Local musicians with awful ads

Contents:

Worst Craigslist Ads Posted By Local Musicians

Worst Musical Halloween Costumes

Comic Con Costumes 2008 – Highlight Reel

The Day the Monkees Turned Del Mar into Clarksville – the Inside Story

Undercover Chronicles 1: "I Was an Undercover Ticket Scalper" - how I found out all about local scalpers

Undercover Chronicles 2: “I Was An Undercover Bouncer”

Why Britney Spears Hates San Diego

Thirty Celebs Reveal “What I Like About San Diego”

Cartoonist Confessions: Overheard In San Diego and Famous Former Neighbors

Boy Shakira Is All My Fault

Life Between Deadlines: The Midnight Rambler

That Old House: Reflections On A Childhood Home

Open Mic Life

Mojo Nixon Comix & Stories: Full length Famous Former Neighbors comic

Gary Wilson: A Cult Hero’s Return – Exclusive chat with a mysterious local legend in the midst of the most unexpected and unlikely comeback ever

Birth of a Bandname: 50 Local Bands Describe How They Got Their Name

Eben Brooks Goes Sci-Fi - Zelazny Rocks!

We Asked Twenty-Five Local Musicians “Lennon Or McCartney?” (and why?)

Twenty-Five Local Musicians Answer “What’s Your Favorite Twilight Zone?”

WORST LOCAL CRAIGSLIST ADS EVER

Most of us have spent ungawdly hours cruising through the San Diego Music section of Craigslist. Here’s a collection of bizarre and inexplicable gems I’ve collected over the past year or so ----

“Heavy singer looking for heavy band to make heavy music.” (Is Meat Loaf out of work again?)

“Bing Crosby needs Bob Hope. Singing comic or funny singer needed to put together variety act…don’t be stuck up.” (So no Jon Foreman?)

“CD artwork…can provide samples on speculum.” (Said the freelance gynecologist?)

“Heroine addicts need not apply.” (So no Supergirl collectors).

“Tired of playing with yourself? Let me help.” (Groupies-R-Us?)

“Metal guitarist looking to form or join group…not into Cookie Monster sounding vocals.” (So forget about me playing that Dr. Teeth reunion)

“Death metal tuba…looking to increase my tuba resume experience.” (The kid from Fame gets all the good gigs.)

“Need female dancers…no flukes or groupers please.” (We’re allergic to fish.)

“Every day that goes by without a gig, [I] get closer to killing everyone in my neighborhood.” (And you thought living next door to an unemployed drummer was bad)

“Looking for female dancer who sings…vocal talent not necessary. Must weigh 9 or 10 on hottie scale.” (Pounds?)

“Funeral vocalist. Fill your loved one’s farewell with heavenly music. 20-plus years experience. Classical, popular, traditional. Military burials (National Anthem). At chapel, funeral home, graveside, in-home.” (Um, can I get that to go?)

(Okay, I’ll shut up with the snide commentary – after all, the ads speak for themselves…)

“We don’t suck…if you suck, try out for the Locust.”

“Wanted: Female lead guitar player who can play simply and poignantly…You should have some stage personality, be able to laugh and be able to handle banter about dildos, poop, and David Lee Roth's ass baring chaps without blushing.”

“I'm a writer, singer, sex machiner…I am a spiritual soldier singing melodic, fist-pounding messages from a pulpit in the sky…It's scary what we're putting together.”

“I am the lyricist/ female lead singer/songwrietr founder of the band [Josiah Hawk] ,the only reason i say this, is not to be ego, but to tell you ,this music thes bad is something i have sacrficed alot for and put my heart and soul inot, i wil od that for all of us, but you have to want it too.”

“you don't have to be pro, you just have to have integrity, good taste, and social graces. i'm easy going but very driven at the same time…be at least 21, if your not and still find this interesting we can talk about it. boys, girls, pets, oceans, mountains, flowers, and martians are encouraged to come forth.”

“Do not support Squirrelly Arts! They are evil, and you will go to Hell even if you engage in listening to their messages of hate, homosexuality, and complete disregard for our Lord and Savior.”

“Looking for some people to jam with. I'm not looking for the best…Must be willing to p-ss off neighbors, must like to drink beer!”

“Looking for acoustic or stand-up bassist…We're pretty laid back. We drink and burn. Don't worry, we're not hippies.”

