Here's something you might be interested in.
Apes of Wrath
- Where: The Casbah
- When: 7/11 - 2:00 p.m.
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San Diego Music Encyclopedia & Database Online Now
Press illo to play the Overheard song!
NEW COMPREHENSIVE LOCAL MUSIC DATABASE IS LAUNCHED
IT'S DONE!!!! And growing every hour....
If you wanna see a list of over 1,5000 San Diego bands, with links to full profiles, photos, discographies, articles, MP3s, etc, checkout http://www.sandiegoreader.com/bands/search/
Believe it or not, you can click on ANY LOCAL MUSICIAN'S NAME (around 4,500 musicos listed!) and bring up bios of every notable band they've ever been in! Try it here with Rob Crow ---
AND, if that wasn't cool 'nuff, click on an instrument, say like this here link to "Drums" - BAM, a list of EVERY DRUMMER IN SAN DIEGO!!!
We've been working on this massively cross-linked Local Music Database for over two years now, covering a century of San Diego history --- if you're a local performer who wants to add or edit a page, go to http://www.sandiegoreader.com/band/edit/
More anon!!!! JAS
HERE'S THIS WEEK'S NEW Overheard in San Diego
AND THE NEW Famous Former Neighbors
MY PERSONAL HOTPICK FOR TODAY...
The Long and Short of It, with Secret Fun Club, Same Sex Dictator - The Casbah
The Long and Short of It say they play “a pastiche of aggressive rock forms including punk, prog, metal, and ‘70s hard rock.” “We wanna be a fierce, in-your-face band,” says singer Ben Johnson, also plays drums for Hostile Comb-Over. Johnson was attending college in Santa Cruz with his brother Tim "Big Baby" Johnson when the siblings met bassist Brian Barrabee, who is paralyzed from the chest down, the result of a May 2004 accident.
Barrabee recruited Bartenders Bible guitarist Matt Strachota. Their debut album
Related links
- Blurt "Third Degree Rock"
- myspace.com/thelongandshortofit
RATT VS JUAN CROCIER’S DIRTY RATS
Former Rattman Juan Crocier has said he wants nothing to do with the newest Ratt partial-reunion – instead, he has his own rodent posse, Dirty Rats.
At www.thedirtyrats.com, Crocier’s mainpage reads “THE OTHER VOICE OF RATT” -------------
He posts “As most of you may know, we went out and played a few shows in early March. The shows were a lot of fun. Carlos Cavazo is back in the band (Ratt, ex-Quiet Riot). We're going out again this summer, so far we have July 16th, 17th and 18th booked and continue to book more shows.”
“We will soon be offering Dirty Rat shirts on Juancroucier.com so be looking out for those. I’ll be working on the Dirty Rats website in the coming months and getting that up to speed. We may also be opening The Cellar Message Board at Juancroucier.com again. I’m going back into the studio this summer to begin recording my next record.”
In summer 2007, Ratt partially reunited its classic lineup, with Stephen Pearcy, Warren DeMartini, and Bobby Blotzer. The late Robbin Crosby was replaced by guitaristt John Corabi. Ratt bassist Juan Crocier refused to participate, so he was replaced by Robbie Crane (from Vince Neil's band).
“The original band broke up fifteen years ago and there have been several questionable incarnations of it since then,” blogged former Ratt bassist Juan Croucier on his MySpace page last year. He said he wouldn’t participate in the current Ratt reunion tour with Pearcy.
“There has not been a sincere attempt at redemption by my former band mates, for their insidious and sometimes malicious wrongdoings in the past, toward me,” said. “Near the end of negotiations, ulterior motives prevailed and I was eventually simply stonewalled… their ignorant and unscrupulous habits came into focus once again; a stark reminder of our tumultuous and dysfunctional past.”
(Croucier then & now)
The “reunion” tour also featured Poison (insert your own rat poison joke here). Among the reactions to the announcement on Blabbermouth.com at the time:
“This is just sad.” (Dude Of Life)
“Please God, say it isn’t so.” (Mast O’ Dawn)
“Mulletfest 2007.” (IFH)
Related links
- Blurt "Rats!"
- Video for "Round and Round"
ANOTHER HARD ROCK HOTEL NIGHTCLUB OPERATOR LAWSUIT - this time for sexual harrassment
Mr. Cindy Crawford – aka Rande Gerber, whose company ran Moonstone Lounge and Sweetwater Saloon at the Hard Rock Hotel - is being sued for sexual harrassment by two women who worked at the Moonstone.
UPI reports: Shelly Scott and Gillian Walker allege in their suit filed in San Diego Count Superior Court in March that they both endured sexual harassment while working at the Gerber Group's Moonstone Lounge, TMZ.com reported Friday.
The women allege they lost their waitress jobs after refusing the sexual advances of staff members, including Gerber.
One of the women alleges Gerber attempted to kiss her and reach under her dress on one occasion in 2008, E! Online said.
A representative for Gerber dismissed the women's allegations. "These allegations were previously investigated and shown to be baseless. This lawsuit has no merit," the unidentified representative said. http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2009/05/02/UPI-NewsTrack-Entertainment-News/UPI-44671241287864/
Gerber is ALSO being sued over club operators allegedly roughing up patrons. As of Thursday, February 5, both bars are locked up, around 150 people have no job to go to, and the Hard Rock has announced that it severed its partnership with Gerber.
In a written statement, Hard Rock Hotel owners Tarsadia Hotels referenced “the wrongful conduct of some of the Gerber Group employees” and said the lawsuit seeking damages was filed “arising from their wrongful conduct.”
“In order to protect hotel guests and patrons, and the reputation of Hard Rock Hotel San Diego, Tarsadia was left with no alternative but to proceed with the termination of the agreement…Tarsadia Hotels has a zero tolerance of illegal and wrongful conduct, and has made every reasonable effort to have the Gerber Group correct the defaults.”
47 year-old Gerber operates a chain of venues called Midnight Oil, alongside his brothers Scott and Kenny, as the Gerber Group. Best known for the Whiskey chain of venues launched around 16 years ago, their website declares the company to be “pre-eminent tastemakers, with an uncanny ability to create chic, seductive bars with modern glamour that reflect the times and national moods.”
Gerber co-designed the Sweetwater Saloon on the main floor of downtown’s Hard Rock Hotel, as well as the Moonstone Lounge rooftop pool bar. Both opened in late 2007, with a splashy party covered attended by Rande Gerber with his supermodel wife Cindy Crawford (with whom he has two children), as well as Ashlee Simpson, and Pete Wentz.
“When I look at [San Diego],” he told San Diego Magazine, “it feels like Miami did years ago, with the vitality and anticipation to take off…it’s exciting to be part of a city with such spirit and people who are ready to shake it up a bit.”
Gerber told Riviera Magazine “San Diego just seemed like a great place because the people are really friendly, like to have a good time, and they drink…I look forward to spending more time in San Diego, and I plan to keep opening new spots.”
San Diego, you’ve been warned……
ROCKIN’ ROBINS (and Cockatoos, too!) – LOCAL RESEARCHER PROVES BIRDS ROCK!
People aren't the only ones who've got rhythm. Two reports published online on April 30th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, reveal that birds – and parrots in particular – can also bob their heads, tap their feet, and sway their bodies along to a musical beat. The findings show that a very basic aspect of the human response to music is shared with other species, according to the researchers.
"We've discovered a cockatoo [named Snowball] that dances to the beat of human music," said Aniruddh Patel of The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, lead author of one of the studies. "Using a controlled experiment, we've shown that if the music speeds up or slows down across a wide range, he adjusts the tempo of his dancing to stay synchronized to the beat." One of Snowball's favorite dancing tunes is none other than the Backstreet Boys' "Everybody."
"For a long time, people have thought that the ability to move to a beat was unique to humans," added Adena Schachner of Harvard University, who led the other study. "After all, there is no convincing evidence that our closest relatives, chimpanzees and other apes, can keep a beat, and there is similarly no evidence that our pet dogs and cats can line up their actions with a musical beat, in spite of extensive experience with humans. In this work, however, we found that entrainment [to music] is not uniquely human; we find strong evidence for it in birds, specifically in parrots."
Before this discovery, "scientists who studied music and the brain thought that moving to a musical beat might be a uniquely human ability because we don't commonly see other animals moving rhythmically to music," Patel agreed. In fact, as far as they know, birds in the wild don't move in time with sounds, leaving many scientists to think that this ability might be an evolutionary specialization of the human brain for music cognition.
But that may not be so, the new studies suggest. They now suspect that the parrots' ability can be traced to another capacity they share with people: vocal learning or mimicry.
Indeed, Schachner's group searched YouTube for videos of dancing animals. Of more than 1,000 videos that turned up, only those of vocal mimics – representing 14 parrot species and one species of elephant – showed evidence that they could really get into the groove. That result is in keeping with the notion, first proposed by Patel, that entrainment to a musical beat relies on the neural circuitry for complex vocal learning, which requires a tight link between auditory and motor circuits in the brain, they said.
"A natural question about these results is whether they generalize to other parrots, or more broadly, to other vocal-learning species," including songbirds, dolphins, elephants, and pinnipeds, a group including walruses and seals, Patel said.
The findings in birds also offer new insight into humans' relationship to music.
"Why humans produce and enjoy music is an evolutionary puzzle," Schachner's team wrote. "Although many theories have been proposed, little empirical evidence speaks to the issue. In particular, debate continues over the idea that the human music capacity was not selected for directly, but arose as the byproduct of other cognitive mechanisms. By supporting the idea that entrainment emerged as a byproduct of vocal mimicry in avian species, the current findings lend plausibility to the idea that the human entrainment capacity evolved as a byproduct of our capacity for vocal mimicry."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/cp-bcd042309.php
WHALES WANNA ROCK TOO (THO THEY'RE CHANGING THEIR TUNES)
Professor John Hildebrand, a blue whale expert at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD, has studied recordings of whales “singing” since the 1960s. He says the whales’ rhythmic underwater moaning, which often sounds musical, is becoming lower and deeper. “This is giving us an insight into the culture of blue whales, as they are clearly listening to each other’s songs and changing them,” he told the UK’s Sunday Telegraph. “It takes a conscious decision to make the calls deeper, so it is a reflection of what is going on in the population.”
