Area U2 fans who joined the band's fan club (for $40) at www.u2.com in order to get "preferred access" to "some of the best seats available" for the March 28 Vertigo tour opener at the …

Onetime Grateful Dead mainstay Bob Weir brings his band Ratdog to 4th & B Wednesday, February 9, demonstrating he's gotten over his longstanding grudge against the city, or at least against its police department. "For …

Music can cure diseases, according to Dr. Jason Liu (Ph.D., O.M.D.) at the Mind-Body Science Institute on Camino de la Reina. "Through pulse reading, the doctor is able to know everything about your health condition," …

"Someone compared us to Urge Overkill- I have no idea what that's supposed to mean."

"The Five Stages of Beer," a locally made film airing at the second annual Park City Film Music Festival this week, includes music by locals CLA (Steve Foth, Sam Chammas, and Dennis Borlek), Mercedes Scalzitti …

U2's 2005 worldwide "Vertigo" tour will open March 28 at the San Diego Sports Arena, with tickets going on sale January 29, says the January 21 issue of Billboard magazine. It's called the Vertigo tour …

The local band 3against1 has won the Best Unsigned Band competition held by the Zippo lighter manufacturer, beating 1200 other entrants hoping to win free equipment and a chance to perform for Island Records. Votes …

Unwritten Law fans will receive one free ticket to the February 1 SOMA concert (while supplies last) when they preorder Here's to the Mourning at either Lou's Records in Encinitas or M Theory Records in …

San Diego native Jenn Lindsay, at 26, has released five independently produced albums. Her newest, The Last New York Horn, contains the song "Uncle Sam," concerning George W. Bush's re-election: "Alone in a room with …

A new Belly Up Tavern is set to open in Aspen, Colorado. The lease was signed December 10 by Michael Goldberg, whose brother Steve owns the 30-year-old Solana Beach sister club. The new Belly Up …

Former Ratt singer Stephen Pearcy performed before 5000 sailors on the world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, December 17. His backing band consisted of crew members who learned Ratt songs "You're in Love," "Lay …

When Dionne Warwick performs at Sycuan today, Thursday, January 20, her dressing room requirements include a TV ("21 inch, color"), a telephone, six hangers ("wooden"), a full-length mirror, six ashtrays ("glass"), and a "private toilet." …

The Associated Press' "Overlooked Albums" of 2004 includes a review of Tom Waits's Real Gone which says the one-time local nightclub doorman "has thrown dice in the back alleys of music before and found perfection …

Local clothing company Sik World Productions is attracting media scrutiny over its new line of "Sik Kidz" baby clothes. Selling for around $16 retail, shirts for tots are emblazoned with logos like "I'm the Baby …

A waterproof iPod case manufactured by a local company, the SV Mini, gets a poor review from the Modesto Bee (12-27-04): "The folks at San Diego--based H20 Audio have come out with a sealed waterproof …

In an article at CNN.com entitled "The Best Albums You Didn't Hear," Pinback's Summer in Abaddon is called "quite possibly the most intriguing album recorded in 2004. The San Diego duo has stepped beyond its …

Before As I Lay Dying played Las Vegas venue The Joint December 28, an area periodical wrote, "Tim Lambesis, vocalist for rising metalcore act As I Lay Dying...has watched bands that were once underground darlings …

Where I live, no major high-volume road cuts apart the 'hood. People can cross the street without becoming dead. The amoeba-shaped Balboa Park Municipal Golf Course and grid-busting canyons have made a rabbit warren of the streets.

I wrote under "Future Plans" in my 1978 high school yearbook: "Moving to Lemon Grove." I'd never been west of the last Stuckey's in St. Louis, but I'd just clipped a magazine article pitching the …

In the wake of Jay-Z's collaboration with Linkin Park on "Collision Course" comes news that P.O.D. may be doing something with the prolific rapper as well. On December 15, P.O.D. drummer Noah "Wuv" Bernardo told …

One New York weekly writes of Switchfoot, "The San Diego Christian rock quartet whose major-label breakthrough The Beautiful Letdown might be the most intelligent, least hysterical piece of alt-rock evangelism I've ever heard. And, yep, …

Before Louis XIV played a San Francisco venue December 16, an area paper wrote, "Dirty boys finish first. At least that's what San Diego's Louis XIV are betting on. The latest major-label contenders who would …

Venture capitalist David Cremin, 44, is co-owner of the two-year-old Santa Barbara--based firm DFJ Frontier Fund, which has invested around $25 million in several emerging companies. Among them is Poway's OnTech Delaware, Inc., which makes …

Seventy-seven-year-old Clora Bryant refers to herself as a "trumpetiste" in a new documentary film chronicling her pioneering career as one of the few woman musicians to infiltrate L.A.'s Central Avenue jazz scene in the 1950s. …