“I'm a vocalist who also creates intense soundscapes using synths and my voice…certainly not anything commercial.”

“Musicians who are aware that the time of their rising has arrived…is it clear to you that through the infinity power of sound you can make a difference in humanity? Do you posses the talent to make a difference through your music?”

“Bassist wanted for experimental jazz group. No real songs, just solid improv…We have gigs. Yes, even though its definitely not popular music, we have gigs. We know people.”

“Our shows include circus acts, vaudeville, black light, aerialist, sideshows… If you can play and have a circus skill, even better. If not we can teach you one.”

“I am a female musician (27 years old) with 20-plus years of professional gigging experience…with no money and no car. Can you drive me to gigs and record my songs?”

“I need two female vocalists or cheer leaders. The part is a small cheer on a hip-hop track. The vocalists need to be able to cheer the word: K-N-O-L-E-G-E…you will be compensated $10 for your time.”

“Bass player needed… 420 friendly, no egos and no emos.”

“We are searching for a vocalist who can provide his/her share of the money…needed to take a band to a professional level.”

“I have never been in a band or performed my own songs for anyone other than my family and friends [but] I recently had an epiphany where it was made very clear that I need to start singing.”

“I look just like James Hetfield from Metallica…I have sang in bands and we did a Metallica cover and it went over pretty well. I think there is some good money to be made doing this.”

“Female background singer wanted…you don’t need to be super thin, but we want someone without a weight problem.”

“Female Vocalist: I love to sing [but] I dont have a way to do it without irritating the neighbors of my apartment complex…maybe a band?”

“Free Demo Reviews: I’ll write that your[sp] great even if you suck…I can’t get you a record deal but I want free demos.”

“Old farts band (Chula Vista) looking for other moldy oldies just like me in their 60s…[I] want to jam with other geriatric rockers.”

“Drummer available…must be punk. I not very good yet.”

“Political Hip-Hop…Obama would like us if Obama liked hip-hop. Which he does…He’s lying about that.”

“Band plays for beer…or [for] $50 but you better twist us some doobage.”

“For U2 and Springsteen fans…you have sh-tty taste in music.”

“Top secret tribute band…starting blink 182 tribute…if you steal this idea, I’ll sue you.”

“Seeking U2Heads to portray U2's Boy/October era in sight and sound…seeking a Bono, Adam, and Larry. The Edge portrayer position is taken. Wigs, attire, and equipment, similar to what U2 looked like and used at that time are mandatory, no exceptions…This band is to portray the very early years of U2 when they played small venues and pubs, which is where we will play too.”

“If you love hip-hop, R&B, and consider yourself a true artist, a local producer (with song/production credits) wants to breath life into your talent…please do not respond if you just started doing what you do yesterday, or if the only person to ever tell you you’ve got talent is your mama.”

“We need a strong [female] vocalist that's sexy and powerful. I want tattoos and the pin-up girl look, ie Betty Page. I said sexy, so you should no[sp] that's within, not on the outside…We also don't want a screamer. A little is ok, but that's it.”

“Need a drummer, bass player and lead guitar to start up a Pretenders cover band. I would sing lead vocals and organize shows…open to branching out into more eighties stuff, not married to a Pretenders-only thing. I promise that I am a more-than-decent Chrissie Hynde knock-off.”

“Metal/Rock band seeks vocalist…We like to stay positive and fairly intelligent, so no lame ‘I wanna stabby rip stab stab myself’ emo lyrics or stupid Satan murder death kill lyrics, and nothing lyrically that is a four letter word every other word.”

“I play the flute and I need to find a band. Any kind of band. I just need to jam. Preferably on stage.”

WORST MUSICAL HALLOWEEN COSTUMES EVER

This year, Hannah Montana costumes are big, and more than a little creepy....

AND JUST FOR GOOD MEASURE, HERE’S WHY YOUR PET HATES YOU and will someday kill you as you sleep:

COMIC-CON 2008 PHOTO FUNNIES COMIC-CON 2008 PHOTO FUNNIES - The buzz of the Con – big surprise – was next year’s Watchmen movie, based on one of the three or four greatest graphic novels ever created. The trailer is amazing – it really captures the look of the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons comic.