According to Hildebrand, whale calls used to average 22Hz, whereas today the frequency is around 15Hz. “These animals have a finite lung capacity, so their songs are a trade off between frequency and volume. They can either make the song really loud, or really deep.” Most researchers think whale songs are intended to attract mates, or to communicate to others during the mating season.
The world’s largest animals, whales are enjoying a population growth, thanks to protections put in place after many species were nearly wiped out. It’s estimated that there are currently around 4,500 blue whales. “As their numbers have slowly increased after the devastation caused by whaling,” says Hildebrand, “they are having to communicate over smaller distances. So their songs don't need to be as loud, and they can make them deeper."
Those interested in hearing songs of the blue whale can find hundreds of recordings at the UCSD Sound Library.
Professor David Rothernberg, of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, says he communicates with whales through musical instruments mic’d to hydrophones. His book Thousand Mile Song describes underwater “jam sessions” he’s enjoyed with humpback whales.
“For me,” he told telegraph.co.uk, “I felt like they could recognise the music I was making and were responding to that. There was a very special interaction with a humpback, and he seemed to change his song so that, by the end, it was hard to tell which was the clarinet and which was the whale.”
The whales apparently respect and respond to musical innovation, being enraptured by and then mimicking any Beatles-like whales among them who come up with a new tune AND a new way of “singing” and performing it. “These are incredibly social animals, and they seem to change their songs regularly. When one of them innovates, this gets picked up by the rest of the population, and then they all start singing in the same way.”
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GUITARIST FOR LOCAL ‘80s ONE-HIT WONDER THE
“Could you be the one I’m thinking of?
Could you be the girl I really love?
All the people tell me so,
but what do all the people know!”
(The Monroes, “What Do All The People Know”)
“‘What Do All the People Know’ was a fun song, and I still enjoy listening to it,” says Rusty Jones, whose San Diego band the Monroes toured with Rick Springfield, Toto, and Greg Kihn in the early ’80s. At their one-hit-wonder peak, the Monroes performed their best-known single on The Merv Griffin Show.
“Tell me am I getting in too deep,
every night I’m talking in my sleep.
Lately I am so confused,
I really don’t know what to do.”
("What Do All The People Know")
“Sometimes we were a really great band, too,” says Jones. “But, sadly, fighting through the fragile egos and drug problems, just to play my music, became too much…Bob [Davis, bassist] and Eric [Denton, keyboardist] are just not my friends, musically or otherwise.”
“And when I called you on the phone,
you said that I could be the one.
But here I’m standing all alone,
and you’re out lyin’ in the sun.”
("What Do All The People Know")
Referring to a Reader website feature on Denton, who later founded Guitar Trader, Jones says, “Nowhere does it mention that I wrote at least half of the songs the Monroes performed and recorded. I know that my songwriting and musicianship played a huge role in getting the band signed because people were constantly trying to lure me away. After I left, what happened? Where are all the memorable Denton-Monroe tunes?”
“They’ve constantly bothered me through the years to do a reunion. Bob has asked me to write with him many times. If I was such a side player, why not just reunite with a different guitar player?”
From 1987 through 1994, Bob Davis AKA Bobby Monroe played in a local band called Street Heart - pictured below (left to right) is Bobby Monroe, Bob Sale, Tom Quinn, and Denny Bales. These folks also played with Eve Selis, the Heroes, and the Siers Bros Band. Street Heart almost always included "What Do All the People Know" in their setlists.
Today, Rusty Jones often performs around North County with Monroes singer Jesus Ortiz, and he’s also reconnected with Monroes drummer Jonnie Gilstrap.
EARLIEST AMBITION?
“When I was really young, I wanted to be a stand-up comic like George Burns, Jack Benny, and Johnny Carson. Come out in a tuxedo and some prop like a cigar or a violin or a golf club and just tell jokes. Music came a little later for me.”
DESCRIBE YOUR CURRENT MUSIC.…
“It’s roots music with a twist. I mash up the blues, pop, Motown, rock, and folk, processing it all through the blender of my heart and soul and forcing it out through voice and guitar.”
MOST-PLAYED CDs?
1. Steely Dan, Aja. “Every song is perfect! After all these years, the lyrics still send my imagination flying, and the musicianship is crystalline. Funny…back in the day I was such a hard-core rocker, I used to crumb on Steely Dan so much. I thought they were too slick.”
2. Louis Prima, The Call of the Wildest. “Prima is so underrated. He fused Dixieland jazz, Italian popular music, rhythm and blues, and ’50s pop music into these peppy three-minute songs. Keely Smith’s voice still gives me goose bumps.”
3. Anoushka Shankar, Breathing Under Water. “It’s sensual, hypnotic, and eclectic music; great for the car. She plays sitar like a demon and, well, she’s hot!”
FAVORITE LINE FROM SPINAL TAP?
“Pretty much every word the bass player says.”
ANY UNTOLD BACKSTAGE MONROES STORIES?
“Chip, the stage manager for the Rick Springfield tour, came to see us at the Spirit Club. He says, ‘This is my friend Neil — he came down with me to check you guys out.’ I shake hands with this tall, skinny guy who’s holding a longneck Bud as if it’s not his first of the evening. Neil says, ‘Hey, you guys were great, man. I really like the sound.’ So I say thanks very much, and I blow him off to go find my girlfriend. Later, our manager comes to me all in a tizzy, asking, ‘What did Neil say? What did you tell him? Did he like the band? Why is he here?’ That was Neil Young!”
WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH THE POWER TO READ MINDS?
“We all think we have these secrets nobody knows about — so many of us are so filled with this weird guilt and shame. I guess I would try to say to people, ‘Go ahead and share.’ The stuff you’re scared to reveal is what resonates for others. It shows you’re alive and aware.”
HOW DO YOU LIKE THE NEW PREZ SO FAR?
“I like him a lot! He has a real, functioning, and healthy brain, and when he smiles, what I see is sincerity. I’m sure there’s the dangerous big ego in there too, and we always have to watch these guys very carefully, but I think we have a really good one this time.”
Video: The Monroes "What Do All the People Know" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2jRez9_mwE
Former Monroe Tony Ortiz playing "What Do All the People Know" with the Melismatics 1-16-09 at 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis, MN - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7spVKh6oPnY
Local band the Shambles covering "What Do All the People Know" at Dizzy's in early April 2009, recorded for FM 94.9's Local Pyle program - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHMEK3qIIag
RELATED STORY: The
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LOCALS ON YOUTUBE - 25 RARE AND AWESOME CLIPS, courtesy Bart Mendoza
1) The Penetrators on News 8 –TV with Jesse Macias, interviews and “clips of Nervous Fingers” and recording http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRmqKdlTt2o
2) A cool new clip from Echo Revolution awesome song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYo9_2Ddzd8
3) Umm, “Groovy” is the only description that can be applied to this great clip of Gary Puckett and Nancy Sinatra performing “Beggar/Spinnin Wheel” on a late sixties TV show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jIyXV7i8EE
4) A great live video of Anya Marina performing “Move You” at SXSW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCf2_rxr2yo
5) The
6) The Rice Brothers and their terrific country gospel group Brush Arbor on CBS-TV’s Johnny Cash Show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrqsvZLiSkU
7) Steve Poltz & Gregory Page singing the National Anthem before a Padres game – terrific! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSb_05EbHC8
8) Not sure why Tristan Prettyman’s “Madly” was ignored (except in
9) Switchfoot performing Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Rw4jNCSDE
10) Ratt’s Warren DiMartini trading licks with Micheal Shenker. A little goes a long way, but that’s some pretty good speed… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U__vtSWMGvk
11) Anyone wondering exactly how popular As I Lay Dying is should check out this really cool video of a “Meet & Greet” autograph signing with fans in
12) She’s an opera singer of note, an occasional singer-songwriter and Miss U.S.O – here’s one of Victoria Robertson’s PSA’s for Selective Service: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ6RT_EdRSA
13) After moving to
14) From the days when videos had story lines and actors even, here is
15) Iron Butterfly performs on TV’s Playboy After Dark, 1968, complete with Hugh Hefner cameo. Of course it’s “In A Gadda Da Vida”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33k9pRTfo2I
16) This one of Rosie Hamlin (of the Originals) is of a more recent vintage – there are no original clips circulating. She has been ill in recent years and no longer tours. This video of “Angel Baby” is from a 2002 PBS Special. Her voice is still great – she gets a standing ovation at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGQEbD4sJoI
17) Barbara Mandrell was Miss Oceanside and had a family band in the area before becoming one of the biggest selling country star of all time. Here’s a clip of how she started out, and playing steel guitar as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2WGso5Yhpo
18) Steve Poltz, Gregory Page and Jeff Berkley are among the cast of hundreds in The Rugburns video for “Hitchhiker Joe.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5x_ikFpqz0
19) The only band from
20) Yes, it’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSOaoPDO16Y
21) No vintage clips of Greg Douglass with The Steve Miller Band or Greg Kihn etc have surfaced yet, but here’s a cute video for “Jungle Love” made from clips for the animated “Tarzan” film. They did a good job of matching ups scenes and lyrics, it sort of makes sense:- ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6dezBbhW6o
22) The greatest band ever from
23) The Beat Farmers on Late Night with David Letterman! Joey Harris, Dan McLain and Jerry Raney backed by Will Lee, Paul Shaffer and Anton Fig! They sing “Hideaway,” but make sure to watch at 4:20 when Mr. Letterman begins to pontificate on the band – sheer genius and the highest compliment possible!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3K111IJwyg
24) Not too many artists from
25) One of the greatest drummers of all time, John Guerin and one of the greatest TV themes of all time, "Hawaii 5-0" can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AepyGm9Me6w
BONUS CLIPS
Iron Butterfly on Playboy After Dark: No Hugh Hefner, but this is worth watching for the dancers alone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh0479oZC7A
Ratt, Bon Jovi, Kingdom Come and Britney Fox tackle "It's All Over Now" live in Japan, New Years Eve 1989. Most of these guys just seem to wander the stage aimlessly, though Pearcy takes the second verse; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnMrlnzpURQ
ALSO, courtesy Wayne Riker:
Local band Stone's Throw being introduced as the opening act at the 1984 Oylympic Village concert series in Los Angeles, playing the Cats & The Fiddle's "We Cats Will Swing For You":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew8-3Tob9mE
Stone's Throw was a San Diego treasure for more than a decade between the mid '70s to '80s. They were a perennial winner of the "Best Vintage Jazz" category in The Reader's annual music awards. "With the other category winners, we got to play a composite concert each year at the La Paloma Theatre," says guitarist Wayne Riker. "The most recent Entertainer's Awards Concert I have listed in my little red book was on April 21st,1985, hosted by Larry Himmel at the La Paloma."
