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Stories by Ken Leighton

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Rock and roll is about money, publicity, and extortion.

Oceanside hard-rockers Red Wizard find that "it’s hard for a band to get any exposure now unless they’re paying for it."

Mom-and-Pop Radio

Tristan Prettyman and Jason Mraz were going to get married. And then he came up with a righteous reason not to. She’s laughing now, though.

Sunny Rude Receives Nuisance Noise Citation

After being cited by party-pooping cops, Sunny Rude may have to pay almost $7000 to play about 35 minutes of music.

Big Deals at the San Diego County Fair

When the San Diego County Fair paid $80,000 to Gym Class Heroes to be a Grandstand headliner in 2007, one talent buyer said the New York hip-hop quartet was paid $45,000 more than they would ...

Hard Rock Gives It Away Now

Since October of last year, the Hard Rock Hotel has hosted a once-a-month concert featuring headliners that would normally play Casbah or Belly Up. And the shows are free. The Soundcheck concert series is held ...

Fatty Weighs In

Fatty Freelunch has been around the block. “We were the first band to play SOMA, and we were the last band when it closed.” Ms. Freelunch is talking about Len Paul’s original south-of-Market venue downtown. ...

Punk-Rock Politico

For the 16 years, Dicky Demonic has been thrashing it out in North County punk bands with his in-your-face, lefty politics. Demonic has been known to go off on cops, the rich getting richer, and ...

Take a Hikey, Mikey

“They hired him to improve the morning-show ratings and he ended up bringing them down like a big anchor.” That’s how one employee at a competing modern-rock station described Mike Esparza’s two years at FM ...

Is This Mic On?

Jefferson Jay says the open-mic scene that launched Jewel and Jason Mraz is not as vital as it once was. Jay, who started hosting acoustic showcases in 2003, thinks, however, that there is still enough ...

Seaside Sellout

Will the March 16 show headlined by local reggae band Stranger be the last show ever at Sound Wave (formerly Canes)? No shows are being booked at the 700-capacity beachfront venue after that date. The ...

Trilingual Rock

“I have one friend who straight up told me that if he can’t understand the lyrics he can’t get into our music,” says singer/songwriter/guitarist Pablo Garduno about the fact that some of the lyrics of ...

No More Rude Radio

“It was pretty scanty,” says Ras Charles about the turnout at last year’s Tribute to the Reggae Legends show at the Sports Arena. “You could have played football in there.” Charles had a vendors’ booth ...

91NEXT!

The man who helped 91X regain its mojo, Garrett Capone, is leaving the station to work in artist development with the New York–based Crush Management company, which handles acts such as Train, Wavves, Gym Class ...

Contentious Corner

Ali Nilforshan says he will be taking back 4th&B, the downtown venue he owned from 2003 to 2009. The current owners, Vince and Judy Puma, say that is not going happen. Nilforshan says he sold ...

Abstract Swing

As Declan Halloran sees it, the all-age local band scene is easy to sum up. “The bands that play at Soma are either pop-punk, cookie monster [sreamo], or ska. They pretty much come in one ...

Taking Back 4th&B

The former owner of 4th&B, the 1500-capacity downtown concert venue, says he is in the process of taking the club back from its current owner and that he is suing Live Nation, the concert promoter ...

The Elephant Has Landed

Four years after he launched Hensley’s Flying Elephant, pro skateboarder-turned-accordionist (Flogging Molly) Matt Hensley has sold the music venue he built from scratch. “I had help from friends. We built the entire pub.” The artwork ...

That's Not Rockabilly

Newly appointed Del Mar Fair trustee David Lizerbram says he wants the fairgrounds to host more major music events. That’s just not going to happen, according to promoter Garry Thayer, who organized the Hellbilly Fest ...

Not Neighborzly

Bassist Jay Crew says he walked out of reggae band Bad Neighborz last year because lead singer Erik Trogisch was mangling his songs. “Erik screams in the mic. He has no dynamic control. Erik would ...

A Better Cookie Monster

“I was a dark kid,” says Dane Reinhart about why he started screaming death metal at 15. “I lost my dad to cancer [when I was] 9. I wanted to be the frontman so I ...

Fairgrounds Just Got Fairer

A longtime member of the local music scene has been tapped to help run the Del Mar Fairgrounds. David Lizerbram occasionally sits in with Rio Peligroso when the Americana band plays the Riviera Supper Club. ...

Naming Rights

Blink-182’s new CD, out September 27, has the harmless title Neighborhoods. But the potty-mouthed pop-punk band from Poway is known for releasing albums referencing enemas and masturbation. The title Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, ...

Mays Plays Musical Venues

“Boycott 4th&B!!!” That tweet could have come from a disgruntled ex-bouncer or a band that didn’t get drink tickets. It appeared August 21 on the Casbah’s Twitter stream and was gone the next day. The ...

Radio Foos for News?

“Somebody is going to blink; someone is going to switch to talk.” That’s what one local rock DJ says about the inevitability of one of the four modern-rock stations in town dropping music for news, ...

Sleaze Metal

“It’s hard to book other bands to play with us,” said Michael Prince, drummer of gutter-glam band Purple Church. “All we have around here is thrash metal or punk bands. What we’re trying to do ...

Nina Gets Dumped

Since it became a modern-rock station eight years ago, FM 94/9 has carried syndicated alternative-oldies show New Wave Nation on Sunday mornings. Hosted by the raspy-voiced Nina Blackwood, the show is dedicated to ’80s-era punk ...