Movie Nite Owl Toy Nite Owl Laughable Nite Owl

Milhouse loves Watchmen (and V For Vendetta) too --------- (NOT Hugh Jackman - duh)

Proof that icky girls and all their cooties have infiltrated deep within the land of comic geeks – new Barbie dolls with her dressed as superheroes (yes, her Catwoman cosplay includes a whip!!)…

…and, you’ll think I made this up, but Barbie in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds!!!

I sh-t thee not!! Can Barbie Chainsaw Massacre be far in the future??? And checkout Barbie’s expression above – she’s had so much BoTox, she can’t even look scared….she just looks mildly bemused that a crow is about to peck out her effin’ eyeball!

Here's a He-Man floor display, Castle Grayskull I think. (I’ve never seen a He-Man cartoon, nor do I ever intend to) (“Not that there’s anything WRONG with that…”) I ask you - doesn't that entrance look like a guy wearing skull shortpants and opening his legs???????? And don't even get me started on those phallic-looking castle columns ---- Now checkout the Lego Batman -----

Izzit art, kitsch, or both? I dunno, but I wish I’d built it ----- how about this Lego stormtrooper??

Okay, time for some costumes:

In the future, this is what safe sex will look like…..

One of these people has never been kissed, the other has been kissed 250 times….today…….

Now sing along, “I think I’m turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese, I really think so…”

SOMEbody paid a lotta $ for a good waxing yesterday --- (thanks to whoever sent me this pic, I lost yer email)

“Mommy, someday I’m gonna KILL you for this…” ---

“I have no idea where I am, and it smells r-e-a-l-l-y bad.”

  Boo!

  Crap, He-Man again.

Now for today’s Reality-Check-Slash-Bummer ------ Tura Satana of Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill, then and now ---------

You remember the Futurama with Good Bender and Evil Bender? Well, here’s good and bad Bender costumes. Yes, that’s duct tape on the bad one ---- the good one isn’t actually a costume, but the pics look cool side-by-side ---

In the “Been there, done that, lost a buncha money” department, local comic publisher IDW is releasing new comic book bios on the two Presidential candidates (ask me some day how much $$$ Revolutionary Comics lost on Great Morons in History #1: Dan Quayle, not to mention our Ross Perot, Boris Yeltsin, JFK, and RFK comic books….)

Sorry, I ferget who took these pics of me --- I was, uh, distracted.

  "Are you guys SURE I dropped my Barbie doll back here??"

"Is that a logo, Beavis, or are you just happy to see me?"

Imagine bringing THIS into the San Diego airport, and watching the faces of baggage inspectors as they open the shipping crate!!!! This old toy from the vintage TV show UFO totally freaks me out. Looks just like a sick device I once saw at the F Street Bookstore….

Now for some more costumes, beginning with the Marvel Fashion Show -------

Are Stan's Angels trying to seduce Supes over to Marvel?

Corsette and a fanny pack?!

Where did they find those socks - is there a Punky Brewster booth?

What Hooters girls do on their day off ---

My penis just receded like a frightened turtle head.....

Now my penis is just confused.

Okay, Mr. Happy is happy again….

Well, at least those things are safe from vampires...

"Slavemaster wanted for chain operation..."

Showin' some skin -----

 Skinnin' for show ------

Aww, you're ALL Super, girls!

Nearly nekkid, yet it took them hours to dress -------

The Fetish Astronaut, John Glen-Or-Glenda -------

  Transforming on a budget, and Orion after he ATE Darkseid....

The League Of Extremely Well-Fed Gentlemen!

"I've got a cobra in my pants..."

Bruce Banner's earlier failed experiment.

Batmom???

Someday, I want one of those Hulk movies to explain how, when Banner Hulks-out, his pants always stay intact…

On Saturday, Tori Amos appeared on a panel about her graphic novel Comic Book Tattoo, with artists drawing interpretations of her songs and published by Image Comics. Amos also did an autograph signing at 2:00 PM, though only for 200 selected fans who purchased the comic at the Image booth.

For some reason, Tori showed up dressed as a leather burrito -------------

Talking about the creative freedom of working in comics, Tori told the crowd "I wanted to make sure the corporate side didn’t f-ck it up, so I got to play S&M artist with corporate." Artist Rantz Hoseley was the main guy herding nearly 100 artists for Tori’s Comic Book Tattoo. He talked about when he first held the rock ‘n’ roll comicbook, straight off the printing press. “When I got this book, I'm like, this will change everything, it's revolutionary!”