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WHAT I DRINK AND WHERE I DRINK IT
I missed the deadline for this week's cover story, but here 'tis -----
What I Drink: Kahlúa White Russian
2 parts Kahlúa, 1 part vodka, 2 splashes of cream
Where I Drink It: Winstons,
Okay, let’s get one thing straight --- I don’t like hippies. Never had any use for them.
They don’t particularly offend me, other than maybe the ones who tend to reek of patchouli, bongwater, and Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap (“It makes my balls tingle”), but that’s usually just my nose taking offense. I simply find hippies naïve, annoying, unproductive, grandiose, simpleminded, undereducated, overmedicated, out of touch with reality, and just generally useless.
That’s not even factoring in counterculture couture reminiscent of Sid and Marty Krofft after taking the brown acid at
So you can imagine how annoying it is to be mistaken for a hippie.
Yeah, I haven’t cut my hair since the Carter administration. And my sideburns are probably older than you. But my reasons for cultivating a full-body beard – unrelated to the matter at hand – have nothing to do with Granola, hemp, blacklights, flower power, Geodesic domes, biodiesel fuel, tree hugging, the I Ching, the Strawberry Alarm Clock, making a statement, waving a freak flag, giving it to “the Man,” or Jerry Garcia’s effin half-finger.
So why do I keep finding my ass polishing the Pabst-soaked seats at Winstons in OB, surrounded by the very tie-dyed and squinty-eyed I nearly despise, a pair of Italian loafers lost in a
It’s Winstons’ killer White Russians, with ‘tenders who almost always pour a stiff two-parts Kahlúa. A lot of places will plop a weak-ass chocolate milk down in front of you, mildly stirred with some dollar-store Kahlúa copycat like Kamora, Kapali, or some other Krap. Winstons uses the real deal, and with real cream, mind you, not that gawdawful two percent, half-and-half, or (gag) skim milk they dump on you at airports and in Hell (and at airports IN Hell, which seem a near-certainly if one believes in eternal damnation).
Yeah, it’s kind of a foofoo drink. What can I say – I acquired a taste for it over the course of countless
(I once brought a visiting friend from rural New Hampshire to El Pato; as we made our way down the damp and uneven steps, past the doorman with one leg and two teeth, my friend asked me “Dude, am I on Scare Tactics?”)
Winstons is surely a far safer - and more hygienic - place to whet my furry whistle. In addition, I’ve picked up enough patron chatter at Winstons for at least two dozen Overheard in
“My dad thinks I stole his bong.”
“I want to invest in incense.”
“The only thing that matters is mind over matter.”
“Your poncho smells like lentils.”
“My other bike has a banana seat.”
“I only use organic douche.”
“It makes my balls tingle”
And the immortal “Dude! Trails!”
Plus, great bands play at Winstons, most every night. Well, as long as you avoid the Deadheads who live up to that deceptively descriptive term to a nearly forensic degree (is any head deader than a Deadhead’s?).
So that’s where – for now – you can usually find me, marinating in Kahlúa and avoiding some looming eleventh hour Reader deadline.
At least until the lure of TJ draws me back once again to the Zona Norte, to some gawdforsaken dungeon of the damned where I can almost guarantee my spent, abused, astonishingly scarred but nonetheless enviable corpse will someday be found ----
Related links
"Where Have All The Deadheads Gone?" Local flower children, after the head Deadhead was dead.
Our Favorite Drinks and Where We Drink Them
There are times, sometimes in the midst of otherwise polite conversation, when it comes out that I make my living writing for the Reader.... More
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BANDS YOU SHOULD KNOW - SWINGIN' WITH THE APES
Cross Henry Fonda in the Grapes of Wrath with rockin' Roddy McDowall in full Planet of the Apes regalia, and what do you get? A really stupid movie about dirt-poor monkeys, OR San Diego's own Apes of Wrath.
Favorites of Anti-Monday night at the Casbah and Fridays at the Ken Club, the Apes of Wrath fill out San Diego’s alternative-indie scene with much-needed fat rock riffs and girthy bass lines, laid down by Jake Bankhead of Bankhead Press fame.
Bankhead was a junior high science teacher in Georgia before moving to San Diego to pursue his rock and roll dreams. Drummer Dustin Elliott arrived all the way from Austria, homeland of the Governator, by way of Alabama, land of the inbreds. Guitarist Andrew Geldmeier is a reformed Texan, while singer only had to move from Irvine, where he tore up the clubs in a series of short-lived punk bands.
The Apes keep it edgy, with down-tempo, moody sections to each of their songs, but they also play heavy, approachable, and danceworthy, driving rhythms (not usually favored by indie groups). Rob Kent’s vocals add a hint of garage with a dash of Franz Ferdinand without all the pretentiousness and prog-rocky flailing of Franz.
The group appeared at the March 2008 South by Southwest music convention in Austin, Texas, earning rave-up reviews. Their EP Plastic, Fake, and Frozen garnered a SD Music Award nomination as well as attention from Transfer's Matt Molarius, who purposely and portentiously left some Apes music in the car of Louis XIV guitarist Brian Karscig.
When it came time to record the Apes' debut full-length at Louis' Pineapple Recording Group studio, Karscig was there to lend a hand.
Related links
Related links
Free Scott Wilson MP3 downloads
TAKES IT FROM THE STREETS TO THE INTERNET
“We’re looking for local bands to play the Bondi Bar every other Wednesday night, where Shindy.TV will shoot its internet TV show,” says production manager Brad Hurvitz. Though performers aren’t paid, “We provide them with professional video footage in exchange for their performance,” according to Hurvitz. “The price that bands normally get paid to perform is significantly less than the cost of making these videos.”
Launched in 2007, Shindy.TV hired Hurvitz around 8 months ago. “Running this event is the extent of my local music background,” he says, “though I’ve had some excellent guidance from a few friends, and I feel very much a part of the local music scene.”
How will Hurvitz find locals willing to swap sets for footage? “I find the majority of bands on MySpace. I start off at a random band’s page, give them a listen, decide whether they would be the right type of band to play…and either contact them or move on. I find the next band through their friends [list].”
As for “the right type of band,” that’s apparently not punk. “
Performers are also being sought for last minute fill-ins. “If a band backs out last minute, on the off chance that the guitarist breaks his hand by tripping over a box of Cheez-its on the way to get a midnight snack, [we’ll need] a couple bands that would be interested in a last minute switcheroo.”
THE DAVE MUSTAINE CHANNEL - ALL DAVE, ALL DAY
Blabbermouth.net reports: Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has issued the following update ---
"Recently I made [an online] post about my new radio show and that I was blessed to be able to be working with Clear Channel with my own channel, like the CHRISTINA AGUILERA and the EAGLES channels. I am unaware of if their channels are accessible yet, but I know mine will be in just a few weeks.
"Here is an update: I talked to the Clear Channel people again last week and we are ready to go. We are going to do the first show from the Clear Channel station in San Diego, and I will hopefully be able to do an interview for the local San Diego Clear Channel rock channel. After that, I will determine what I need to make my studio ready to do the show.
"I am going to play music I like, music that influenced me, and 'zingers' — which are songs that you would never know that I liked (like THE BEATLES, or stuff like the DEAD KENNEDYS).
"I am going to collect all of your suggestions for some bands and songs, and we are going to start the show before I leave for New Zealand. I am also going to interview people from the bands that I meet or am on tour with, and I will try to do things like interview other celebs from other walks of life that like metal. I also will have a small part of the show feature a close friend and great radio personality from over the pond that came here and was rocking until his station got changed to a talk radio show or some crap like that and he ended up going back overseas. We talked about him sending a U.K./Euro show over each week, or so, and we are good to go. It will take time, but we are getting ready to start.
"I still have to come up with a name for the show, and I still haven't chosen a name for my autobiography. Any ideas?
"Lastly, just because I want 100,000 listeners, doesn't mean that is a reality in the beginning. I will have the best show in metal, because I am going to listen to you.
"On a personal note, I had a good day today, went to service, then to the beach, then did a 1 1/2-hour Yoga X program. I am getting ready for bed now, and will do some reading before I go to bed, and get ready for a busy week of trying to take care of all the things I need to tackle before we leave for [MEGADETH's tour] Down Under.
