Thanks to Tijuana’s Jorge Fonseca, it’s no big deal for a band to fly in from Europe and play two different countries in one weekend. Fonseca’s day job is with the Mexican electric company (CFE). …

While at a desert music festival last November, Jarrod Heidt hooked up with some of the bands he’d book at his new Vista venture. “It was the third annual Borrego Mi Diego. It was like …

A critical mass of local bands is thriving, owing to the loud, expansive psych-metal of Earthless. “It’s all based around an underground, heavy psychedelic vibe,” says Earthless drummer Mario Rubalcaba, a former pro skater and …

The Martinez brothers say their cue to start their band was an omen. “We found these two guitars sitting right outside a neighbor’s fence,” says Sam Martinez, lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist of the Bassics. “It was …

Chris Vitas was still attending Monte Vista High in 1969 when he started playing electric fiddle in Montezuma’s Revenge. Locals remember them as the wacky (the name referenced diarrhea) country band that packed the Del …

This is the first weekend that Brandon Duncan has seen his family since June 17, when he was taken from his Lincoln Park home and booked into the George Bailey Detention Center. His grandfather died …

Two ill-fated UCSD music venues, Ché Café and Porter’s Pub, appear to be back in business. The Ché Café is a 35-year-old nonprofit run by a student collective with support of well-connected student alumni. Since …

Former rock singer Jian Ghomeshi was fired by Q producer CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) in October when former lady friends claimed he got violent with them during sex. San Diego’s top-rated public radio station initially …

Could 2015 be the year that Street Scene (or something like it) comes back to life? The resurrection buzz comes with the arrival of the Kaaboo Festival September 18–20 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. The …

The closest thing San Diego has had to French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo would have to be the Koala, UCSD’s sometimes profane student-run humor paper. Twelve people, including key Charlie Hebdo staffers, were murdered this …

“Joe was very private, almost shy. I think the reason why he drank and did the other stuff was to bring himself out.”

The story of the Observatory’s arrival as one of Orange County’s top music venues started when a computer systems installer named Jon Reiser decided he had grown out of the 300-capacity Detroit Bar, a club …

A new venture called Quartyard will take over two-thirds of a downtown city block and present live concerts May through October. Attendees will be served by a full-bar, beer gardens, and food trucks. Quartyard is …

Touring bands and booking agents will tell you local opportunities are few compared to the thriving hard rock scenes in L.A., the Bay Area, or Texas. But the five guys in A New Challenger Approaches …

Five employees and a manager at Chronic Pain Releaf were recently given misdemeanor citations for working at an unlicensed business according to Oceanside Police spokesman Lt. Leonard Cosby. He says they were cited under Oceanside …

Americana singer/songwriter Mark Stuart has ricocheted between Austin and San Diego. The homegrown founder of Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash first relocated to Texas eight years ago. “Everything except the music scene is wonderful in …

Could wide receiver Eddie Royal replace “Royals” by Lorde? Could Brandon Flowers of the Chargers take the airwaves from Brandon Flowers of the Killers? Local radio stations KSON, KIFM, and FM94/9 were sold on Monday. …

UCSD administration first took aim at the Ché Café, and now it has its sights set on Porter’s Pub. “It’s like they’re giving themselves chemo but killing off all of the wrong organs,” says a …

The day after the City of Oceanside closed the Nature’s Leaf marijuana dispensary on October 31, city attorney John Mullen drove by the shuttered business near the intersection of Interstate 5 and Hwy 78. “I …

Brandon “Tiny Doo” Duncan raps about gang life, but he had never been to jail until June 19. “I just got out of the shower and was headed to work,” Duncan, 34, tells the Reader …

Call it “screamo” or call it “post hardcore,” locals Focus in Frame say they have no intention of backing away from the guttural groans that identify many modern metal bands. Detractors slag the incomprehensible singing …

B-Side Players founder Karlos Paez makes it clear that he’s a benevolent bandleader. He’s still friends with his former B-Side bandmates. All 52 of them. “We just had our 20th reunion at the Belly Up,” …

UCSD pulled the trigger last week. The school went to court November 19 to obtain a writ of possession for the Ché Café, to evict the collective that has operated the café and venue for …

The 13 years Ken Horne played guitar in the Dragons made that dirty glam-rock band a vital part of San Diego’s home team. They released seven albums and played alongside Mastodon, X, and went on …

The Red Eye Saloon in Fallbrook followed the trend of many local nightspots when it stopped hiring live bands two months ago. But right next door, a new kind of music venue has sprung up, …

