Residential radio redux: Radio caught Gary Kelley’s ear when he was 13 years old. A year later, he had a built a small radio station in his closet. (“I kind of came out of the …

In the 1990s, Pavement personified aloof, slacker rock, anchored by odd guitar tunings and clever lyrics. They were more critical darlings than the sort of band that could muster a following to rival that of …

Tyler Ward is sitting behind a drum kit in a moderately sized band rehearsal space at the San Diego branch of the School of Rock in Liberty Station’s arts district. He’s attempting to break down …

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 …

Drummer Val Trainor and bassist Barney Firks have been backing Imperial Beach-by-way-of-England guitarist Taz Taylor since 2010. These days, the Taz Taylor Band (TTB) splits their time between playing instrumental gigs and shows with vocalists. …

In late-2019, Daggers 86 was a band in its infancy. The initial seeds for the project were planted during a dinner Ryan Allen (Powerballs, Cedar Fire) had with John Mattos (Stewardess, Warsaw, Dreams Made Flesh). …

The Del Mar Mesa Preserve is located just to the south of State Route 56. It is part of the larger Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve which stretches seven miles from the I-5/I-805 merge on its …

Singer Shelbi Bennett of Midnight Pine — an act she describes as “very serious and veiled in metaphor” — and Shady Francos drummer Jenny Merullo share a love of the pop-punk that shaped their respective …

The County of San Diego Department of Parks and Recreation is working to construct a seamless network of trails that will follow the route of the San Diego River from the mountains down to the …

The other night at dinner, the Young People asked the Old People, “How do you know when you’re an adult?” Your humble Editor’s answer: “When you realize that life is no longer play that gets …

The story of Half Way Home begins in a modest house in Solana Beach: a two-bedroom, stand-alone casita situated a short distance downhill from the property’s main home. Trevor LeVieux was living in that little …

Andrew Cassidy arrived in San Diego in 1853. He was part of a team of engineers who were tasked with building a self-recording tidal gauge station at La Playa near Ballast Point in Point Loma …

Cake’s 2001 music video for “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” was up for a Breakthrough Video award at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards due to its creative use of taped reactions. The video’s producers let random …

The San Diego County Fair’s 2022 “pay to play” model requires artists who wish to perform at this year’s event to pay a $25 processing fee for their applications to be considered. On the other …

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a music writer isn’t going to get rich plying his trade, but at least he’ll get free stuff: albums, concert tickets, swag, perhaps even the occasional backstage pass. …

Ryan Burke was in his early teens when he began playing an acoustic guitar that was lying around his family’s house. It was the ‘90s though, and his heart was set on playing an electric. …

Joshua Taylor picked up guitar when he was 12 years old. However, by high school, music had been relegated to hobby status, as AP classes and the track team became a priority. After he graduated, …

The city of La Mesa is planning to turn a 2.84-acre lot on the northwest corner of Waite Drive and Murray Hill Road (just north of Highway 94 near Massachusetts Avenue) into a new community …

The 24th annual Rolando Street Fair is set to go down for the first time in two years on Sunday, March 20. On the music front, five bands are scheduled to play on the main …

There was a five-year span in Greg Vaughan’s childhood that was little more than a whirlwind of commitments. He was playing soccer and baseball; pursuing his interests in music via voice, piano, and guitar lessons; …

Bluegrass beginnings: Mandolinist Randy Hanson first met guitarist Mark Miller in 2012 at Cliff Keller’s San Diego Songwriters MeetUp. At the weekly gathering, the two were paired up and given a song title, “Every Second,” …

On January 29, 2021, Max Lenail was finishing a long run around Mission Trails Regional Park when he attempted to cross the San Diego River near the Visitor Center Loop trail. It was a stormy …

La Mesa goes live : “My mom was on welfare,” says Dean Velasco, who was raised in a La Mesa household with little money. “We had government cheese, and when we ran out of that, …

I caught a Stones N’ Roses set at Soda Bar on November 1. Their Guns N’ Roses costumes would have been more fitting on the previous evening, but their mash-up of GNR, The Stone Roses, …

The year 2020 was a transitional one for Belladon. The progressive-pop quintet released two interconnected four-song concept EPs over the summer. Dreaming arrived first in May, followed by Dreading in July. Nearly simultaneously, the group …

