When Merrill Garbus records under the typographically difficult name tUnE-yArDs, she often builds her songs around a little ukulele, her remarkable voice, and looped samples. Loops are everywhere in music these days, of course, but …

Well, the Rapture didn’t happen, but it did get me thinking about firearms. When the tribulation comes, I want to know how to shoot. Marc Halcon, owner of American Shooting Center in Kearny Mesa (858-279-7233; …

It’s at the point of being rare, talking to a stranger in a bar and realizing, from the start, that you’re having an interesting conversation. I’m at the Harbor Bar (that’s Pillar Point Harbor to …

One sometimes finds oneself slightly off balance when approaching a topic that may have short-term and changeable elements. I’m experiencing that somewhat this morning; the changeable element is the weather, not often that changeable in …

Experimental 170-beat-per-minute music was popularized about two years ago by London drum-and-bass producers dBridge and Instra:mental via the Club Autonomic podcast. According to Futureproofing, an electronic-music blog, “Autonomic is a flood of outside influences entering …

Coop’s is the new barbecue with the buzz. Since opening last October, it’s already garnered one major huzzah (Candice Woo in San Diego Magazine’s “best restaurants” issue for best barbecue). On Yelp, it’s incited an …

They sit in a row: Bad Boy, Duet, Odin’s Raven. We’re talking bottles. Beer. Alpine beer. Yum. “You first,” says Bro Bill. He’s Carla’s brother. “Ladies first,” I say, looking at Marjorie. She’s Bill’s glamorous …

She thought she’d finally found a home. For two decades, Luisa Moreno abandoned her private life and championed the rights of workers. She zigzagged around the country, protesting, organizing, and negotiating for labor unions: garment …

It’s Friday night around 10:00 p.m. and I’m just getting off work. Before I lived on my own, 10:00 p.m. was too late to even think of going out. Now I know nothing good ever …

The Euphoria Brass Band, a New Orleans–jazz outfit, is working out some rhythm parts on a Monday night in the band room at Mission Bay High School. When fully engaged, it is a brassy conflagration. …

Harley Jerks “Dad Was a Bum” (Cover Story, June 16) reminded me that we have no basis to draw facile conclusions regarding total strangers we may encounter during the typical day. We have no idea …

Another contractor picking up some sweet change from the City’s Centre City Development Corporation is the Portland, Oregon landscape architectural firm of Walker Macy, designer of that city’s Pioneer Courthouse Square, which local politicos lust …

Genomic-engineering pioneer Craig Venter appears to be on the verge of officially breaking ground on flashy new offices on state land at the UCSD campus, but university officials are reluctant to tell the public the …

On March 24, San Diegan Laura Perry received a letter from Kerry Steigerwalt’s Pacific Law Center, once San Diego’s best known, most notorious, and most aggressively advertised law firm. Perry, 73, had paid $2000 to …

Lest we forget: Ted Nugent’s three-chord opening to “Cat Scratch Fever” was schoolin’ for a generation of adolescent guitarists during the late 1970s. You didn’t even have to know how to play the rest of …

From his $4.4 million estate behind the gates of Fairbanks Ranch, Nicholas J. Wildgoose couldn’t see the traffic streaming along I-5, one of America’s busiest freeways. But in 2008, the oil trader and his web …

Erik Stage, owner of the Stage in the heart of the Gaslamp, calls the venue “three floors of entertainment in our haunted house of corridors and mezzanines.” In its third year, the Stage recently underwent …

A 56-year-old schoolteacher accused of hosting a drunken teen party this month may not have to appear in court. Although Nancy Hildebrand was arrested just past midnight on June 12 on suspicion of supplying alcohol …

Oceanside’s Nathan James became a blues guitarist by mastering the Piedmont fingerstyle, which produces a complex ragtime sound and is created by thumbing the bass string while picking out a syncopated melody with the fingers. …

Because he was a butcher and thereby Did earn an honest living (and did right), I would not have you think that Reuben Bright Was any more a brute than you or I; For when …

Membership: 124 Pastor: Phyllis Ashe Born: San Francisco Formation: Claremont School of Theology, Claremont; National University, La Jolla Years Ordained: 12 years. San Diego Reader: How long do you spend writing your sermons? Pastor Phyllis …

Therefore, Lord, you have given understanding to faith, grant me that I may come to understand (as much as You think best) that You exist, as we believe, and that You are what we believe …

“After four albums, we’re playing our first show,” says Eric Nielsen of High Mountain Tempel, who’ll make their stage debut June 25 at Kava. A duo featuring Nielsen (Maquiladora, Buzz or Howl) and Keith Boyd, …

For Lee Coulter, who was originally inspired by Simon and Garfunkel and Back to the Future (“I played the tennis racket to the soundtrack”), it’s about the music. And producing. And giving “Rockstar 101” lessons …

Thirty-Five Years Ago<br>[T]he dominating mood among the middle-class graduates is one of passive acceptance of a decayed world, handed to them on a platter beyond meaningful repair. While the middle-class kids tend to view themselves …