After eight years hosting FM 94/9’s Sunday night show The Local Pyle, which featured San Diego bands, Tim Pyles dropped a bomb on his bosses yesterday when he told them that he was leaving 94/9 …

Singer/guitarist Travis Wheeler recalls the first time his punk/metal band Stealth Jackson tried to play the Shakedown. “The show was canceled because there was no electricity. It was, ‘Sorry, no show tonight.’ But it was …

If life hands you lemons...go buy a radio station in paradise. Keith Miller discovered a few months ago that the shrinking local radio industry that had employed him for 25 years had shrunk him out …

“Satan is attacking our family by perverting the concept of marriage, which God created to be between one man and one woman only.” This is not a rant from a fundamentalist church in Alabama; it …

Southeast San Diego band Tribal Theory has managed to squeeze two tours of Guam and Hawaii into their nine-year career. The reggae-rock band, inspired by the Pacific Island sound, is presently putting together another working …

“Thought this day would never come, but after 22 years as main house band at Dick’s Last Resort San Diego, our run is ending in two weeks, Private Domain lamented on its Facebook page on …

While it may be getting easier for some marijuana dispensaries to stay open in San Diego, Halloween is the drop-dead date for one Oceanside storefront that has defied efforts to kill the business for almost …

It’s tough when you’re a public figure and you admit that you enjoy kinky sex. It’s even tougher when you’re, uh, in public radio. That awkwardness became a binational reality Sunday when it was announced …

San Diego’s on-air Energizer bunny is still going and going... But now he has a louder bass drum. Mike Halloran, the DJ who has always said he cared more about the music he played than …

Superior court judge Katherine Bacal ruled Tuesday that the UCSD Board of Regents could evict the student collective that has been operating the Ché Café for 34 years. Once the written decision is issued, the …

Pro sports figures have long been major players in San Diego radio. John Lynch was a Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker before getting into radio management and launching San Diego’s first sports and modern rock stations (Mighty …

On October 6, reporter Joe Lewis filed a report on 10News about the Valley View Casino Center. Lewis quoted the mayor of National City, who six years ago said, “The facility is in terrible condition …

With the Fallbrook Hospital facing a loss of $6 million that is growing at a clip of $500,000 a month, the directors of Fallbrook Healthcare District voted on Wednesday, October 8, to pull the plug …

Russel Hayden sings backup and plays lap steel, banjo, and harmonica for local country band Nancarrow. He started playing locally in a late-’80s punk band called P.S. Your Cat Is Dead. Having toured the world …

City Heights–raised D. Dove has been rapping since she was 14. “There’s not a lot of opportunity. Besides the sheer number of other MCs in San Diego, this is simply a hard city to break …

It’s now up to Kodiak, a five-man punk-metal band from North Park, to keep a local tradition alive. For more than ten years the loft above the bar formerly known as Scolari’s Office has been …

It is not surprising that Unwritten Law is still going. The pop-punk band had radio hits (“Seein’ Red,” “Up All Night,” “Save Me [Wake Up Call]”), six albums, Warped Tours, and plenty of fans who …

No one has lasted longer on the local radio airwaves than Steve West. On Sunday, the Resurrection Sunday cat begins another life, resurrecting himself with a new show on FM 94/9. The British-born West, inspired …

Radios Silent, four straight-ahead rockers whose members reside in Point Loma, Tijuana, and Ensenada, embrace the idea that being a borderland band means twice the opportunities. A recent weekend saw them play Friday at the …

Austin Steele owes his neighbor. Before his pop band even had a name, Unwritten Law frontman Scott Russo would invite the 16-year-old singer/guitarist and his band over to record at his home studio. “I knew …

While much attention has been given to the plight of the Ché Café, the larger Porter’s Pub (550-person capacity) has been proceeding with little fanfare, presenting national artists, often to a packed house. In the …

The attorney who helped stopped the removal of the seals from Children’s Pool in La Jolla, has signed on to halt the removal of live music and healthy food from the Ché Café, UCSD’s 34-year-old …

The canceled hip-hop show that was supposed to happen Saturday, August 23, at the Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Chula Vista may trigger some big changes in the concert industry. Headlined by Wiz Khalifa, the “Under …

Singer/guitarist Mikey Carnevale has no idea why the Frights was nominated as Best Live Band for this year’s San Diego Music Awards. The punk trio from Poway has no dancing go-go girls, matching suits, or …

Like most people who live in Calexico — the border town about 90 miles east of San Diego — Anthony Ramirez often heads south to the much larger Mexicali, on the other side of the …