Julia Sage

“This album has been a long time in the making,” says Julia Sage of her new full-length Desnuda. “We recorded three of the singles a long time ago now. ‘Ni de Aquí, Ni de All á’ was our first one, recorded in August 2018. We didn’t even have a drummer back then yet. That’s the one I think that put us on the radar to be nominated as Best New Artist for the SDMAs, but that’s just a guess. Next came ‘Wondrous Woman’ and ‘Ahuevonao.’ Those two singles were recorded in May 2019, with Tom Peart as our drummer, he eventually left the band to work on his own project. I pretty much had used all our funds for recording at this point, so we needed to make more money to continue.”

Then the pandemic struck. “I was finally able to save enough funds to finish recording eight more songs this past October 2021, at the same studio as the other three singles, Chaos Recorders, with Christopher Hoffee.” Julia Sage appears Sunday, January 2 at Grand Ole BBQ Flinn Springs (1pm to 4pm), and you can catch her performing a solo show on January 16 at Sycamore Den (6pm).

Digital Lizards of Zoom

Gabriel Valentin (Counter Launch) fronts Digital Lizards of Doom, a comic book-inspired sci-fi rock band which describes their music as “Gogol Bordello meets Gorillaz.” Their ambitious and often tongue-in-cheek songs tend to lean towards concept album-style prog. An album called Dizzy Eko Makeover reached number 12 on the U.K. independent charts, promoted with a music video for the track “I Don’t Know How To Dance.” The group’s self-titled comic book recently made ComicBookResources.com’s TOP 10 Best Indie Titles at this year’s Los Angeles Comic Con. “Digital Lizards of Doom Trades Conventional Style For Uniqueness,” according to the headline, which continues “Taking inspiration from video games, ‘90s cartoons, and psychedelic color schemes, Gabriel Valentin and Ernie Najera created Digital Lizards of Doom as a comedic and uniquely stylized comic that follows Dizzy Doom through the video game he is living in. Notably, the game is being played by Pineapple Pete, who makes frequent appearances throughout. The book’s unique style is a split between a dialogue-heavy left page, styled after a conversation in a messaging app, and a splash page on the right depicting the scene being discussed. It’s a fresh, stylish story for comic readers.”

Flogging Molly

Before they officially became known as Flogging Molly, the Celtic punk rockers started by playing Irish music in bars and pubs such as L.A. hangout Molly Malone’s, which hosted them so often that they named themselves for having “flogged” the venue with constant performances. Signed early in their career to SideOneDummy Records, their music frequently references the Roman Catholic Church, with songs such as “Seven Deadly Sins” and “Rebels of the Sacred Heart.” After the Flogging Molly track “If I Ever Leave This World Alive” was heard in the 2008 film PS I Love You, their sixth album Float debuted at number four on Billboard’s Top 200 album chart, selling 48,000 copies in its first week of release. The band will return to the road in 2022 for a U.S. tour that will include their annual St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) performance in Los Angeles. With opening acts such as Russkaja and Vandoliers, the tour kicks off March 8 in Knoxville, TN at The Mill & Mine and concludes March 26 at the Ventura Music Hall. They’ll follow that up by headlining the sixth Salty Dog Cruise, setting sail March 28 through April 1.

Scott Samuels

Singer/guitarist Scott Samuels arrived in San Diego in 1988, and joined long-established group The Snails (soon to be known as The Rhythm Slaves). He’s also a vet of area acts such as Pharmacy, A.M. Forever, Roxy Monoxide, Roxy Dioxide, and a Neil Diamond tribute called Solitary Diamonds. His new Scott Samuels Band made their concert debut at Navajo Live this month, where his covers project Vinyl Pirates also played. New band members include drummer Bob Patrowicz, a New Jersey transplant who has played and recorded with Dave Howard, Scot Taber, Cerulean Veins, and Mining The Ether, and who did a brief stint with 1980s one-hit wonders The Monroes (“What Do All the People Know”) from 2019 to 2020. New bassist Philippe Conway is also a vet of Cerulean Veins and Mining The Ether, as well as Slippin’. According to Samuels, “Our setlists feature songs from my Sunshine and Starlight solo EP, which contains a sequel to The Sweet’s song ‘The Six Teens’ called ‘Before They Knew It.’ Earlier this year, the song became number one on glam rock streaming radio station Dandy’s Stardust Dive.”

As I Lay Dying

Formed in 2001 as a Christian heavy metal band, As I Lay Dying is named after the book by William Faulkner. The Artist of the Year winners at the 2005 San Diego Music Awards have experienced several lineup shifts, most notably the temporary departure of their lead singer while he served time in prison for attempting to hire an undercover police officer to kill his wife. After having been renamed Wovenwar for a time, the band reunited with their singer under the As I Lay Dying moniker, though they recently announced the departure of longtime guitarist Nick Hipa. This month, the group released a live video for their track “My Own Grave” to celebrate the debut of the deluxe edition of their Shaped By Fire album, which features live and instrumental versions of its songs, as well as newly remixed tracks described as “re-interpretations.” According to guitarist Phil Sgrosso, “The initial idea was to create a deluxe version stemmed from leftover material written for the Shaped By Fire album. Some of it was re-purposed for B-sides, and several tracks were used for the live show exclusively, until now.”