"More to come this week." http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=125808
MUSTAINE DISSES AC/DC (BUT SAYS "SORRY")
antiMusic reports: Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has walked back some comments he made about rock legends AC/DC in a recent interview. Here is what he had to say according to Blabbermouth: "I just read the [Metal Hammer article where I talk] about Acca Dacca, and I am so disappointed in how I said what I said.
"No excuses; I didn't say what I was trying to say, and what I said is rude and childish. Not my style (well, at least not my style for the last decade or so, thank God), and I am even offended at what I said. I have never in thirty-plus years disrespected AC/DC one of my favorite bands in the whole world; I think I just got too comfortable and forgot that we were recording and I was being an ass.My apologies to my friends, especially Brian [Johnson]; that just did not come out right at all and I'm sorry, bro."
In the Metal Hammer article in question, Mustaine was quoted as saying the following about AC/DC and how Megadeth's live shows differ from those of the Anglo-Australian hard rock legends: "I love AC/DC and I've always been a fan of AC/DC. Bon Scott was my frontman. I love and respect Brian, but it's the same record. They've been making the same record for 20 years. I love 'em, but it's the same stuff, so you don't need to buy the record, just go to the concert." - He goes on from there
Related links
- Famous Former Neighbors comic strip
- "Mad at Dave Mustaine" (Jan. 11, 2008)
- Blurt "Dave Supports Sports" (Dec. 3, 2008)
- Blurt "Birth of Gigantour" (May 26, 2005)
- Blurt "Metal in the Grooves" (May 12, 2005)
- Blurt "Megaproblems" (Sept. 15, 2005)
- Blurt "Dave Hearts Christ" (Sept. 11, 2005)
- Blurt "Megadivorce" (Aug. 3, 2006)
- Blurt "More Gigantour Problems" (Aug. 31, 2006)
- Blurt "Heavy Metal Taxi" (May 18, 2006)
- Music Feature "His Name is Dimebag" (Dec. 23, 2004)
LOST LOCAL SUPERGROUPS Part 1
If ever a group was destined to have a volatile line-up, it was
Though the band had many line-up changes, only the core trio of Mike Kamoo(The Stereotypes, The Loons, The Melanies), Dylan Martinez (Static Halo, Rookie Card, Broken Dial Radio) and Bart Mendoza (Manual Scan, The Shambles, True Stories) made it to the recording stage.
The first line-up consisted of that trio, plus bassist Billy Lovcki (The Cables), though other commitments saw him exit after only a few weeks.
Troubadour Gregory Page soon took his place (switching to guitar for his own tunes) and the group spent several evenings in December 2000 rehearsing for their live debut: opening for Superdrag on January 1, 2001, at Brick by Brick.
Page left a few weeks after the show to concentrate on The Hatchet Brothers, with Hector Penalosa (The Zeros, Flying Colour) taking his place and Robert Boynton (If Tomorrow) joining on keyboards. This line up performed at the
Mission: to Mars was always planned to be a side project, which almost surely proved the main reason behind its speedy demise.
The Rarities were a project that grew out of acoustic collaborations between Derek Duplessie (Desert Poets), Bart Mendoza (Manual Scan, The Shambles, True Stories) and Dylan Martinez (Static Halo, Rookie Card, Broken Dial Radio).Though still a high school student, Duplessie was a music veteran with several albums to his credit, as well as a 2000 appearance on television’s To Tell The Truth. His 12-string guitar was the key element to the bands sound, a mix of rock and folk influences.
With the addition of Danny Cress (The Coyote Problem, Citizen Band, True Stories), the group played numerous shows, both electric and unplugged and recorded an unreleased album, Year of Ashes, produced by Gregory Page. Notable guests on the album include violinist Ray Suen (The Exfriends, Louis XIV) and keyboardist Martin Greaves (Mad Dogs & Englishmen).
The Rarities can be briefly seen rehearsing outside of
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/dec/29/15-years-ago-today---nirvana-at-sports-arena-plus-/
THE DAY NIRVANA PLAYED OFF THE RECORD: 10-24-91 - Detailed feature on Nirvana playing a tiny local record store, just as their first album was hitting the charts, featuring interviews with OTR staffers, rare video footage of the event, and more... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/sep/03/the-day-nirvana-played-at-off-the-record
THE DAY JIMI HENDRIX CAME TO TOWN - 5-24-69: From my extensive interviews with Hendrix bassist Noel Redding, here's the inside scoop on a legendary (and highly bootlegeed) local concert... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/sep/03/the-day-jimi-hendrix-came-to-town
THE DAY BEACH BOY BRIAN WILSON GOT BUSTED IN BALBOA PARK: In June 1978, Brian Wilson - without telling his wife or fellow bandmembers - decided (inexplicably) to escape his life entirely and hitchhike to Mexico. He wound up in San Diego a few days later, mentally fogged, barefoot, and unwashed. “He was on a binge," according to Stephen Love, brother of Beach Boy Mike Love and sometime-band manager..... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/sep/18/the-day-beach-boy-brian-wilson-got-busted
THE DAY THE MONKEES TURNED DEL MAR INTO CLARKSVILLE: 9-11-66 -
WHY MEXICANS HATED ELVIS: May 1959: While Elvis Presley’s popularity in the U.S. was arguably at its all-time peak, Mexico was in the midst of a huge anti-Elvis backlash. Tijuana tabloids called him a racist and homosexual, after the singer reportedly told gossip columnist Federico de León "I'd rather kiss three black girls than a Mexican." A Mexican woman in the same column was quoted saying "I'd rather kiss three dogs than one Elvis Presley”..... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/sep/13/why-mexicans-hated-elvis-plus-celeb-sighting/
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Gary Wilson Interview - Exclusive chat with a mysterious local legend, who's in the midst of the most unexpected and unlikely comeback ever... 
50 Best Band Names of 2008 - and the stories behind them! 50 locals reveal the story of how they chose their band's name... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/dec/22/birth-of-a-bandname-50-locals-reveal
"Lennon or McCartney?" --We asked 25 local performers about their fave Beatle (and why), and got some surprising (and frequently revealing) answers... 
Undercover Chronicles 1 - I Was an Undercover Ticket Scalper - How I found out all about the local underground ticket resale market... 
Undercover Chronicles 2 – I Was An Undercover Bouncer - How I found out what really goes on behind the concert barricades.....
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Undercover Chronicles 3 – I Was An Undercover Concert Crasher - Not that we advocate lawbreaking, mind you, but it was a long time ago, and most of the places are long gone, so here's what I did and how I did it.... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/oct/30/how-i-snuck-into-around-100-local-concerts
"...And San Diego Doesn't Think Much of Britney, Either" - Britney's history with our fine city is as troubled as it is funny.
"30 Celebs Reveal 'What I Like (or Hate) About San Diego" When interviewing celebs, I almost always ask what they know about San Diego. Here are a bunch of excerpted replies
Secrets Behind Famous Former Neighbors And Overheard in San Diego - Cartoonist confessions... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/dec/07/cartoonist-confessions-secrets-behind-overheard
"Boy Shakira Is All My Fault" - Didja know this famed America's Got Talent contestant was discovered by the Reader, and that we even named him Boy Shakira? You're welcome...
. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/dec/07/cartoonist-confessions-secrets-behind-overheard ******************************************************
The Midnight Rambler - Life Between Deadlines - Nearly every single night, at around 2AM, someone skateboards slowly past my house, always to the tune of an external music player (IE no ‘phones)...
That Old House - Reflections on a Childhood Home - This place still kind of haunts me...
"Before It Was The Gaslamp: Balboa's Last Stand" - Cover story 6-21-07: In the late 70s/early 80s, I worked at downtown San Diego's grindhouse all-night movie theaters, for the owner of the Pussycat Theatre chain, Vince Miranda - this detailed feature recalls those dayz, the death of the Balboa Theatre, etc.
More Before It Was the Gaslamp
"Battle Of The Peeps" - feature article about a weird gig I had in the mid-'80s, running a strip club called Jolar, for the nation's second biggest pornographer, Harry Mohney (Deja Vu Showgirls founder).
More Battle of the Peeps - An Insider History of San Diego Porn Shops
"Field Of Screens" - Cover story 7-6-06: Complete theater-by-theater history of San Diego drive-ins thru the years, including a few which screened X-rated fare for awhile.
More Drive-In Theaters in San Diego: Complete Illustrated History 1947 thru 2008
"Pussycat Theaters - When 'Cathouses Ruled California" -- for the first time, the detailed inside story of the west coast Pussycat Theater chain of adult moviehouses, which peaked in the '70s but later died out. Told by those who actually ran the theaters!
More Pussycat Theater History: When Cathouses Ruled CA
**************************************************** More Music on the Reader Website:
- As I Hear It
- Blurt
- Club Crawler
- Hometown CD Review
- Musician Interviews
- Of Note
- Overheard in San Diego
- Famous Former Neighbors
- Yo DJ!
- Musician Classified Ads
- Event Picks of the Week
- Rock Around the Town
- Submit an Event
- Events Home
- Today's Events
- Event Picks of the Week
- Events by Category
- Bands/Performers
- Create Your Band/Performer Page
- Music Downloads
- Radio Player
- Band Calendar
- Classical
- DJ/Dance
- Live Music
- Music Newsletter
- Submit a Music Listing
- Upload Your Music
Find a Band
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Like this blog? Here are some related links:
OVERHEARD IN SAN DIEGO - Several years' worth of this comic strip, which debuted in the Reader in 1996: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/photos/galleries/overheard-san-diego/
FAMOUS FORMER NEIGHBORS - Over 100 comic strips online, with mini-bios of famous San Diegans: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/photos/galleries/famous-former-neighbors/
SAN DIEGO READER MUSIC MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/sandiegoreadermusic
JAY ALLEN SANFORD MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/jayallensanford
Here's something you might be interested in.