Somewhere in Heaven, Todd Loren – founder of Revolutionary Comics’ Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics, which predated the Tori comic by, oh, about 20 years – is cracking up….

Tori – a big fan and friend of Neil Gaiman – told the audience that working on her comic inspired her upcoming recording plans, too. "It's marvelous, I've never done anything like this. It gave me the courage to stand up and leave Sony. It showed me freedom." Freedom to dress like a leather burrito -------------- 

Okay, time for more costumes ------------------------

This gal is more dangerous than she seems, if you look closely…

Bat-In-laws

Norse Nerd

Booster Pizza Delivery

Cheap Plastic Man

Joke Woman

Free circumcisions

It Came From The Hotel Bedsheets

“What costume?”

Trio of Titanic TaTas

Once you go Lego, you never go back... 

Sunny Daye meets Dork Knight

My parents are SOOOOO embarrassing!

“Maggots, heh heh!”

THE DAY THE MONKEES TURNED DEL MAR INTO CLARKSVILLE

 42 years ago (9-11-66), Del Mar was renamed “Clarksville” for the day, as part of a promotion for the Monkees TV show, which would debut the following night. The Sunday event marked the first time the foursome ever performed music in public.

Ron Jacobs was a DJ at L.A. radio station KHJ at the time. “One of Boss Radio’s most exciting promotions was staging an actual Last Train to Clarksville,” he says on his website. “A few hundred KHJ winners rode to ‘Clarksville,’ the city of Del Mar…whose train station was hustled by Promotions Director Don Berrigan.”

“The tenth callers would get two free tickets to the Last Train to Clarksville,” recalls KHJ promotions associate Barbara Hamaker in the Mike Nesmith biography Total Control. “To this day, I don’t know how we did it. I was the one who had to type up all the releases and all of the stuff that was involved in getting kids onto the train…we used some Podunk town called Del Mar.”

 According to Ron Jacobs, “Once the winners debarked there, and ate their fried chicken lunch, whackatawack, a quartet of helicopters slowly alit near the train.” The Monkees emerged, greeted enthusiastically by both contest winners and curious locals who’d been told they’d be meeting “the next Beatles.”

The Mayor of Del Mar was there too, officially declaring the town “Clarksville” and nailing up a sign near the train depot saying so. The Monkees single “Last Train to Clarksville” was at #61 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, though it would shortly hit number one. The song’s original title had been “Last Train to Home, Girl. “It’s good we decided on Clarksville,” Peter Tork told reporters. “Can you just see the Mayor saying ‘I now proclaim this the city of Home Girl’?”

 Micky Dolenz talked to the press about the group’s rising profile. “We really don’t know where it’s at yet. I mean, like, we just got back from the [publicity] tour, and then we got up this morning, flew down to San Diego, took a helicopter to Del Mar, and now we’re on a train to L.A.”

Says Jacobs, “The four soon-to-be-American-Idols boarded the caboose and picked up instruments that were set up and waiting, as the Monkees played their first live music in public.” The two songs performed were “Papa Gene's Blues,” written by Mike Nesmith, and a cover of “She's So Far Out, She's In” by Baker Knight (also released as a single by Dino, Desi & Billy in May ‘66). “By the time the train pulled into Union Station,” says Jacobs, “the rumor that the fellows were lip-synching their stuff had been put to rest.”

The Monkees debut episode was also screened for the 400 or so contest winners, who had left L.A. at noon and returned just before 8 p.m.

The Monkees TV show debuted on NBC the following night, quickly become popular enough to nearly qualify the “next Beatles” hyperbole as prophetic.

The live “Clarksville” performance was filmed by KHJ for an L.A. TV show called Boss City, which aired it on September 17, 1966. “That footage is lost and has never turned up on the collector’s circuit,” says local Monkees memorabilia dealer Duane Dimock, aka Ed Finn, co-author of The Monkees Scrapbook. “All that exists is some silent black-and-white 8mm footage that shows a person donned in a gorilla suit, crawling and pounding his chest along the tops of buildings. The Monkees show up in their classic long sleeved, double breasted shirts, get off the train, and they move through the crowd to the stage.  A prior band had been warming up mostly teenage kids. Then you see the Monkees waving at the crowd from the train.”

