Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

The San Diego Music Awards

Sound description

Wide-ranging arty rock/jazz/metal/film-score-ish music.

RIYL

Creedle, the Melvins, Ennio Morricone

Inception

San Diego , 2011

Influences

Creedle, the Melvins, Pinback, Carl Stalling, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota
Sponsored

The San Diego Music Awards: The band, not the oft-ridiculed local popularity poll. “Truthfully, it’s not much different than an extension of Creedle,” says guitarist-vocalist Devon Goldberg, who lives in Queens NYC and hosts a Sunday soundtrack specialty program Morricone Youth on Manhattan’s East Village Radio.

As for the band’s all-original material, “This new stuff is all over the place. Over half are instrumentals. I sing a bunch, Rob sings a bunch...”

Yes, The SDMAs — mandatory upper-case T — marks yet another group for Rob Crow, the SD singer-guitarist-etc. known for his many bands, from the seminal Heavy Vegetable over two decades ago, to today’s internationally successful Pinback. (An intro to his free-form-radio podcast Rob Crow’s Incongruous Show makes light of same, rattling off various incarnations: “Whether you know him as ‘the fat one in Pinback’ or ‘San Diego’s foremost overrated indie-rock man-child’...”)

Crow, an enthusiastic Creedle fan from their 1991 inception through ’98 breakup, has become part of the band in recent years, regularly playing — and encouraging — Creedle’s semifrequent reunion gigs. Along the way, he and Goldberg began writing songs for the new project, which also includes familiar core Creedlers Tim Blankenship on bass/vox, drummer Dion Thurman, keyboardist Chris Fulford-Brown, and saxist Gabe Sundy.

Crow himself calls the band “An excuse for us old-punk music-nerd friends to hang out and play complicated, surreal, and sophisticated music while drinking...this is in no way a jam band and any explorations are kept to a minimum”

But, the name? “Rob’s idea,” chuckled Goldberg. Essentially, it seems to be a playful moniker, acknowledging how some older scene vets still refuse to take the (lower-case t) San Diego Music Awards too seriously — and who recall when the SDMAs were regarded by many as a cheesy joke in itself.

“Once we get the cease-and-desist from [non-band SDMA founder-president] Kevin Hellman,” he continued, “maybe we’ll change our name to SLAMM.” He references SD CityBeat publisher Hellman’s forerunner ’90s publication, ridiculed for having ignored local alt/punk bands while, curiously, running cover stories on a Hellman-guided act — and regular early-era SDMA nominee — like Natasha’s Ghost.

The band made its live debut in March 2011, whereupon Goldberg told the Reader “We’ve already partially recorded 16 songs for an album, but most have only working titles that might change.” The sound is, as expected, eclectic: tracks range from something suggesting a surf-metal makeover of an Erik Satie-ish classical piece, to a Melvins-style tear through an Astor Piazzolla tango.

Sponsored

Upcoming Local Shows

No shows scheduled

Post a show View show history
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.