Previous article
Birding & Brews: Breakfast Edition, ZZ Ward, Doggie Street Festival & Pet Adopt-A-Thon
Events November 21-November 23, 2024
25 Rare Local Videos, What/Where I Drink, New Rattpack, Another Hard Rock Hotel Lawsuit, ShindyTV, Cool Local Vids, more
San Diego Music Encyclopedia & Database Online Now
Press illo to play the Overheard song!
NEW COMPREHENSIVE LOCAL MUSIC DATABASE IS LAUNCHED
IT'S DONE!!!! And growing every hour....
If you wanna see a list of over 1,5000 San Diego bands, with links to full profiles, photos, discographies, articles, MP3s, etc, checkout http://www.sandiegoreader.com/bands/search/
Believe it or not, you can click on ANY LOCAL MUSICIAN'S NAME (around 4,500 musicos listed!) and bring up bios of every notable band they've ever been in! Try it here with Rob Crow ---
AND, if that wasn't cool 'nuff, click on an instrument, say like this here link to "Drums" - BAM, a list of EVERY DRUMMER IN SAN DIEGO!!!
We've been working on this massively cross-linked Local Music Database for over two years now, covering a century of San Diego history --- if you're a local performer who wants to add or edit a page, go to http://www.sandiegoreader.com/band/edit/
More anon!!!! JAS
HERE'S THIS WEEK'S NEW Overheard in San Diego
AND THE NEW Famous Former Neighbors
MY PERSONAL HOTPICK FOR TODAY...
The Long and Short of It, with Secret Fun Club, Same Sex Dictator - The Casbah
The Long and Short of It say they play “a pastiche of aggressive rock forms including punk, prog, metal, and ‘70s hard rock.” “We wanna be a fierce, in-your-face band,” says singer Ben Johnson, also plays drums for Hostile Comb-Over. Johnson was attending college in Santa Cruz with his brother Tim "Big Baby" Johnson when the siblings met bassist Brian Barrabee, who is paralyzed from the chest down, the result of a May 2004 accident.
Barrabee recruited Bartenders Bible guitarist Matt Strachota. Their debut album
Related links
- Blurt "Third Degree Rock"
- myspace.com/thelongandshortofit
RATT VS JUAN CROCIER’S DIRTY RATS
Former Rattman Juan Crocier has said he wants nothing to do with the newest Ratt partial-reunion – instead, he has his own rodent posse, Dirty Rats.
At www.thedirtyrats.com, Crocier’s mainpage reads “THE OTHER VOICE OF RATT” -------------
He posts “As most of you may know, we went out and played a few shows in early March. The shows were a lot of fun. Carlos Cavazo is back in the band (Ratt, ex-Quiet Riot). We're going out again this summer, so far we have July 16th, 17th and 18th booked and continue to book more shows.”
“We will soon be offering Dirty Rat shirts on Juancroucier.com so be looking out for those. I’ll be working on the Dirty Rats website in the coming months and getting that up to speed. We may also be opening The Cellar Message Board at Juancroucier.com again. I’m going back into the studio this summer to begin recording my next record.”
In summer 2007, Ratt partially reunited its classic lineup, with Stephen Pearcy, Warren DeMartini, and Bobby Blotzer. The late Robbin Crosby was replaced by guitaristt John Corabi. Ratt bassist Juan Crocier refused to participate, so he was replaced by Robbie Crane (from Vince Neil's band).
“The original band broke up fifteen years ago and there have been several questionable incarnations of it since then,” blogged former Ratt bassist Juan Croucier on his MySpace page last year. He said he wouldn’t participate in the current Ratt reunion tour with Pearcy.
“There has not been a sincere attempt at redemption by my former band mates, for their insidious and sometimes malicious wrongdoings in the past, toward me,” said. “Near the end of negotiations, ulterior motives prevailed and I was eventually simply stonewalled… their ignorant and unscrupulous habits came into focus once again; a stark reminder of our tumultuous and dysfunctional past.”
(Croucier then & now)
The “reunion” tour also featured Poison (insert your own rat poison joke here). Among the reactions to the announcement on Blabbermouth.com at the time:
“This is just sad.” (Dude Of Life)
“Please God, say it isn’t so.” (Mast O’ Dawn)
“Mulletfest 2007.” (IFH)
Related links
- Blurt "Rats!"
- Video for "Round and Round"
ANOTHER HARD ROCK HOTEL NIGHTCLUB OPERATOR LAWSUIT - this time for sexual harrassment
Mr. Cindy Crawford – aka Rande Gerber, whose company ran Moonstone Lounge and Sweetwater Saloon at the Hard Rock Hotel - is being sued for sexual harrassment by two women who worked at the Moonstone.
UPI reports: Shelly Scott and Gillian Walker allege in their suit filed in San Diego Count Superior Court in March that they both endured sexual harassment while working at the Gerber Group's Moonstone Lounge, TMZ.com reported Friday.
The women allege they lost their waitress jobs after refusing the sexual advances of staff members, including Gerber.
One of the women alleges Gerber attempted to kiss her and reach under her dress on one occasion in 2008, E! Online said.
A representative for Gerber dismissed the women's allegations. "These allegations were previously investigated and shown to be baseless. This lawsuit has no merit," the unidentified representative said. http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2009/05/02/UPI-NewsTrack-Entertainment-News/UPI-44671241287864/
Gerber is ALSO being sued over club operators allegedly roughing up patrons. As of Thursday, February 5, both bars are locked up, around 150 people have no job to go to, and the Hard Rock has announced that it severed its partnership with Gerber.
In a written statement, Hard Rock Hotel owners Tarsadia Hotels referenced “the wrongful conduct of some of the Gerber Group employees” and said the lawsuit seeking damages was filed “arising from their wrongful conduct.”
“In order to protect hotel guests and patrons, and the reputation of Hard Rock Hotel San Diego, Tarsadia was left with no alternative but to proceed with the termination of the agreement…Tarsadia Hotels has a zero tolerance of illegal and wrongful conduct, and has made every reasonable effort to have the Gerber Group correct the defaults.”
47 year-old Gerber operates a chain of venues called Midnight Oil, alongside his brothers Scott and Kenny, as the Gerber Group. Best known for the Whiskey chain of venues launched around 16 years ago, their website declares the company to be “pre-eminent tastemakers, with an uncanny ability to create chic, seductive bars with modern glamour that reflect the times and national moods.”
Gerber co-designed the Sweetwater Saloon on the main floor of downtown’s Hard Rock Hotel, as well as the Moonstone Lounge rooftop pool bar. Both opened in late 2007, with a splashy party covered attended by Rande Gerber with his supermodel wife Cindy Crawford (with whom he has two children), as well as Ashlee Simpson, and Pete Wentz.
“When I look at [San Diego],” he told San Diego Magazine, “it feels like Miami did years ago, with the vitality and anticipation to take off…it’s exciting to be part of a city with such spirit and people who are ready to shake it up a bit.”
Gerber told Riviera Magazine “San Diego just seemed like a great place because the people are really friendly, like to have a good time, and they drink…I look forward to spending more time in San Diego, and I plan to keep opening new spots.”
San Diego, you’ve been warned……
ROCKIN’ ROBINS (and Cockatoos, too!) – LOCAL RESEARCHER PROVES BIRDS ROCK!
People aren't the only ones who've got rhythm. Two reports published online on April 30th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, reveal that birds – and parrots in particular – can also bob their heads, tap their feet, and sway their bodies along to a musical beat. The findings show that a very basic aspect of the human response to music is shared with other species, according to the researchers.
"We've discovered a cockatoo [named Snowball] that dances to the beat of human music," said Aniruddh Patel of The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, lead author of one of the studies. "Using a controlled experiment, we've shown that if the music speeds up or slows down across a wide range, he adjusts the tempo of his dancing to stay synchronized to the beat." One of Snowball's favorite dancing tunes is none other than the Backstreet Boys' "Everybody."
"For a long time, people have thought that the ability to move to a beat was unique to humans," added Adena Schachner of Harvard University, who led the other study. "After all, there is no convincing evidence that our closest relatives, chimpanzees and other apes, can keep a beat, and there is similarly no evidence that our pet dogs and cats can line up their actions with a musical beat, in spite of extensive experience with humans. In this work, however, we found that entrainment [to music] is not uniquely human; we find strong evidence for it in birds, specifically in parrots."
Before this discovery, "scientists who studied music and the brain thought that moving to a musical beat might be a uniquely human ability because we don't commonly see other animals moving rhythmically to music," Patel agreed. In fact, as far as they know, birds in the wild don't move in time with sounds, leaving many scientists to think that this ability might be an evolutionary specialization of the human brain for music cognition.
But that may not be so, the new studies suggest. They now suspect that the parrots' ability can be traced to another capacity they share with people: vocal learning or mimicry.
Indeed, Schachner's group searched YouTube for videos of dancing animals. Of more than 1,000 videos that turned up, only those of vocal mimics – representing 14 parrot species and one species of elephant – showed evidence that they could really get into the groove. That result is in keeping with the notion, first proposed by Patel, that entrainment to a musical beat relies on the neural circuitry for complex vocal learning, which requires a tight link between auditory and motor circuits in the brain, they said.
"A natural question about these results is whether they generalize to other parrots, or more broadly, to other vocal-learning species," including songbirds, dolphins, elephants, and pinnipeds, a group including walruses and seals, Patel said.
The findings in birds also offer new insight into humans' relationship to music.
