Rick Sparhawk, co-founder of the '70s band Montezuma's Revenge meets me at Cosmos in La Mesa. We are possibly the first on our respective blocks to own copies of Low- Budget Rockstar, a new book by Costa Mesa attorney/musician Scott Ibex. Ibex self-describes as a national touring artist who has played with members of Chicago, the Rastafarians, Pato Banton, and other famous artists. Rockstar is purported to be "the complete do-it-yourself guide to booking, surviving, and making a profit on your own indie tour."

So what does Sparhawk, who is a veteran of the rock and roll highway need with this book? "I don't," he says. "I'm just comparing notes."

Montezuma's Revenge was an original, if unusual band with a long and successful run. They were based near Spring Valley in Casa de Oro, formed in 1973, and played a mix of genres and styles that defied categorization. They called their music bionic bluegrass.

"One year," Sparhawk says, "we won first place for best rock, best country, and best bluegrass. It was our Trifecta."

Fans loved it but the music industry had no idea what sort of marketing label to assign them. So, Montezuma's Revenge remained pretty much a road band with a run of better than a dozen years that saw them on the stages of the Calgary Stampede, the Grand Ole Opry, and at almost every state fair and grandstand show in between.

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Could Montezuma's Revenge have used Low-Budget Rockstar when they were new? "I wish the technology existed for us back then," Sparhawk says, meaning Facebook and My Space and Youtube and the plethora of Internet tools available to garage bands today. MR was around long before there was texting. "We printed posters," he says. "I put them up."

Otherwise, Sparhawk rates Low-Budget Rockstar as old school. "Every kid already knows this stuff. They grow up in school with computers. They already know how to build a web site and edit movies. I already knew this stuff, and it's not useful to me." The bigger problem, he says, is that there is a "million zillion bands out there already doing the same thing. And in that climate, differentiation is difficult."

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Day jobs, accommodations and $4 dollar gas being the big indie tour killers, Sparhawk agrees with Ibex at least on this point: the hometown band has no miracles. Meaning, local audiences don't appreciate local bands nearly as much as away audiences do. It is a fact of music life that is inexplicable but true.

"You have to book shows outside of San Diego." Sparhawk says that bands have to find a way to get out of town. "And that costs money. I don't know what to say."

Sparhawk himself has a new band, a duo formed with ex Revenge-mate Jim Soldi, himself a first-call guitarist who went on to perform with Ricky Scaggs and Johnny Cash. The band is called Picus Maximus. That's the scientific name for a bird long thought to be extinct: the ivory billed woodpecker.

"It was registered as extinct for 60 years but now it's making a comeback." He laughs. "Well, now I'm making a comeback too."

This means that Sparhawk is deep in the process of actively promoting Picus Maximus. "I got back in the thinking that I'd promote like it was 20 years ago, but that won't work today." He realizes that he needs to create an image and market it, and the field is congested by musical apparitions and players alike.

"Every band out there now has the marketing savvy to look like a real band," Sparhawk says, "even if they are not."

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I ask Sparhawk to size up the local climate and he comes back with three words: "Pay to play." Some area clubs now require bands to sell tickets in order to secure bookings. These are hard times, he says, for indie startups and points to a well-known local band as an example.

"The biggest brand in San Diego," he says, putting emphasis on the word brand, "is the Farmers. Think about it: they all have to have day jobs just to survive, and they're still playing at places like the Spring Valley Inn?"

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But elaborate marketing or not, what it comes down to Sparhawk says, is the measure of one's music. "You have to have a good recording. There are so many bad ones."

At some point he thinks things will change in the industry when musicians realize that starting a new band is no longer worth the effort. It is a day that is coming, he says, but that is not quite here yet. In the mean time, Sparhawk says the entry level rocker should hook up with a name. "Tie yourself to someone or something successful. And, don't quit your day job."

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