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

Every day is Sunday for Slackers

San Diego ex-pat saxman returns with his rocksteady act

David Hillyard (third from right) can't wait to get back, sink his teeth into a carne asada burrito!
David Hillyard (third from right) can't wait to get back, sink his teeth into a carne asada burrito!

The Slackers from New York City have a San Diego connection: meet David Hillyard, the band’s sax player. Now 45, he was born here and raised in a neighborhood in the northern part of La Jolla. “I saw English Beat at the Del Mar Fairgrounds back when ‘Save It for Later’ was a hit. I’ll venture that was, what, 1983? Hearing the sax on the Beat excited me. My parents bought me a second-hand alto sax, and I went to work on it.” Hillyard studied saxophone briefly at La Jolla Music. “I had one lesson with Joe Marillo, and I remember he wasn’t too pleased with my playing.”

Sponsored
Sponsored
Video:

"My Bed Is a Boat"

The Slackers video of the title track off of their latest EP.

The Slackers video of the title track off of their latest EP.

By the time Hillyard was 17, he was playing with the Donkey Show, which led to a gig with Hepcat, one of the biggest ska acts of the '90s. He lived in Los Angeles then and went to UCLA. “L.A. was a bigger pond, a place to test myself in a bigger setting. San Diego was a tough town to get gigs for an original-music band like the Donkey Show. It’s a cover-band town.” In 1992, Hillyard moved to Brooklyn.

Past Event

The Slackers

Cathartic is a word that has been used to describe the Slackers’ live shows, of which they do at least 100 per year. Their sound is trombone-and-sax-driven and rich with cross-beat rhythms. There’s ska, reggae, soul, and rock set to fairly low-fi issues: “Every day is Sunday,” Vic Ruggiero sings, “when you’re unemployed.” The water in New York is even deeper, says Hillyard, who now lives closer to Manhattan. “There’s hundreds of sax players here, and they can slap you around if they want to.” He says he’s looking forward to playing North Park and hitting up a Mexican eatery. “The one thing — aside from family and friends — that I miss about San Diego, is a carne asada burrito.”

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

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

Laurence Juber, Train Song Festival, Ancient Echoes: 10,000 Years of Beer

Events November 8-November 9, 2024
Next Article

Gonzo Report: Gentrification is scarier than Bandhaunt

But Queen Bee’s show still spooks North Park
David Hillyard (third from right) can't wait to get back, sink his teeth into a carne asada burrito!
David Hillyard (third from right) can't wait to get back, sink his teeth into a carne asada burrito!

The Slackers from New York City have a San Diego connection: meet David Hillyard, the band’s sax player. Now 45, he was born here and raised in a neighborhood in the northern part of La Jolla. “I saw English Beat at the Del Mar Fairgrounds back when ‘Save It for Later’ was a hit. I’ll venture that was, what, 1983? Hearing the sax on the Beat excited me. My parents bought me a second-hand alto sax, and I went to work on it.” Hillyard studied saxophone briefly at La Jolla Music. “I had one lesson with Joe Marillo, and I remember he wasn’t too pleased with my playing.”

Sponsored
Sponsored
Video:

"My Bed Is a Boat"

The Slackers video of the title track off of their latest EP.

The Slackers video of the title track off of their latest EP.

By the time Hillyard was 17, he was playing with the Donkey Show, which led to a gig with Hepcat, one of the biggest ska acts of the '90s. He lived in Los Angeles then and went to UCLA. “L.A. was a bigger pond, a place to test myself in a bigger setting. San Diego was a tough town to get gigs for an original-music band like the Donkey Show. It’s a cover-band town.” In 1992, Hillyard moved to Brooklyn.

Past Event

The Slackers

Cathartic is a word that has been used to describe the Slackers’ live shows, of which they do at least 100 per year. Their sound is trombone-and-sax-driven and rich with cross-beat rhythms. There’s ska, reggae, soul, and rock set to fairly low-fi issues: “Every day is Sunday,” Vic Ruggiero sings, “when you’re unemployed.” The water in New York is even deeper, says Hillyard, who now lives closer to Manhattan. “There’s hundreds of sax players here, and they can slap you around if they want to.” He says he’s looking forward to playing North Park and hitting up a Mexican eatery. “The one thing — aside from family and friends — that I miss about San Diego, is a carne asada burrito.”

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

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

Blasphemous Boheme at San Diego Opera

Conceptual production rips out opera's beating heart
Next Article

Halloween opera style

Faust is the quintessential example
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