one would never guess the perseverance it took for owner Arsalun Tafazoli to force it down downtowners’ gullets. His goal was to provide the perfect …

“We’re a bunch of positive people playing dark stuff,” says Demetrius Antuna (vox, guitar) of the nine-piece, cinematic, art-metal band Kata. “It’s a release. A way to get it out. Something about darkness feels good …

“I’m a punk rocker,” says one-man-band Toothless George, who is best known for his involvement with the Halflings and the Percocettes. “I play some country and rockabilly stuff, but I’m a punk rocker. I’m not …

I’ve always enjoyed gay dives because the mood tends to outshine that of neighboring, dimly lit hipster hangouts. Nowhere is this accute sense of festivity more apparent than karaoke nights at Redwing Bar and Grill …

The early ‘90s are back in Tijuana. High-waist bloomers, felt boater hats, “Goo” Sonic Youth tees, lacey long-sleeves, cat-eye liner beneath buggy shades, jean shorts, atnd red, red lips dominate hep vogue in “the most …

Dorian Wartime and Sylvia Innocent met in 2006 and “immediately fell insanely in love,” says Wartime. The couple settled into an apartment in San Diego a few years later and began making dark love-fi songs …

Advertising itself as a “fun, friendly, and exuberant atmosphere,” Gallagher’s Pub in Ocean Beach is my favorite place to indulge in that special abandon found where whiskey and soulful blues-rockers Lady Dottie and the Diamonds …

My buddy Mark and his girlfriend Liz recently moved from Pacific Beach to North Park and threw a housewarming barbecue to inaugurate their new place. Maybe 12 friends, many of them old pals from East …

O’Connells’ green trim went red in June when the bar was purchased by Mike Reidy, owner of Bar West in Pacific Beach. “We’re not Bar West Two,” manager Joe Gleason emphasizes from one of the …

In June, the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad closed its doors to remodel it’s galleries into an exploration of the history of American music and instrument-making from late 19th Century to present. “We’ve been …

The first thing you’ll notice about Air Conditioned Lounge is the distinct absence of air conditioning. In fact, the iconic “Air Conditioned” sign outside the lounge (their website calls it the “most unassuming building on …

“It’s that altruistic beauty of the underground that rarely makes it to the mainstream,” says Wobble Events promoter Bryen Beglinger. “The mainstream is all about being treated like cattle by bouncers herding you in to …

“Our whole thing is never doing the same thing twice,” says Eugene, Oregon, native Hargo Khalsa. “There are a lot of moods and a lot of energies on the record, and that’s something that we …

My roommate Eli’s birthday falls on the same day as the Cremation of Care ritual at the annual elite getaway in Bohemian Grove, where politicians, bankers, and reptilian overlords spend two weeks pissing on old …

“I’m an East Coaster,” says Pennsylvania native Michael McGraw at the Alibi in Hillcrest. “I have a little moodiness and I’ve come to embrace it. The music we’re making now is true to that.” McGraw …