Staff Blog Entries

Willow Weep for Me: a Young Lion in San Diego

By the late 1980s Christopher Hollyday's jazz career was on fire. Critics were calling him a Young Lion along with Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Joshua Redman, and the rest of the bebop and hard boppers ...

San Diego Rocksters Pierce the Veil Set to Release New Music July 17

"The overall idea," Vic Fuentes says, "is of people jumping off of ground that is breaking up beneath them." He's on the phone from his home near Mission Bay, talking about the cover art for ...

Caller Number 10: Ratings, Hells Angels, and Rock and Roll at KDEO Radio

"We did some unconventional things. And we played local artists. We played their albums." --Roger Agnew "The buzz was all over town. This was an AM station that was doing something that nobody in town ...

Is Dylan Hyde the Next Justin Bieber?

Amazed: "It's about three friends who are always getting into some kind of mystery and going on adventures to solve them. But what it boils down to," show creator Richard Allen says, "is friendship." New ...

We Don't Need No Education: San Diego Kids Rock The Wall

"I'd heard from the School of Rock in Denver that they'd been able to get some of their kids on stage with Roger Waters, so I started looking around for contact information." Tyler Ward is ...

The Islanders Love Them Some Jazz

It's a Saturday in May and borderline hot in spite of the relentless onshore breeze. 500 or so teenagers, all with music instruments, some of them held weapon-like are gathered under the shade trees on ...

"Surf" — Swarmius takes Orchestra Nova to the Beach

Surf: A Double Concerto for Alto Saxophone, Violin, & Orchestra May 12, Swarmius, with Orchestra Nova, Irwin M. Jacobs Qualcomm Hall (Five out of five stars) "I wanted to see how things sounded under water." ...

Six Minutes. Then We Pull the Plug

Ernie Becquer sees trouble ahead for salsa music in San Diego. "It has been brought to my attention that a certain venue (he will not say which) is going to put a six-minute blockade on ...

Indie Fertility: Five Local Bands to Listen To

Montalban Quintet Who is this band, and what were they thinking? No matter - fans are talking. Bright tones, driving rhythms, mildly dark and pensive at times. They say: post- punk, minimalism, jazz, new music, ...

The Tallest Man in Elfin Forest

"I grew up in a place called Elfin Forest. It's kind of between Stagecoach Park in La Costa and the Escondido Auto Park." Josh Ottum, 34, is on the phone from the campus of UC ...

The Full Monty

While Monti Rock, 73, recuperates from heat exhaustion in a Las Vegas hospital his television likeness is at the center of a small controversy brewing in the East County. Last week, a San Diego drummer ...

Letter from Nashville: Alyssa Jacey on Southern cooking, personal improvement, and flying insects

"Let me just tell you what I'm looking at." Alyssa Jacey calls late on a Saturday morning from her new digs in Madison County, in Nashville Tennessee. "I'm on the patio and there are these ...

Danny and the Tramp Go to Vegas

When Danny Tatulli and John Langan head up to Las Vegas this week they hope their band Danny and the Tramp will hit the jackpot. But the action won't be at the slots or on ...

Kelsea Rae Little: Rocking the Harp

Kelsea Rae Little, indie rock harpist: "I love the expressions on sound guy's faces. Most of them have never miked a harp before." Little phones from the road; she and her boyfriend and her band, ...

Alive! in San Diego!

In January, on their web site, Kiss declared an overwhelming response to their own Kiss tribute contest. Over 200 bands from around the world had entered. They included: Kissexy from Italy, Spain's Kiss of Death, ...

Free Barbershop Quartet Lessons at the Church

"Smile and you'll chase Mr. Trouble away." They are singing which makes them not hard to find on this otherwise quiet evening. Barbershop quartets have a sound all their own, a cloying four-part harmony premeditated ...

Dazed in the Desert

It's gonna be like a Burning Man sideshow," says Tim Hines. "There's gonna be a lot of stuff going on, not just music." Hines, of La Mesa, is referring to an event being billed as ...

Dancing with the Red Headed Stranger

There's trouble on the stage at Winston's. The sound guy has boosted the drums to full arena sound. The electric bass likewise thunders. The only place left to set Willie Nelson's guitar in the mix ...

Jazz: Alive and Kicking at San Diego State University

"This," Bill Yeager says, "will probably be the biggest event in the history of the SDSU Jazz Studies Program." Yeager plays jazz 'bone, and he's an educator. For the past 27 years he has been ...

CD Review: Euphoria Brass Band's "Coast to Coast"

**** stars out of five 1,815.7 miles from the mother ship of New Orleans the NOLA revival continues here on the West Coast. The Euphoria Brass Band, a San Diego group steeped in the traditional ...

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