Revenge Songs

The Vindictive Bitches believe in settling scores. “If you fuck with someone, you get fucked with back,” says singer/guitarist Jesser Jaxx. “We played Mi Pueblo in Tijuana and some guy yelled out, ‘Show us your ...

SoundWave Crashes

The beach-front music venue that was known for 13 years as Cane’s has ceased operations. The 900-capacity Cane’s hosted Snoop Dogg, Prince, Linkin Park as well as local bands when previous owner Eric Leitstein ran ...

We're Still Young

Brandon Parkhurst says reading about his substance abuse is what made him finally get clean. “I had lost everything,” says the singer/guitarist of Kut U Up. “I happened to read an article about how Kut ...

Marines Who Rock

The five men in a Battle to Fight joke about being Marines who rock. “We can entertain you or we can pick you off at 500 yards,” says Lou, the lead guitarist for the metal-core ...

Heavy Metal for Sale

Things looked promising for the third annual San Diego Metal Swap Meet. “The first one [in 2009] was held on my driveway in City Heights,” says organizer Brian Parker about the bizarre bazaar that connects ...

They're Dead, What Can I Do?

Greg Davis formed Blood on the Saddle in 1982. The twang-and-thrash band spearheaded the L.A.-based cowpunk scene that included Tex and the Horseheads, Gun Club, and Rank and File. “It’s safe to say Blood on ...

Silva Futures

After a 15-year absence, Bill Silva, who started promoting concerts in the ’70s while a student at UCSD and went on to produce shows by Pearl Jam, Madonna, Cher, and Depeche Mode, is back doing ...

FM 94/9 Out of the Sahara

“When they said my name, there was a chorus of boos. It really hurt my feelings, but I understand it.” Mikey Esparza, the anchor of The Mikey Show on FM 94/9, was reflecting on the ...

Dream Street Is Finished

“Korn got signed out of that club,” recalls Tim Hall about the days he booked bands at Dream Street. “We had them play there, like, 13 times. A bidding war over who got to sign ...

Industry Juice

For Mark Rasmussen, the ten years he spent publishing the locally based monthly rock magazine No Cover (1997–2007) was ecstasy and agony. “We gave blink-182 their first magazine cover in March ’98. We also gave ...

Taking Back California

“I would have kicked the shit out of this guy in a debate. He’s a 76-year-old man with no platform.” Ocean Beach surfer/rocker/“extreme capitalist” Richard Aguirre has footage on his website (aguirreforgovernor.com) showing governor-elect Brown ...

Bastard Son Comes Home

San Diego native Mark Stuart moved to Austin four years ago for two reasons. “I needed a change. I just had a divorce.” Plus there was that music thing. The singer-songwriter-guitarist was behind country-rock band ...

Un-Sound Wave Hits Mission Beach's Belmont Park

Eric Leitstein spent 13 years building up Canes, the oceanfront venue that brought Prince, Linkin Park, Maroon 5, and Snoop Dogg to Mission Beach. In October of last year, Leitstein was squeezed out when landlord ...

Why Did 91X Fire Mookie?

Marc “Mookie” Kaczor was escorted out the doors at 91X when he was fired October 15. He’d been on the air there since 2002, when he segued from the Grossmont College radio program to the ...

Bingo Bango Boingo, It's a Dead Man's Party

Two different Dead Man’s Parties will play locally just before Halloween. Tickets will go on sale soon for “Johnny Vatos’s Dead Man’s Party featuring former members of Oingo Boingo” October 23 at 4th&B. Six days ...

Back in the Day

“The band started in 1980, but I didn’t join until February 1981,” says Social Spit singer Cliff Cunningham. “The singer just couldn’t remember the lyrics, so I got in. My first show was at the ...

Jonny Be Good

The first time Jonny Donhowe (fluf, Jalopy, Olivelawn, Diablo Dimes) heard the Mikey Show “testimony,” he thought it was a morning-show bit that lampooned televangelists. “I thought it was a joke. I thought, This is ...

I Just Like to Party, Man

The just-released Bullet is the first new CD for the Screamin YeeHaws in four years. It was recorded at Doubletime and mixed by Jeff Forrest (blink-182, Cattle Decapitation, Deadbolt). The Southern-fried punk band hooked up ...

North County's Dying Cabaret

Three longtime North County music venues are silenced. One promises to return. The Calypso Mediterranean Cafe in Leucadia had live music since it opened in 1995. Artists such as Jack Tempchin, Candye Kane, Danny Way, ...

Know Your Metal

Ritual Torture says playing death metal doesn’t mean they want people to die. “We’re not about violence,” says guitarist Jesse Jensen. But Ritual Torture’s lyrics can get gory and morbid. “Humanity has always been obsessed ...

Box Office Rebound

Each year Pollstar magazine lists the 200 top-grossing concert headliners. No San Diego–based artists showed up on the 2008 list, but three local bands with multimillion-dollar tours appear on the 2009 list. The reformed blink-182 ...

Dope and a Pistol

Ad Seg is not just a name for a local four-piece hardcore punk band. It’s short for “administrative segregation” (also known as “the hole”). It’s the isolation area you go to if you’re bad in ...

Dialing Down the Talent Budget

In 1986, Mike Halloran moved to San Diego from Detroit to work at the new “cutting edge” TJ-based rock station 91X. Its DJs had to drive to the Tijuana “bunker on the mountain” studio, which ...

Tackling Local Radio

A decimated radio business has triggered the fire sale of three radio stations to a former NFL linebacker who an insider says might take one of those stations out of music and into sports. John ...

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