Sweetwater teachers await funding news
Susan Luzzaro 8:14 a.m., May 23
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Stories by Ken Leighton
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 ...
Ringtone Rappers
When Swagg was nine years old, the rapper’s father shot his mom and then himself. He’s grown up around gang violence. “I’ve seen people get shot in my street,” he tells me. Born as G. ...
What's in Your Wallet?
When Genghis Con-Job singer-songwriter Frank Drank filmed his part as a Viking in a Capital One commercial, he had to show up an hour early. “Visigoths don’t have tattoos,” says the 6’4”, 290-pound tough guy ...
Yankee Punkers
Since Bumbklaatt formed in 2001, two of the members have lived in Chula Vista and two in Tijuana. To play punk rock in TJ, they rented an empty building to put on shows. But there ...
Buck Howdy's on the Case
Steve Vaus has twice been nominated for Grammys for children’s records released in 2007 and 2008. He wrote the Jerome’s and Barona Casino TV jingles, and he’s done studio work for Willie Nelson, Kim Carnes, ...
The Big Empty
Beck, the Strokes, and the Pixies have all played UCSD’s 4700-capacity multipurpose RIMAC arena. The school is looking for a concert promoter to take over RIMAC and run it the way Live Nation handles SDSU’s ...
Caught Inside
Canes is finished. After 13 years, Eric Leitstein, owner of the beachfront venue that hosted artists such as Prince, Linkin Park, Maroon Five, and Snoop Dogg, has been informed that his lease will not be ...
More Pig-Head Press
Burning of Rome used five impaled pig heads as props during their set at the 2009 San Diego Music Awards. “It’s pretty creepy,” says a fellow performer and one of the night’s award-winners. “I don’t ...
Problems at the Palace
“It’s just sitting there empty,” says local reggae radio personality Makeda “Dread” Cheatom of the 1800-capacity Tijuana venue named Iguanas. “We’re coming in to reclaim it.” Iguana’s will have its first headlining show in over ...
That Was Then, This Is Buju
Lyrics from a 17-year-old song are costing Buju Banton gigs. The Jamaican dancehall singer had some of the dates on his 2006 U.S. tour canceled because his 1992 song “Boom Bye Bye” urges listeners to ...
Metal in the Blood
Gabey D’Schiavone spent the ’80s on the Sunset Strip in L.A.’s glam-band scene. His band, Ambush, played the same clubs — Gazarri’s, Troubadour, Roxy — that cradled Poison, Ratt, and Mötley Crüe. “All my friends ...
The Case of the Blue Violin
Jennifer “Spags” Spingola and her blue violin have been around the world. The flying V, six-string electric violin was made for her nine years ago by Wood Violins of New York. “It’s one of a ...
The City Needs Me
Gregory Page, one of San Diego’s most prolific singer-songwriters, says he plans to stay put even as many artists leave town for New York and L.A. “It seems that we have an exodus. If everybody ...
Rack 'Em
A 4th&B show headlined by LBC, a Long Beach Sublime tribute band, ended with the bassist beaten and hospitalized by an unhappy fan and an opening band claiming they were underpaid by $1000. “It was ...
Canes Unscathed
The latest on Canes: it’s open for business, and the $2 million damage estimate from a July 17 fire was “way too high.” But the most significant news from owner Eric Leitstein is that he ...
X-Fest Takes a Rest?
Last year’s X-Fest, headlined by Offspring and Pennywise at the Concerts on the Green facility near Qualcomm, may have ended the event’s 25-year run. When it became clear that 91X would not bring back X-Fest ...
