A 41-minute Night Parade of One Hundred Demons

Inspired by Krautrock and Japanese psychedelic bands when it launched in 2001, psych rock power trio Earthless features drummer Mario Rubalcaba (Rocket from the Crypt, the Black Heart Procession), guitarist Isaiah Mitchell (Nebula), and bassist Mike Eginton (Electric Nazarene). The band will debut their sixth studio album Night Parade of One Hundred Demons on January 28 via Nuclear Blast, with a winter tour kicking off January 27 at The Echo in L.A. Recorded with Rubalcaba’s childhood friend Ben Moore (Diamanda Galas, Hot Snakes), the album includes a 41-minute title track and a 20-minute song called “Death To The Red Sun.” According to Eginton, “My son and I came across the ‘Night Parade of One Hundred Demons’ in a book of traditional Japanese ghost stories. I like the idea of people hiding and being able to hear the madness but not see it. It’s the fear of the unknown.” Eginton also created the album cover artwork. “I started researching the different Yōkai, the demons, and really got into it. It was really cool reading about where they came from and what their interactions with humans were. Then I tried to create what I imagined the event might look like. I didn’t get a hundred in there, but I got quite a few.”

As a teenager, singer-guitarist Heather Nation was already writing songs for bands, with her first recording studio session taking place while she was still in high school. She’s a founding member of synth-pop band Belladon, which was nominated for Best New Artist at the San Diego Music Awards, and she’s also played with prog-groove rockers Meadow. Her solo single “Selene” dropped in December 2020. A live performance video for “Selene” was produced by Solana Beach music media group Halfway Home Sessions, which debuted the clip on their website. Nation has also taught classes in guitar, vocals, and songwriting, and even during the pandemic she could be found performing on Thursday evenings at Nick and G’s in Rancho Santa Fe. Nation has new single called “Flower,” recorded locally at NONDOH Home Studios, and mixed and mastered by Los Angeles engineer Jules De Gasparis. "It's a self-love anthem," she says, "very locally centered, being that it's somewhat of an all-star cast here locally that made the track happen in the studio." The song was recently debuted in a live performance with her Heather Nation Trio, which pairs Nation with Omar Lopez (The Wailers, B-Side Players, Sure Fire Soul Ensemble) and Fernando Gomez (NONDOH, Gilbert Castellanos, Frankie J).

Singer-songwriter Donna Larsen performs and records acoustic music, having honed her art in the early 2000-teens while running her San Diego Indie Acoustic Original Artist Showcase at area venues such as ArtLab Studios on Adams Avenue. A self-titled Donna Larsen and the Messengers album dropped in 2019. She’s also been writing songs geared for children’s books, which were originally inspired by and created for her own kids, even though her first born child is now in their early 20s. The combination book and CD projects are co-created and self-published with collaborating artists. Her new CD and children’s book set In My Own Back Yard was mastered at Noisy Cricket Studio and will premiere next month in La Mesa. “Amethyst Moon is a cool little mystical shop where the release event will take place on December 11,” says Larsen. “Some of the band members from my band, the Messengers, will be joining me to do a live performance of some of this music, and there will be prizes and discounts on my book and CD set and other in-store items.”

Popular with both the punk and new wave crowds, X-Offenders were a ska-centered band frequently spotted on the local scene in the 1980s. They played area venues such as the Headquarters, Dance City, Journey, the Adams Avenue Theater, and the UCSD gym. Their songs earned airplay with tracks like “Layaway Plan” showing up on local station 91X, and they opened for touring headliners including Simple Minds, Untouchables, and The Call. The band released an EP in 1982 called Keeping Secrets. Members included sax player Joe Asaro (Manual Scan, the Answers), guitarist Frank Glaser (later a cover artist for the Reader), drummer Billy Bischell, bassist Paul Fehlman, keyboardist Felipe Kolbo, and singer Mark Stuart. The youngest member, drummer Billy Bischel, passed away earlier this month.

Grunge pioneers Stone Temple Pilots came together when their late singer Scott Weiland met New Jersey-born bass player Robert DeLeo at a 1986 Black Flag concert in Long Beach. The two Point Loma residents invited DeLeo’s brother Dean to join on guitar and Eric Kretz (who was born in Santa Cruz — as was Weiland, though he was also living in San Diego at the time) became their drummer. Two dead singers later, their 2020 “An Evening With” acoustic tour of North America was cancelled due to newest lead vocalist Jeff Gutt suffering a severely herniated disc. But the injury didn’t prevent their acoustic album Perdida from being released on February 10 — Gutt’s second studio release with the band. This past summer, STP released an expanded 25th anniversary reissue of their third album, Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop and they embarked on a full tour. However: “During routine covid-19 testing of our band and crew, we have discovered that a member of our organization has tested positive for the virus,” announced the group. “Out of an abundance of caution, we must regretfully cancel our remaining shows on this current tour; our appearances in Daytona, Florida at the Welcome to Rockville Festival and Tulsa, Oklahoma at the Skyline Event Center.”