"Why humans produce and enjoy music is an evolutionary puzzle," Schachner's team wrote. "Although many theories have been proposed, little empirical evidence speaks to the issue. In particular, debate continues over the idea that the human music capacity was not selected for directly, but arose as the byproduct of other cognitive mechanisms. By supporting the idea that entrainment emerged as a byproduct of vocal mimicry in avian species, the current findings lend plausibility to the idea that the human entrainment capacity evolved as a byproduct of our capacity for vocal mimicry."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/cp-bcd042309.php
WHALES WANNA ROCK TOO (THO THEY'RE CHANGING THEIR TUNES)
Professor John Hildebrand, a blue whale expert at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD, has studied recordings of whales “singing” since the 1960s. He says the whales’ rhythmic underwater moaning, which often sounds musical, is becoming lower and deeper. “This is giving us an insight into the culture of blue whales, as they are clearly listening to each other’s songs and changing them,” he told the UK’s Sunday Telegraph. “It takes a conscious decision to make the calls deeper, so it is a reflection of what is going on in the population.”
According to Hildebrand, whale calls used to average 22Hz, whereas today the frequency is around 15Hz. “These animals have a finite lung capacity, so their songs are a trade off between frequency and volume. They can either make the song really loud, or really deep.” Most researchers think whale songs are intended to attract mates, or to communicate to others during the mating season.
The world’s largest animals, whales are enjoying a population growth, thanks to protections put in place after many species were nearly wiped out. It’s estimated that there are currently around 4,500 blue whales. “As their numbers have slowly increased after the devastation caused by whaling,” says Hildebrand, “they are having to communicate over smaller distances. So their songs don't need to be as loud, and they can make them deeper."
Those interested in hearing songs of the blue whale can find hundreds of recordings at the UCSD Sound Library.
Professor David Rothernberg, of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, says he communicates with whales through musical instruments mic’d to hydrophones. His book Thousand Mile Song describes underwater “jam sessions” he’s enjoyed with humpback whales.
“For me,” he told telegraph.co.uk, “I felt like they could recognise the music I was making and were responding to that. There was a very special interaction with a humpback, and he seemed to change his song so that, by the end, it was hard to tell which was the clarinet and which was the whale.”
The whales apparently respect and respond to musical innovation, being enraptured by and then mimicking any Beatles-like whales among them who come up with a new tune AND a new way of “singing” and performing it. “These are incredibly social animals, and they seem to change their songs regularly. When one of them innovates, this gets picked up by the rest of the population, and then they all start singing in the same way.”
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GUITARIST FOR LOCAL ‘80s ONE-HIT WONDER THE
“Could you be the one I’m thinking of?
Could you be the girl I really love?
All the people tell me so,
but what do all the people know!”
(The Monroes, “What Do All The People Know”)
“‘What Do All the People Know’ was a fun song, and I still enjoy listening to it,” says Rusty Jones, whose San Diego band the Monroes toured with Rick Springfield, Toto, and Greg Kihn in the early ’80s. At their one-hit-wonder peak, the Monroes performed their best-known single on The Merv Griffin Show.
“Tell me am I getting in too deep,
every night I’m talking in my sleep.
Lately I am so confused,
I really don’t know what to do.”
("What Do All The People Know")
“Sometimes we were a really great band, too,” says Jones. “But, sadly, fighting through the fragile egos and drug problems, just to play my music, became too much…Bob [Davis, bassist] and Eric [Denton, keyboardist] are just not my friends, musically or otherwise.”
“And when I called you on the phone,
you said that I could be the one.
But here I’m standing all alone,
and you’re out lyin’ in the sun.”
("What Do All The People Know")
Referring to a Reader website feature on Denton, who later founded Guitar Trader, Jones says, “Nowhere does it mention that I wrote at least half of the songs the Monroes performed and recorded. I know that my songwriting and musicianship played a huge role in getting the band signed because people were constantly trying to lure me away. After I left, what happened? Where are all the memorable Denton-Monroe tunes?”
“They’ve constantly bothered me through the years to do a reunion. Bob has asked me to write with him many times. If I was such a side player, why not just reunite with a different guitar player?”
From 1987 through 1994, Bob Davis AKA Bobby Monroe played in a local band called Street Heart - pictured below (left to right) is Bobby Monroe, Bob Sale, Tom Quinn, and Denny Bales. These folks also played with Eve Selis, the Heroes, and the Siers Bros Band. Street Heart almost always included "What Do All the People Know" in their setlists.
Today, Rusty Jones often performs around North County with Monroes singer Jesus Ortiz, and he’s also reconnected with Monroes drummer Jonnie Gilstrap.
EARLIEST AMBITION?
“When I was really young, I wanted to be a stand-up comic like George Burns, Jack Benny, and Johnny Carson. Come out in a tuxedo and some prop like a cigar or a violin or a golf club and just tell jokes. Music came a little later for me.”
DESCRIBE YOUR CURRENT MUSIC.…
“It’s roots music with a twist. I mash up the blues, pop, Motown, rock, and folk, processing it all through the blender of my heart and soul and forcing it out through voice and guitar.”
MOST-PLAYED CDs?
1. Steely Dan, Aja. “Every song is perfect! After all these years, the lyrics still send my imagination flying, and the musicianship is crystalline. Funny…back in the day I was such a hard-core rocker, I used to crumb on Steely Dan so much. I thought they were too slick.”
2. Louis Prima, The Call of the Wildest. “Prima is so underrated. He fused Dixieland jazz, Italian popular music, rhythm and blues, and ’50s pop music into these peppy three-minute songs. Keely Smith’s voice still gives me goose bumps.”
3. Anoushka Shankar, Breathing Under Water. “It’s sensual, hypnotic, and eclectic music; great for the car. She plays sitar like a demon and, well, she’s hot!”
FAVORITE LINE FROM SPINAL TAP?
“Pretty much every word the bass player says.”
ANY UNTOLD BACKSTAGE MONROES STORIES?
“Chip, the stage manager for the Rick Springfield tour, came to see us at the Spirit Club. He says, ‘This is my friend Neil — he came down with me to check you guys out.’ I shake hands with this tall, skinny guy who’s holding a longneck Bud as if it’s not his first of the evening. Neil says, ‘Hey, you guys were great, man. I really like the sound.’ So I say thanks very much, and I blow him off to go find my girlfriend. Later, our manager comes to me all in a tizzy, asking, ‘What did Neil say? What did you tell him? Did he like the band? Why is he here?’ That was Neil Young!”
WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH THE POWER TO READ MINDS?
“We all think we have these secrets nobody knows about — so many of us are so filled with this weird guilt and shame. I guess I would try to say to people, ‘Go ahead and share.’ The stuff you’re scared to reveal is what resonates for others. It shows you’re alive and aware.”
HOW DO YOU LIKE THE NEW PREZ SO FAR?
“I like him a lot! He has a real, functioning, and healthy brain, and when he smiles, what I see is sincerity. I’m sure there’s the dangerous big ego in there too, and we always have to watch these guys very carefully, but I think we have a really good one this time.”
Video: The Monroes "What Do All the People Know" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2jRez9_mwE
Former Monroe Tony Ortiz playing "What Do All the People Know" with the Melismatics 1-16-09 at 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis, MN - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7spVKh6oPnY
Local band the Shambles covering "What Do All the People Know" at Dizzy's in early April 2009, recorded for FM 94.9's Local Pyle program - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHMEK3qIIag
RELATED STORY: The
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LOCALS ON YOUTUBE - 25 RARE AND AWESOME CLIPS, courtesy Bart Mendoza
1) The Penetrators on News 8 –TV with Jesse Macias, interviews and “clips of Nervous Fingers” and recording http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRmqKdlTt2o
2) A cool new clip from Echo Revolution awesome song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYo9_2Ddzd8
3) Umm, “Groovy” is the only description that can be applied to this great clip of Gary Puckett and Nancy Sinatra performing “Beggar/Spinnin Wheel” on a late sixties TV show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jIyXV7i8EE
4) A great live video of Anya Marina performing “Move You” at SXSW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCf2_rxr2yo
5) The
6) The Rice Brothers and their terrific country gospel group Brush Arbor on CBS-TV’s Johnny Cash Show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrqsvZLiSkU
7) Steve Poltz & Gregory Page singing the National Anthem before a Padres game – terrific! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSb_05EbHC8
8) Not sure why Tristan Prettyman’s “Madly” was ignored (except in
9) Switchfoot performing Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Rw4jNCSDE
10) Ratt’s Warren DiMartini trading licks with Micheal Shenker. A little goes a long way, but that’s some pretty good speed… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U__vtSWMGvk
11) Anyone wondering exactly how popular As I Lay Dying is should check out this really cool video of a “Meet & Greet” autograph signing with fans in
12) She’s an opera singer of note, an occasional singer-songwriter and Miss U.S.O – here’s one of Victoria Robertson’s PSA’s for Selective Service: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ6RT_EdRSA
13) After moving to
14) From the days when videos had story lines and actors even, here is
15) Iron Butterfly performs on TV’s Playboy After Dark, 1968, complete with Hugh Hefner cameo. Of course it’s “In A Gadda Da Vida”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33k9pRTfo2I
16) This one of Rosie Hamlin (of the Originals) is of a more recent vintage – there are no original clips circulating. She has been ill in recent years and no longer tours. This video of “Angel Baby” is from a 2002 PBS Special. Her voice is still great – she gets a standing ovation at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGQEbD4sJoI
17) Barbara Mandrell was Miss Oceanside and had a family band in the area before becoming one of the biggest selling country star of all time. Here’s a clip of how she started out, and playing steel guitar as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2WGso5Yhpo
18) Steve Poltz, Gregory Page and Jeff Berkley are among the cast of hundreds in The Rugburns video for “Hitchhiker Joe.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5x_ikFpqz0
19) The only band from
20) Yes, it’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSOaoPDO16Y
21) No vintage clips of Greg Douglass with The Steve Miller Band or Greg Kihn etc have surfaced yet, but here’s a cute video for “Jungle Love” made from clips for the animated “Tarzan” film. They did a good job of matching ups scenes and lyrics, it sort of makes sense:- ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6dezBbhW6o
22) The greatest band ever from
23) The Beat Farmers on Late Night with David Letterman! Joey Harris, Dan McLain and Jerry Raney backed by Will Lee, Paul Shaffer and Anton Fig! They sing “Hideaway,” but make sure to watch at 4:20 when Mr. Letterman begins to pontificate on the band – sheer genius and the highest compliment possible!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3K111IJwyg
24) Not too many artists from
25) One of the greatest drummers of all time, John Guerin and one of the greatest TV themes of all time, "Hawaii 5-0" can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AepyGm9Me6w
BONUS CLIPS
Iron Butterfly on Playboy After Dark: No Hugh Hefner, but this is worth watching for the dancers alone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh0479oZC7A
Ratt, Bon Jovi, Kingdom Come and Britney Fox tackle "It's All Over Now" live in Japan, New Years Eve 1989. Most of these guys just seem to wander the stage aimlessly, though Pearcy takes the second verse; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnMrlnzpURQ
ALSO, courtesy Wayne Riker:
Local band Stone's Throw being introduced as the opening act at the 1984 Oylympic Village concert series in Los Angeles, playing the Cats & The Fiddle's "We Cats Will Swing For You":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew8-3Tob9mE
Stone's Throw was a San Diego treasure for more than a decade between the mid '70s to '80s. They were a perennial winner of the "Best Vintage Jazz" category in The Reader's annual music awards. "With the other category winners, we got to play a composite concert each year at the La Paloma Theatre," says guitarist Wayne Riker. "The most recent Entertainer's Awards Concert I have listed in my little red book was on April 21st,1985, hosted by Larry Himmel at the La Paloma."
