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

As Tall as Lions

When As Tall as Lions played the Casbah this summer, Dan Nigro told the audience that he’d been waiting 27 years (basically, his entire life) to rock the Casbah. “It was a joke, you know? ‘Rock the Casbah,’ the Clash song?” The remnants of a high school buddy band that continued into college, As Tall as Lions hail from a part of New York not known for alt or indie rock.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“It’s hard coming from Long Island,” says Nigro. “Actually, I feel like there’s no good music coming out of Long Island, and everybody’s kind of stuck in this…I don’t know what it is…this cock-rock, jock-rock, or emo type of music. That’s really popular there.”

Back home, Nigro says, friends, family, and the band members have formed a sort of music underground through which they filter new and classic pop-rock to each other. “The group that I’ve discovered recently that’s an older group is the Cocteau Twins,” he says. “That’s my new obsession.”

It would be easy to say that As Tall as Lions is knocking at Coldplay’s door, but that would be a simplification. A rocker’s body with jazz brains, the band’s music is anthemic in places, thorny in others. Think of the late Jeff Buckley, who once called his music a “low-down dreamy bit of the psyche, part quagmire and part structure.” The same could be said for every song on 2006’s You Can’t Take It with You. Nigro says, “I went through a phase where I listened to Jeff Buckley for probably two years straight. I’m very well versed in Jeff Buckley’s catalog.”

It turns out the band’s name is about showing nerve against bad odds. “When we were in college, we dropped out to do the band. Our parents were saying, ‘What are you doing? Are you crazy?’ In that sense, we were standing up for what we believed in, right?”

MuteMath headlines.

AS TALL AS LIONS: House of Blues, Sunday, October 11, 7 p.m. 619-299-2583. $19.50.

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Tuétano and Mujer Divina: two storefronts, one famous birria

Burritos and coffee or tacos and tortas, marrow or not
Next Article

The greatest symphonist of them all

Havergal Brian wrote over 30 of them

When As Tall as Lions played the Casbah this summer, Dan Nigro told the audience that he’d been waiting 27 years (basically, his entire life) to rock the Casbah. “It was a joke, you know? ‘Rock the Casbah,’ the Clash song?” The remnants of a high school buddy band that continued into college, As Tall as Lions hail from a part of New York not known for alt or indie rock.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“It’s hard coming from Long Island,” says Nigro. “Actually, I feel like there’s no good music coming out of Long Island, and everybody’s kind of stuck in this…I don’t know what it is…this cock-rock, jock-rock, or emo type of music. That’s really popular there.”

Back home, Nigro says, friends, family, and the band members have formed a sort of music underground through which they filter new and classic pop-rock to each other. “The group that I’ve discovered recently that’s an older group is the Cocteau Twins,” he says. “That’s my new obsession.”

It would be easy to say that As Tall as Lions is knocking at Coldplay’s door, but that would be a simplification. A rocker’s body with jazz brains, the band’s music is anthemic in places, thorny in others. Think of the late Jeff Buckley, who once called his music a “low-down dreamy bit of the psyche, part quagmire and part structure.” The same could be said for every song on 2006’s You Can’t Take It with You. Nigro says, “I went through a phase where I listened to Jeff Buckley for probably two years straight. I’m very well versed in Jeff Buckley’s catalog.”

It turns out the band’s name is about showing nerve against bad odds. “When we were in college, we dropped out to do the band. Our parents were saying, ‘What are you doing? Are you crazy?’ In that sense, we were standing up for what we believed in, right?”

MuteMath headlines.

AS TALL AS LIONS: House of Blues, Sunday, October 11, 7 p.m. 619-299-2583. $19.50.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

94th Aero Squadron – French farmhouse still works

Try the antinoise –tomatoes with olive oil dressing plus capers, garlic, toasted coriander seeds, basil, spring onions, salted anchovies
Next Article

Was Reddit ghost sighter hired by Hotel del Coronado?

Parking 1/2 mile away and complaints of vandalism
Comments
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.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader