Roxy reunion

“The Big Stir Powerpop Show was something I first organized last year in San Diego in conjunction with L.A. band the Armoires, who hold monthly Big Stir shows up in North Hollywood,” says singer/guitarist Scott Samuels of the pop festival coming to the Chico Club on February 25. His own band Roxy Monoxide will regroup for the second annual event. “I played last year’s show with my solo set and thought it would be fun to reunite the band this time around.”

The Roxy reunion includes Michael Rennie and Darko Petrovic (who both went on to Rio Peligroso) and Scott Southwood (Hot Gin). “It’s the main core of the original band that was active locally from 2000 to 2009 and performed at several International Pop Overthrow festivals. We’ll be doing several songs off our last album [Another Day Another Episode], as well as a few from an earlier release, the Intuition EP, and a new power-pop tune I wrote called ‘More Than Fine.’”

The bill includes the Armoires, Suite 100, Steve Rosenbaum’s Mess of Fun, and Super Buffet. “Each of these bands shares a love for simple, compact rock tunes, usually not much longer than three or four minutes, with really strong melodies, harmonies in the vocals, and strong choruses and hooks. A lot of rock and roll is heavily blues influenced, but power pop generally is not. It’s happier sounding.”

Samuels’s band Vinyl Pirates has been playing monthly at the Chico Club for several years, making it a natural choice to host. “There’s a specialized fan base for power pop, so it’s difficult to convince a club owner to take a chance on a full night of power pop. That’s why the San Diego version of International Pop Overthrow went AWOL for a few years, before Larry at the Chico Club supported the cause in 2014.”

Though all four returning Roxys live around San Diego, “This is really a one-off reunion,” says Samuels. “But who knows? Maybe if we were invited, and everyone had the time and desire, we could do something up in L.A., either Big Stir or the L.A. International Pop Overthrow.”

With or without Roxy Monoxide, “I think Big Stir San Diego will probably stay an annual event. It runs about six months after the San Diego International Pop Overthrow, so that’s probably plenty of power-pop events for the local market.”