Davy Jones has fond memories of the day KHJ made a Monkee out of him. “I was a jockey, so of course Del Mar was a big part of that life,” he told the Reader in 2006. “When you see that ‘Last Train To Clarksville’ video, I mean in the [Monkees] TV show, that’s really Del Mar the train goes to…it was really grand fun, even though nobody had really heard of us yet.”

HOWEVER – tho this was the first time the Monkees performed in public, the very first time the band EVER performed music together was ALSO in San Diego – a year before the Clarksville promotion!

In mid-November 1965, the foursome shot scenes for the pilot episode “Royal Flush” at the Hotel Del Coronado, including the country club and bar sequences. Exterior scenes were filmed on the beach near the Hotel; this footage would also turn up in the series original title sequence, as well as throughout the episode “Here Come the Monkees.”

West Coast Iron Works guitarist Gary Carter was a sophomore at Coronado High School at the time, and he recalls the Friday afternoon he and two friends stumbled across the Monkees on the Hotel Del beachfront. “We noticed them in shorts and Hawaiian shirts, and a guy filming them with a handheld camera,” he says. “We had no idea who they were…During a break, we struck up a conversation with Davy Jones, and he asked us if we could take him to Tijuana! We explained that we were underage and not allowed to cross the border.”

 Jones invited the teens to dinner with the band that evening in the Hotel Del’s Crown room, along with crew members, potential network affiliates, and – in the case of Micky Dolenz – groupies. “That was when I recognized him as the grown up kid [Micky Braddock] from the Circus Boy TV show,” says Carter, “and he had six or seven of the most beautiful Hollywood starlets anyone has ever seen at his table with him.”

“As the evening progressed, they [the Monkees] started having fun with each other. I don’t remember which one it was, but someone picked up this big bowl of shrimp cocktail and tossed it…soon, it was a full-on food fight, and we had to leave the table to avoid getting food all over us. I was horrified [for the Hotel]…the carpet in that room alone was worth tens of thousands of dollars.”

 The messy dinner notwithstanding, Carter accepted Jones’ invitation to return the following day, to watch a TV scene being filmed in the Hotel’s Circus Room (seen in the series pilot). This shoot marked the first time the Monkees ever played musical instruments all in one room together, as they plugged into the prop amps between setups and took a shot at a few old Chuck Berry and folk numbers.

“I got the hint from watching that their show was a satire of the Beatles, which I personally took offense at,” says Carter, who got bored after a couple of hours and departed the shooting.

“On the way out, I stuck my head into the Crown Room, and a bunch of people were still cleaning up the mess from the food fight. They were really pissed off.”

The Monkees were banned from the Hotel Del – collectively and individually – until September 2004, when Davy Jones returned with his band to perform at a private function. “Memories flooded the moment as we checked in and walked down the longest and widest corridors,” he wrote on his website davyjones.net.

“The concert for a couple hundred execs went down well,” says Jones, “and a couple of convention goers helped me sing ‘Daydream Believer’ and ‘I'm a Believer’ to rapturous applause. A good time was had by all. By Thursday, I made my way to the beach and shrunk my vitals. Extreme cold sea.”

"I Was an Undercover Ticket Scalper" - How I found out all about the local underground ticket resale market. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

"I Was an Undercover Bouncer" - How I found out what really goes on behind the concert barricades. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

"...And San Diego Doesn't Think Much of Britney, Either" - Britney's history with our fine city is as troubled as it is funny. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

"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 --- http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

         "Secrets Behind Famous Former Neighbors And Overheard in San Diego" - Cartoonist confessions --- http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

"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/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

"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)  ------ http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

 "That Old House - Reflections on a Childhood Home" - This place still kind of haunts me  ------ http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

 "Open Mic Life" - Reflections of an open mic host  ------ http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

"Mojo Nixon's Comix and Stories" - Co-written by madman Mojo himself  --- http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

"Gary Wilson Interview" - Exclusive chat with a mysterious local legend, who's in the midst of the most unexpected and unlikely comeback ever  --- http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

 "50 Local Performers Reveal How They Got Their Band Name" -  http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

"Eben Brooks' Sci-Fi Rock Video at Lestat's" --Eben goes all sci-fi on Roger Zelazny at a local coffeehouse ---  http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

"Lennon or McCartney?" --We asked 25 local performers ---  http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/sep/29/undercover-chronicles-parts-1-2-monkees-business-g/

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