San Diego Reader

Now you'll be as plugged in and up to date as all those insiders scarfing up the invite to private KPRI listener parties, drinking free at HOB sidestage shows, and studiously ignoring Casbah headliners from the courtyard.

Springer Punk'd by a Locust

How did Lost Film Fest VJ Scott Beibin end up on The Jerry Springer Show kissing, then punching, Justin Pearson of the Locust? And why was some girl kicking his ass? "I left a voicemail telling [the producers] that I was sleeping with Justin, Alysia his girlfriend, and Christine his roommate," Beibin admits of the fabrication. Almost immediately, the quartet was flown to Chicago to tape a segment that, as edited, takes around three minutes before the first fight erupts (as Beibin and Pearson kiss). "The snot rocket actually happened after Justin spat on the stage and the guards dragged him out. They punched him in the nose, so what he was actually blowing out was not just snot, it was blood, too. "[Christine] punches me in the face, we fall over members of the audience, the crowd goes crazy. Steve, the big bald guard, grabs me with one hand and carries me over to the other side of the stage and asks me, 'What the hell is wrong with you?' and I say, 'Bwaaaa, shut up' in a Bugs Bunny voice." Around 15 minutes of the episode are posted on YouTube. (http://tinyurl.com/yvpve2)

Neo Conservative Blues Four Eyes singer/guitarist Mark DeCerbo collaborates with comic-book and video-game artist Thomas Carroll on a multimedia page -- Twonks and Plonkers -- at www.drunkduck.com. "We take a topical idea, Tom does the artwork and animation, I do the music, and we collaborate on the lyrics," says DeCerbo. One of the first "illustrated songs" to be uploaded was the duo's "Neo-Conservative Blues" ("I'm redder than any red state/ Folks say it really shows/ Yeah, it's written all over my face/ I got a gun for a nose!").

Accompanying artwork depicts Carroll's gun-nose character. "I designed him while sitting on a plane," says Carroll, "watching in-flight news blurbs about the pace of the Iraq War, the escalating violence between Israel and Syria, Guantanamo, and the disclosure of secret CIA bases overseas. It all bubbled over into that drawing.... I determined to upload the character, to somehow use him to energize the political debate about war, the Bush administration, and the way our country is now perceived by other countries."

(http://tinyurl.com/23tsjh)

Lindsay Goes to Rehab

"We heard young Lindsay Lohan went to rehab," says Anya Marina, "so in honor of her courageous decision, we recorded a song. Tristan Prettyman cowrote and Greg Laswell knocked on the door, poured a vodka, and added percussion and background vox." Entitled "Lindsay Goes to Rehab," the song is posted on MySpace and Stereogum.

"Check yourself before you wreck yourself...Drink the coke, but don't you snort the coke."

"I think she is compelling for a multitude of reasons," says Marina. "She is at once enviable and seemingly spoiled rotten, but at the same time you can't help but feel for her. She has been taken up into this glamorous lifestyle where every possible decadence is at her fingertips, and yet she's not supposed to make a misstep.... She's really just a kid [who has] great style and an even better rack."

(http://tinyurl.com/2T6TQ6)

Totally Gay

"San Diego's Gay Pop Star," reads the header atop the webpage for Aiden Bay, whose publicity photo shows him pulling down the front of his jeans with one hand and pulling up his shirt with the other. "All my lyrics reflect my personal life experiences and talk about who I am," Bay tells the Reader in an e-mail. "A 26-year-old gay male chasing a dream." Being so openly gay, he says, "inspires my audience, mainly the GLBT [gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender] community. It's not every day you hear a male artist sing a love song about a cute boy he's starting to fall in love with or about thinking you're different from the rest of the world because of your sexual preference."

Born in Mexico City and currently living in San Diego, Bay was the 2003 winner of Southwestern Idol, a tournament modeled after American Idol. He's recording a full-length album, having given up last year's "Summer Nights" job at SeaWorld as one of five hosts for Shamu's "House of Douse." His EP This Is for My Boys -- with cover art showing two male symbols intertwined -- contains homoerotic pop tunes like "Meant for a Bad Man" ("You're the kind of guy I said I'd never get with") and "Want Me Back" ("All I do is hurt inside, it's hard").