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WHAT I DRINK AND WHERE I DRINK IT
I missed the deadline for this week's cover story, but here 'tis -----
What I Drink: Kahlúa White Russian
2 parts Kahlúa, 1 part vodka, 2 splashes of cream
Where I Drink It: Winstons,
Okay, let’s get one thing straight --- I don’t like hippies. Never had any use for them.
They don’t particularly offend me, other than maybe the ones who tend to reek of patchouli, bongwater, and Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap (“It makes my balls tingle”), but that’s usually just my nose taking offense. I simply find hippies naïve, annoying, unproductive, grandiose, simpleminded, undereducated, overmedicated, out of touch with reality, and just generally useless.
That’s not even factoring in counterculture couture reminiscent of Sid and Marty Krofft after taking the brown acid at
So you can imagine how annoying it is to be mistaken for a hippie.
Yeah, I haven’t cut my hair since the Carter administration. And my sideburns are probably older than you. But my reasons for cultivating a full-body beard – unrelated to the matter at hand – have nothing to do with Granola, hemp, blacklights, flower power, Geodesic domes, biodiesel fuel, tree hugging, the I Ching, the Strawberry Alarm Clock, making a statement, waving a freak flag, giving it to “the Man,” or Jerry Garcia’s effin half-finger.
So why do I keep finding my ass polishing the Pabst-soaked seats at Winstons in OB, surrounded by the very tie-dyed and squinty-eyed I nearly despise, a pair of Italian loafers lost in a
It’s Winstons’ killer White Russians, with ‘tenders who almost always pour a stiff two-parts Kahlúa. A lot of places will plop a weak-ass chocolate milk down in front of you, mildly stirred with some dollar-store Kahlúa copycat like Kamora, Kapali, or some other Krap. Winstons uses the real deal, and with real cream, mind you, not that gawdawful two percent, half-and-half, or (gag) skim milk they dump on you at airports and in Hell (and at airports IN Hell, which seem a near-certainly if one believes in eternal damnation).
Yeah, it’s kind of a foofoo drink. What can I say – I acquired a taste for it over the course of countless
(I once brought a visiting friend from rural New Hampshire to El Pato; as we made our way down the damp and uneven steps, past the doorman with one leg and two teeth, my friend asked me “Dude, am I on Scare Tactics?”)
Winstons is surely a far safer - and more hygienic - place to whet my furry whistle. In addition, I’ve picked up enough patron chatter at Winstons for at least two dozen Overheard in
“My dad thinks I stole his bong.”
“I want to invest in incense.”
“The only thing that matters is mind over matter.”
“Your poncho smells like lentils.”
“My other bike has a banana seat.”
“I only use organic douche.”
“It makes my balls tingle”
And the immortal “Dude! Trails!”
Plus, great bands play at Winstons, most every night. Well, as long as you avoid the Deadheads who live up to that deceptively descriptive term to a nearly forensic degree (is any head deader than a Deadhead’s?).
So that’s where – for now – you can usually find me, marinating in Kahlúa and avoiding some looming eleventh hour Reader deadline.
At least until the lure of TJ draws me back once again to the Zona Norte, to some gawdforsaken dungeon of the damned where I can almost guarantee my spent, abused, astonishingly scarred but nonetheless enviable corpse will someday be found ----
Related links
"Where Have All The Deadheads Gone?" Local flower children, after the head Deadhead was dead.
Our Favorite Drinks and Where We Drink Them
There are times, sometimes in the midst of otherwise polite conversation, when it comes out that I make my living writing for the Reader.... More
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BANDS YOU SHOULD KNOW - SWINGIN' WITH THE APES
Cross Henry Fonda in the Grapes of Wrath with rockin' Roddy McDowall in full Planet of the Apes regalia, and what do you get? A really stupid movie about dirt-poor monkeys, OR San Diego's own Apes of Wrath.
Favorites of Anti-Monday night at the Casbah and Fridays at the Ken Club, the Apes of Wrath fill out San Diego’s alternative-indie scene with much-needed fat rock riffs and girthy bass lines, laid down by Jake Bankhead of Bankhead Press fame.
Bankhead was a junior high science teacher in Georgia before moving to San Diego to pursue his rock and roll dreams. Drummer Dustin Elliott arrived all the way from Austria, homeland of the Governator, by way of Alabama, land of the inbreds. Guitarist Andrew Geldmeier is a reformed Texan, while singer only had to move from Irvine, where he tore up the clubs in a series of short-lived punk bands.
The Apes keep it edgy, with down-tempo, moody sections to each of their songs, but they also play heavy, approachable, and danceworthy, driving rhythms (not usually favored by indie groups). Rob Kent’s vocals add a hint of garage with a dash of Franz Ferdinand without all the pretentiousness and prog-rocky flailing of Franz.
The group appeared at the March 2008 South by Southwest music convention in Austin, Texas, earning rave-up reviews. Their EP Plastic, Fake, and Frozen garnered a SD Music Award nomination as well as attention from Transfer's Matt Molarius, who purposely and portentiously left some Apes music in the car of Louis XIV guitarist Brian Karscig.
When it came time to record the Apes' debut full-length at Louis' Pineapple Recording Group studio, Karscig was there to lend a hand.
Related links
Related links
Free Scott Wilson MP3 downloads
TAKES IT FROM THE STREETS TO THE INTERNET
“We’re looking for local bands to play the Bondi Bar every other Wednesday night, where Shindy.TV will shoot its internet TV show,” says production manager Brad Hurvitz. Though performers aren’t paid, “We provide them with professional video footage in exchange for their performance,” according to Hurvitz. “The price that bands normally get paid to perform is significantly less than the cost of making these videos.”
Launched in 2007, Shindy.TV hired Hurvitz around 8 months ago. “Running this event is the extent of my local music background,” he says, “though I’ve had some excellent guidance from a few friends, and I feel very much a part of the local music scene.”
How will Hurvitz find locals willing to swap sets for footage? “I find the majority of bands on MySpace. I start off at a random band’s page, give them a listen, decide whether they would be the right type of band to play…and either contact them or move on. I find the next band through their friends [list].”
As for “the right type of band,” that’s apparently not punk. “
Performers are also being sought for last minute fill-ins. “If a band backs out last minute, on the off chance that the guitarist breaks his hand by tripping over a box of Cheez-its on the way to get a midnight snack, [we’ll need] a couple bands that would be interested in a last minute switcheroo.”
THE DAVE MUSTAINE CHANNEL - ALL DAVE, ALL DAY
Blabbermouth.net reports: Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has issued the following update ---
"Recently I made [an online] post about my new radio show and that I was blessed to be able to be working with Clear Channel with my own channel, like the CHRISTINA AGUILERA and the EAGLES channels. I am unaware of if their channels are accessible yet, but I know mine will be in just a few weeks.
"Here is an update: I talked to the Clear Channel people again last week and we are ready to go. We are going to do the first show from the Clear Channel station in San Diego, and I will hopefully be able to do an interview for the local San Diego Clear Channel rock channel. After that, I will determine what I need to make my studio ready to do the show.
"I am going to play music I like, music that influenced me, and 'zingers' — which are songs that you would never know that I liked (like THE BEATLES, or stuff like the DEAD KENNEDYS).
"I am going to collect all of your suggestions for some bands and songs, and we are going to start the show before I leave for New Zealand. I am also going to interview people from the bands that I meet or am on tour with, and I will try to do things like interview other celebs from other walks of life that like metal. I also will have a small part of the show feature a close friend and great radio personality from over the pond that came here and was rocking until his station got changed to a talk radio show or some crap like that and he ended up going back overseas. We talked about him sending a U.K./Euro show over each week, or so, and we are good to go. It will take time, but we are getting ready to start.
"I still have to come up with a name for the show, and I still haven't chosen a name for my autobiography. Any ideas?
"Lastly, just because I want 100,000 listeners, doesn't mean that is a reality in the beginning. I will have the best show in metal, because I am going to listen to you.
"On a personal note, I had a good day today, went to service, then to the beach, then did a 1 1/2-hour Yoga X program. I am getting ready for bed now, and will do some reading before I go to bed, and get ready for a busy week of trying to take care of all the things I need to tackle before we leave for [MEGADETH's tour] Down Under.