Locals 3Against1 emerged as one of eight finalists in Zippo lighter's "Hottest Unsigned Rock Band in America" competition. Zippo's "Hot Tour," which hosted 62 unsigned bands, had 1200 entries, all vying for a showcase with …

MTV's "Meet the Barkers" is hyped as "putting the 'nuclear' in nuclear family." I asked program executive Rod Aissa if the show, starring blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, his wife, their one-year-old son, and her five-year-old …

During Thanksgiving week, Delaware band Fozzy was in town to shoot a video for their song "Enemy" on the rooftop of a downtown skyscraper. "The concept of the video was written by British filmmaker Paul …

According to a website based in Punjab, India (www.onlypunjab.com), drummer Billy Ray (formerly of the Ike Turner's band the Ike Turner Camp) has joined beach bar locals Tubby. "Tubby's music is an eclectic amalgamation of …

After local band Cage played adjacent gigs with Germany's Scorpions at the Universal Amphitheater November 26, a Los Angeles zine reported, "Singer Sean Peck does his best to channel Rob Halford, even shaving his head …

'He made me a replica of Hank's suit, the white suit with black musical notes.'

Two-man band Across The Room began recording their second CD November 22, and they didn't have to go further than across the hall to do so. Steven Cox and Enrique Platas plan on recording their …

When Everclear plays 4th & B tomorrow, their contract rider requires the venue to stock and cater the band's tour bus (by 2 p.m. on day of show) as well their backstage dressing rooms. Necessary …

'We've never run out, but sometimes people throw them around and the club makes us clean up the mess.'

"It wasn't advertised at all. We only e-mailed a few friends about 48 hours ahead," says Tell-Tale Hearts bassist Mike Stax of the group's surprise reunion performance, their first in over ten years. About 30 …

Slightly Stoopid's third album, Everything You Need, came out last year on the deceased Sublime singer Brad Nowell's Skunk Records, but it was just released in October in the U.K. on Encinitas's Surfdog label. One …

blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, 29, married former Miss USA Shanna Moakler, 29, on Halloween eve, in a ceremony inspired by Tim Burton's cult film The Nightmare Before Christmas. The gothic theme is in step with …

Local acts recently reviewed in other cities: When the Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower played the Talking Head near Washington, D.C., they "took the stage in their pseudo-fascist uniform of black, button-down shirts …

Madame Zora, a 40ish mother of four, usually works behind a card table in Balboa Park. "I had to get a license downtown," she tells me, "which I did not know at first. I just …

When Metallica plays the Sports Arena next Wednesday, their 14-page backstage rider assures they'll put aside widely chronicled differences long enough to play a full set, barring "sickness, inability to perform, accident, fire, failure of …

"I'm told they'll let me be Miss USO San Diego until either the troops don't like me anymore or I can't sing."

Five thousand copies of the new Reeve Oliver EP CD were bound inside the November issue of Surfer magazine. "Not many indie marketers have been able to pull something like this off," says Devin Johnson, …

Mike Kamoo's (of the band Static Halo) homegrown label, Earthling Records, recently signed as a subsidiary of Boston's Wishing Tree Records. Wishing Tree distributes nationally to over 15,000 retail outlets. The first three Earthling CDs …

Greg Shaw, founder of Bomp Records, died from heart failure Tuesday, October 19. "The man single-handedly saved San Diego's music scene in the mid-'80s," says Shambles guitarist Bart Mendoza. "He signed the Tell-Tale Hearts, Crawdaddys, …

Acoustic blues band Dudes on Diesel get no respect at GarageBand.com. Their band info lists San Diego as their hometown; they are currently ranked 124 out of 135 in the category of "Blues." Their "signature …

The inside story of the rise and fall of Pacific Comics

I hear it all the time. “Wow, I wish I had your job — you get paid to have fun and hang out with famous people!” What folks don’t seem to understand is that first, …

I see Asian gang cars some nights, in a long caravan down the Mira Mesa Boulevard. They meet at In-N-Out Burger before heading off for illegal street races on Kearny Villa Road or in Sorrento Valley.

As soon as you leave the SDSU district, where College Avenue collides with El Cajon Boulevard, libraries and frat houses give way to liquor stores, check-cashing places, 99-cent emporiums, and plenty more clear signposts that …

When we screened Walter Hill’s surreal fantasy The Warriors (1979), about teenage gangs waging war in a fictionalized New York City underworld, everyone in the theater chanted along with the villain when he taunts the “good guys.”

“We didn’t like any websites about San Diego music,” says Kevin Hoffrichter, cofounder of bandconnexion.com. “So we built ours as guys who actually hang out in the clubs… It’s updated daily and not at all …