(www.myspace.com/aiden_bay and www.myspace.com/aidenbay)

Coffeehouse 101

Scott Wilson's video for his song "Coffeehouse 101" features around 50 local performers, each one lip-synching a lyric, with footage shot at Twiggs, Lestat's, the Hot Monkey Love Cafe, Balboa Park, and elsewhere around town. "There's almost as many locales as there are people," says Wilson. "I drove all over the county to get the shots, with whoever was available, whenever and wherever.... I couldn't time it right to get the Locust in there, but I [taped] most everybody else I sought out." Cameo appearances include Gregory Page, Chuck Schiele, Dave Howard, Sven-Erik Seaholm, Bart Mendoza, Mark DeCerbo, Carlos Olmeda, and a who's who of local talent that even the most plugged-in of scenesters would be hard pressed to fully identify.

"Coffeehouse 101" can be viewed on Yahoo Video, where at this writing it's gotten over 9000 plays. "I haven't done the math recently, but the last time I did, it was at about 14,000 total hits across the Web," says Wilson, "which is not OK Go numbers, but I consider it a success."

(http://tinyurl.com/2p4mzr)

Happy Hippies

The Happy Hippie Eco Portal was "created in 1996 by two web geeks who were simply concerned about the environment and the future of our planet," according to the intro page. "We wanted to create a place for web users to easily find Eco-friendly products and services."

Based in San Diego, the groovy guys say their aim is to "unite other nature lovin' folk" from all over the world. Message forum categories include Hemp Speak ("Your favorite hemp products, etc."), Environment Alert ("What's going on in your community?"), Barter Board ("Great way to exchange products and services in a cashless transaction"), Vegetarian Recipes, and Organic Gardening.

(www.happyhippie.com)

Enter the Optigan

"The Optigan was a kind of home organ made by the Optigan Corporation, a subsidiary of Mattel, in the early '70s," says Pea Hicks of the obscure instrument around which his band Optiganally Yours revolves. "It was set up like most home organs of the period, [with] a small keyboard with buttons on the left for various chords, accompaniments, and rhythms. At the time, all organs produced their sounds electrically or electronically with tubes or transistors. The Optigan was different in that its sounds were read off of LP-sized celluloid discs, which contained the graphic waveforms of real instruments...similar to the soundtrack on a film reel.

"Playing back recorded instruments was a pretty unique concept for the early '70s," says Hicks. "Technically speaking, the Optigan was a primitive sampler. Sort of. I tend to think of it more like a poor man's Mellotron.... They sold mostly through stores like Sears and JCPenny and were relatively inexpensive, about $200 to $400." Working models now sell for $2000 and up. Several unreleased Optiganally Yours songs are playable at mp3it.com.

(http://tinyurl.com/2z7atw or

http://www.mp3it.com/artist.php?artist_id=16)

mVideo Jukebox

At this writing, mVideo has concert videos posted featuring 127 local bands, including many no longer active, such as GoGoGo Airheart and Lucy's Fur Coat. Clips viewable with RealPlayer 10 include Butch Wax Duo defying the fire marshal with live flames onstage at the Casbah (9-1-06), New York Station's androgynous Lou Reed tribute at the Ken Club (4-14-07), and Assault Shaker performing "Down Like Danzig" (7-28-04), their ode to the still-popular Internet video showing diminutive rocker Glenn Danzig getting his ass kicked backstage ("Standing tough and tall, at five foot three, that's a long way to fall").

Performances can be downloaded to computer or iPod, including clips of national acts playing around town such as the White Stripes at the Casbah (12-9-00, 56 minutes), UK Subs at Dream Street (9-25-02, 49 minutes), and Fear at Brick by Brick (3-23-01, 50 minutes).

(www.mvideojukebox.com)

Finn Again

Local blogger Rosey Bystrak posts video at sddialedin.com from an unannounced KPRI private listener concert held in early May on a Hornblower cruise, featuring Tim Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House). "I got a text from my friend," she blogs, "telling me that he heard that Neil Finn and Eddie Vedder might be joining Tim. How could I skip that, even if there was less than a 1% chance that it was true?" Though Vedder and the other brother Finn were no-shows, she says the private show was still "beyond worthwhile."

Her posted video shows Finn performing Split Enz's "I Got You." There's also a photo of his actual setlist, autographed and with duct tape along the top and bottom. "That setlist is not completely accurate," says Bystrak, "because Tim threw in a couple requests, including 'Six Months in a Leaky Boat,' to stay with a nautical theme."

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