"More to come this week." http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=125808
MUSTAINE DISSES AC/DC (BUT SAYS "SORRY")
antiMusic reports: Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has walked back some comments he made about rock legends AC/DC in a recent interview. Here is what he had to say according to Blabbermouth: "I just read the [Metal Hammer article where I talk] about Acca Dacca, and I am so disappointed in how I said what I said.
"No excuses; I didn't say what I was trying to say, and what I said is rude and childish. Not my style (well, at least not my style for the last decade or so, thank God), and I am even offended at what I said. I have never in thirty-plus years disrespected AC/DC one of my favorite bands in the whole world; I think I just got too comfortable and forgot that we were recording and I was being an ass.My apologies to my friends, especially Brian [Johnson]; that just did not come out right at all and I'm sorry, bro."
In the Metal Hammer article in question, Mustaine was quoted as saying the following about AC/DC and how Megadeth's live shows differ from those of the Anglo-Australian hard rock legends: "I love AC/DC and I've always been a fan of AC/DC. Bon Scott was my frontman. I love and respect Brian, but it's the same record. They've been making the same record for 20 years. I love 'em, but it's the same stuff, so you don't need to buy the record, just go to the concert." - He goes on from there
Related links
- Famous Former Neighbors comic strip
- "Mad at Dave Mustaine" (Jan. 11, 2008)
- Blurt "Dave Supports Sports" (Dec. 3, 2008)
- Blurt "Birth of Gigantour" (May 26, 2005)
- Blurt "Metal in the Grooves" (May 12, 2005)
- Blurt "Megaproblems" (Sept. 15, 2005)
- Blurt "Dave Hearts Christ" (Sept. 11, 2005)
- Blurt "Megadivorce" (Aug. 3, 2006)
- Blurt "More Gigantour Problems" (Aug. 31, 2006)
- Blurt "Heavy Metal Taxi" (May 18, 2006)
- Music Feature "His Name is Dimebag" (Dec. 23, 2004)
LOST LOCAL SUPERGROUPS Part 1
If ever a group was destined to have a volatile line-up, it was
Though the band had many line-up changes, only the core trio of Mike Kamoo(The Stereotypes, The Loons, The Melanies), Dylan Martinez (Static Halo, Rookie Card, Broken Dial Radio) and Bart Mendoza (Manual Scan, The Shambles, True Stories) made it to the recording stage.
The first line-up consisted of that trio, plus bassist Billy Lovcki (The Cables), though other commitments saw him exit after only a few weeks.
Troubadour Gregory Page soon took his place (switching to guitar for his own tunes) and the group spent several evenings in December 2000 rehearsing for their live debut: opening for Superdrag on January 1, 2001, at Brick by Brick.
Page left a few weeks after the show to concentrate on The Hatchet Brothers, with Hector Penalosa (The Zeros, Flying Colour) taking his place and Robert Boynton (If Tomorrow) joining on keyboards. This line up performed at the
Mission: to Mars was always planned to be a side project, which almost surely proved the main reason behind its speedy demise.
The Rarities were a project that grew out of acoustic collaborations between Derek Duplessie (Desert Poets), Bart Mendoza (Manual Scan, The Shambles, True Stories) and Dylan Martinez (Static Halo, Rookie Card, Broken Dial Radio).Though still a high school student, Duplessie was a music veteran with several albums to his credit, as well as a 2000 appearance on television’s To Tell The Truth. His 12-string guitar was the key element to the bands sound, a mix of rock and folk influences.
With the addition of Danny Cress (The Coyote Problem, Citizen Band, True Stories), the group played numerous shows, both electric and unplugged and recorded an unreleased album, Year of Ashes, produced by Gregory Page. Notable guests on the album include violinist Ray Suen (The Exfriends, Louis XIV) and keyboardist Martin Greaves (Mad Dogs & Englishmen).
The Rarities can be briefly seen rehearsing outside of
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/dec/29/15-years-ago-today---nirvana-at-sports-arena-plus-/
THE DAY NIRVANA PLAYED OFF THE RECORD: 10-24-91 - Detailed feature on Nirvana playing a tiny local record store, just as their first album was hitting the charts, featuring interviews with OTR staffers, rare video footage of the event, and more... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/sep/03/the-day-nirvana-played-at-off-the-record
THE DAY JIMI HENDRIX CAME TO TOWN - 5-24-69: From my extensive interviews with Hendrix bassist Noel Redding, here's the inside scoop on a legendary (and highly bootlegeed) local concert... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/sep/03/the-day-jimi-hendrix-came-to-town
THE DAY BEACH BOY BRIAN WILSON GOT BUSTED IN BALBOA PARK: In June 1978, Brian Wilson - without telling his wife or fellow bandmembers - decided (inexplicably) to escape his life entirely and hitchhike to Mexico. He wound up in San Diego a few days later, mentally fogged, barefoot, and unwashed. “He was on a binge," according to Stephen Love, brother of Beach Boy Mike Love and sometime-band manager..... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/sep/18/the-day-beach-boy-brian-wilson-got-busted
THE DAY THE MONKEES TURNED DEL MAR INTO CLARKSVILLE: 9-11-66 -
WHY MEXICANS HATED ELVIS: May 1959: While Elvis Presley’s popularity in the U.S. was arguably at its all-time peak, Mexico was in the midst of a huge anti-Elvis backlash. Tijuana tabloids called him a racist and homosexual, after the singer reportedly told gossip columnist Federico de León "I'd rather kiss three black girls than a Mexican." A Mexican woman in the same column was quoted saying "I'd rather kiss three dogs than one Elvis Presley”..... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/sep/13/why-mexicans-hated-elvis-plus-celeb-sighting/
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Gary Wilson Interview - Exclusive chat with a mysterious local legend, who's in the midst of the most unexpected and unlikely comeback ever...
50 Best Band Names of 2008 - and the stories behind them! 50 locals reveal the story of how they chose their band's name... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/dec/22/birth-of-a-bandname-50-locals-reveal
"Lennon or McCartney?" --We asked 25 local performers about their fave Beatle (and why), and got some surprising (and frequently revealing) answers...
Undercover Chronicles 1 - I Was an Undercover Ticket Scalper - How I found out all about the local underground ticket resale market...
Undercover Chronicles 2 – I Was An Undercover Bouncer - How I found out what really goes on behind the concert barricades.....
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Undercover Chronicles 3 – I Was An Undercover Concert Crasher - Not that we advocate lawbreaking, mind you, but it was a long time ago, and most of the places are long gone, so here's what I did and how I did it.... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/oct/30/how-i-snuck-into-around-100-local-concerts
"...And San Diego Doesn't Think Much of Britney, Either" - Britney's history with our fine city is as troubled as it is funny.
"30 Celebs Reveal 'What I Like (or Hate) About San Diego" When interviewing celebs, I almost always ask what they know about San Diego. Here are a bunch of excerpted replies
Secrets Behind Famous Former Neighbors And Overheard in San Diego - Cartoonist confessions... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/dec/07/cartoonist-confessions-secrets-behind-overheard
"Boy Shakira Is All My Fault" - Didja know this famed America's Got Talent contestant was discovered by the Reader, and that we even named him Boy Shakira? You're welcome...
. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/dec/07/cartoonist-confessions-secrets-behind-overheard ****************************************************** The Midnight Rambler - Life Between Deadlines - Nearly every single night, at around 2AM, someone skateboards slowly past my house, always to the tune of an external music player (IE no ‘phones)...
That Old House - Reflections on a Childhood Home - This place still kind of haunts me...
"Before It Was The Gaslamp: Balboa's Last Stand" - Cover story 6-21-07: In the late 70s/early 80s, I worked at downtown San Diego's grindhouse all-night movie theaters, for the owner of the Pussycat Theatre chain, Vince Miranda - this detailed feature recalls those dayz, the death of the Balboa Theatre, etc.
More Before It Was the Gaslamp
"Battle Of The Peeps" - feature article about a weird gig I had in the mid-'80s, running a strip club called Jolar, for the nation's second biggest pornographer, Harry Mohney (Deja Vu Showgirls founder).
More Battle of the Peeps - An Insider History of San Diego Porn Shops
"Field Of Screens" - Cover story 7-6-06: Complete theater-by-theater history of San Diego drive-ins thru the years, including a few which screened X-rated fare for awhile.
More Drive-In Theaters in San Diego: Complete Illustrated History 1947 thru 2008
"Pussycat Theaters - When 'Cathouses Ruled California" -- for the first time, the detailed inside story of the west coast Pussycat Theater chain of adult moviehouses, which peaked in the '70s but later died out. Told by those who actually ran the theaters!
More Pussycat Theater History: When Cathouses Ruled CA
**************************************************** More Music on the Reader Website:
- As I Hear It
- Blurt
- Club Crawler
- Hometown CD Review
- Musician Interviews
- Of Note
- Overheard in San Diego
- Famous Former Neighbors
- Yo DJ!
- Musician Classified Ads
- Event Picks of the Week
- Rock Around the Town
- Submit an Event
- Events Home
- Today's Events
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- Create Your Band/Performer Page
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- Radio Player
- Band Calendar
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- Live Music
- Music Newsletter
- Submit a Music Listing
- Upload Your Music
Find a Band
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Like this blog? Here are some related links:
OVERHEARD IN SAN DIEGO - Several years' worth of this comic strip, which debuted in the Reader in 1996: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/photos/galleries/overheard-san-diego/
FAMOUS FORMER NEIGHBORS - Over 100 comic strips online, with mini-bios of famous San Diegans: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/photos/galleries/famous-former-neighbors/
SAN DIEGO READER MUSIC MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/sandiegoreadermusic
JAY ALLEN SANFORD MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/jayallensanford
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