Courtesy Earshot Media

Summer Years

The upcoming Summer Years EP You Can’t Live There Forever will be released by Ecni Records (Beach Goons, The Joy Formidable), previewed so far by a single for their track “This Light.” According to singer-guitarist Nick Lanari, “‘This Light’ is about the idea that it’s not too late to pursue what you have always dreamed of, and battling the idea of ‘I’ll start working toward it tomorrow,’ but tomorrow never seems to come. Live your best life now. Today. Find your way to thrive. Failure is not eternal, pain is not eternal, your past doesn’t define you, and you can’t live there forever.” Most of the video for the track was shot around Carlsbad and Encinitas. “We filmed some drone shots at the very end of the day, and none other than Tom Delonge [of Blink 182] drove by us in his big Ford Raptor in Encinitas. It was epic. A good omen even. We just wanted to kind of say, ‘Hey this is who we are, and this is what our world is like, this is Summer Years,’ and I think we captured that really well.”

Spice Pistols

“We’re heading out on tour with Agent Orange for a 16-date tour through the Pacific Northwest, beginning July 31 at the Casbah and running through August 21,” says Sppike Mike Muellenberg of Spice Girls-Sex Pistols mashup The Spice Pistols. “To date, five shows have reported being sold out, including the Casbah date. We’re currently in talks with a record label on the release of our five song EP Spice Train, and a following series of singles on vinyl. I’m also working on a solo project is called the Sppike Mike Contraption. The first EP will be called Runaway Brain, we’re looking at a release around November.” In addition, a multi-artist pro-amateur charity record called Music’s Future is nearing completion. “We currently have two songs in the can and three more in production. Once the first five are complete, we’ll be releasing a five-song EP as the first in a series. We have a local-national record label interested in helping this effort with promotion and distribution. The basic outline of this project is to help fund the San Diego Music Foundation’s Guitars for Schools program. Each song on the record will be played by a band created around a celebrity, grouped with local SoCal music scene members who’ve worked hard and earned some recognition. The hope is to help everyone rise a bit through this.”

Elekric Voodoo

Bandleader Scott Tournet first put Elektric Voodoo together in 2016, around the time he ended his 12 year run with Grace Potter & Nocturnals. The band recently released a new single called “Wake Up,” followed by “Telescope,” the latter also being the title track of their upcoming album, due August 20.

According to Tournet, “I’ve been peering through a telescope, looking at the world up close, but never opening up both eyes. These lyrics from the title track summarize the plight of the main character through the first half of the record. On top of a heavy funk and afrobeat groove, this song stacks blissed-out synths and delayed guitars that drift along with a song that could work in a stripped down singer-songwriter setting. An amalgamation of genres and elements that are disparate but blend in a natural way, created and crafted with intent, Telescope is a concept album that presents a conscious shift from internal to external and intended to be listened straight through. The album is 9-songs deep that tells a story of a journey through self-reflection, evaluation of mortality, confrontation of death, and eventually dawns a new perspective.” The release party happens August 13 at Winstons in OB.

New Regime

The solo project from Nine Inch Nails and Angels & Airwaves drummer Ilan Rubin (the youngest inducted member of the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame), the New Regime recently released two live videos, “Turning A Blind Eye” and “Feel No Pain,” both directed by Matt Thompson with more videos in this series to appear later this year. “The singles showcase the more aggressive side of [new album] Heart Mind Body & Soul,” says Rubin. “Both songs have an edge rooted in discontentment with riffs that were always fun to play live. I’m proud of the combination of heaviness and melody with harmony.” Earlier this year, the band released two other live videos off Heart Mind Body & Soul, “You Can Be” and “Smoke and Mirrors,” both also directed by Matt Thompson. A deluxe version of the album is available featuring previously unreleased material, including a new track, “The Writing On My Walls.”

DJ Pnutz

Driven by 1990s electronic music, hip-hop, and trip-hop, DJ Pnutz records with turntables, drums, Roland synthesizers and sequencers, and an Ableton digital audio workstation. The December 2020 collaborative album she recorded with Jihad the Roughneck MC, General Jihad & Prime Minister P​-Nutz, will be reissued this month on vinyl. According to General Jihad, “I approached my longtime friend DJ PNutz after hearing a few of her great instrumental LPs and asked her if she would like to collaborate. Back in 2008, she had supported the release of my LP The Richard Dastardly Identity, and I always appreciated that. I thought she would just let me lace a few of her previously released tracks, but instead by February she handed me ten brand spanking new tracks. Over the subsequent months, I wrote and recorded my vocals. At that point, the album was sounding great, but we had bare choruses, so I wanted to bring in some scratch hook muscle. I reached out to DJs Sy-Matic and Waxsmith, and they delivered the goods big time. The final stage was mixing, mastering, and doing the cover art.” The album is nominated Best Hip-Hop at the 2021 San Diego Music Awards.