Aaron Carnes started working on a book about ska in 2013. He didn’t have a game plan; he just loved the genre and “wanted to contribute something about ska to the narrative that was lacking.” …

Remember taxis? Those orange, yellow and, to a lesser extent, blue, white and silver automobiles that you would hail from a sidewalk or commandeer via voice call to transport you from one location to another? …

On a Saturday morning in mid-September, I drove to the Park de la Cruz skatepark in City Heights to meet up with a crew of skaters. The sun was shining bright, but it felt like …

San Diego rock stalwarts Mrs. Henry were about to embark on a west coast tour when Covid shut down the live music industry. So they pivoted, creating and releasing a couple of YouTube episodes of …

When she was in sixth grade, Stefanie Schmitz didn’t put much thought into her decision to play the clarinet. “I just sort-of picked it,” she explained. “I didn’t really know what to pick, and it …

“We didn’t pick the best year to start but we survived it,” is how San Diego Loyal interim president Ricardo Campos sums up getting a division-two United Soccer League team up and running in 2020. …

The California Geological Survey released new earthquake fault zone maps in late September – and San Diego-area homeowners may be surprised to learn their property sits atop a fault. A press release from the agency …

If you’re still unsure about the level of influence that gaming culture exerts on present-day society, take a moment to consider this fact: there is now an entire ecosystem of bands whose sole purpose is …

Writer, film director, and Casbah manager Ben Johnson thought the manuscript for the final installment of his Webworld trilogy, Children of the Web, was in final draft form. Then he passed it to his beta-readers …

Super Buffet smorgasbord: After teasing two songs as a single on Big Stir Records this past spring, North County’s Super Buffet self-released their debut full-length, Self Styled, in July. The majority of the recording was …

Javi Nunez was into gothic metal and punk before he dove into deathrock, a subgenre of punk and goth that originated on the west coast circa 1980. The crossover act for him was Rudimentary Peni, …

Circa 2006, Sam Lopez was in a band, playing what he refers to as “straight music” and feeling as if he had reached a plateau. He felt he needed to take his music in a …

Even though it won’t reach attendance levels that put it in competition with the likes of Wonderfront and Kaaboo, the first music festival in the San Diego region since the pandemic started is about to …

Breakdance with Olympic prospects Kearny Mesa/Old Town Breakdancing will be an official sport at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, and local b-girls and b-boys have been practicing breakdance maneuvers in hopes of repping Team USA. …

On January 29, the San Diego River took the life of Max Lenail. The 21-year-old was at the tail-end of a long run through Mission Trails Regional Park when the weather took a turn for the worse …

The inaugural Wonderfront Music and Arts Festival was held in late-November, 2019. In the weeks running up to the event, Wonderfront organizer Ernie Hahn (who also serves as the general manager of the Pechanga Arena) …

Steve Rosenbaum can trace his journey as a musician back to two sources. The first was receiving a toy guitar and the second was The Banana Splits TV show. One fateful day, he was in …

If you heard Jordan Krimston’s history of playing in bands, you would likely assume he was a grizzled, local music scene vet in his mid-50s. The 23-year-old has played in more groups over the past …

Mike Kociela’s old band, New World Spirits, got signed to Universal Records in the mid-90s. They were chewed up and spit out by the label a couple of years later. By 1997, he had formed …

Once upon a time, playlists were nothing more than a collection of songs grouped together on your iPod whose only purpose was to make your workouts less miserable. The value of playlists has changed drastically …

The San Diego River Crossing Trail intersects the Visitor Center Loop Trail just to the northwest of Mission Trails Regional Park’s Visitor Center. It’s your typical fire road with a moderately steep grade. On February …

The Beat Farmers’ debut album Tales of the New West was recorded in the summer of 1984 with a bare-bones budget of $4500 — the majority of which was spent on a single-day marathon session …

“Here’s a little history,” said Paul Smith. “We started up in 2008. It was the Ruby Room up until about 2013, and then switched over to the Merrow. Not necessarily starting over, but building up …

Late last April, City of San Diego parks that had been closed since the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic began to re-open. As gyms stayed shutdown and tennis and basketball courts remained off-limits, people began …

You remember The Inept, right? The band composed of five English teenagers that played a handful of gigs in the small town next to their boarding school in the mid-80s. Ring a bell yet? They …