It's the blankets (tartines, cupcakes) at Frost Me Café and Bakery
Piazza della famiglia finally open in Little Italy
Ed Bedford 3 p.m., April 25
Musician Interviews
Why the great composers collaborated with ballet
Charles McPherson on composing "A Night of Jazz and Dance
Although alto saxophone master Charles McPherson moved to San Diego in 1978, gigs in his adopted hometown (he was born in Joplin, Missouri, moved to Detroit and ultimately, New York City) are relatively few and ...
Boredom births "Big Booty Butt Cheeks"
Jumbotron showed up late for their own awards ceremony
“We were the dumbasses who showed up late and missed the presentation of our award,” says Edgar Alminar of electronic hip-hop duo Jumbotron, this year’s San Diego Music Awards winner for Best New Artist. Based ...
Dinettes reopen 40 years later
New-wave riders of SoCal punk scene catch 21st-century swell
Before the Go-Go’s became famous, there was the Dinettes, San Diego’s first (and only) all-female new-wave band that was there right alongside San Diego’s first-generation punksters the Zeros, Dils, and Hitmakers. “We weren’t really punk, ...
Harley Magsino ladles it up from a melting pot
“I’m always intrigued with textures and timbre manipulation."
"My music is a fusion of styles, really,” says multi-instrumentalist Harley Magsino. “With Moth & Sons, it’s a style drawn from trip-hop, drum ’n’ bass, ’90s R&B, grunge, and jazz concepts and principles. I’m also ...
Seems any band can work with Joe Troutman
"They had to remove their swastika belt buckles before we let them back in.”
Joe Troutman, one of the few local independent music promoters, has outlasted most the venues he’s booked over 16 years. North County’s Jumping Turtle, Royal Dive (formerly owned by this reporter), Metaphor Café, Del Dios ...
Spooky Cigarette's infectious intersection
"It’s a hardship to live but we want to do it."
Spooky Cigarette has just wrapped up a full-house set at Space Bar. The show was well-attended and the audience more than enthusiastic, yet frontman Frank Mindingall gives off little more than a sense of calm ...
Taz Taylor will drive trucks for rock
"I couldn’t imagine having a job where I’d have to be around other people constantly."
"I have dual British and USA citizenship,” says guitarist Taz Taylor, who grew up in England before moving to San Diego in 1997. Since settling in Imperial Beach, he’s released a series of guitar-centered albums, ...
Space Time to poke hole in San Diego bubble?
"We want the major art mags to talk about what is happening here."
There’s a time and a space for everything. At least, that’s the idea behind art-and-music collective Space Time, which held its first of many events at Barrio Logan’s Bread & Salt in July of 2016. ...
Adam Gnade finds love in this meatgrinder called life
“‘America,’ in the post-colonial sense, was a slaughterhouse from the get-go.”
According to Adam Gnade’s latest album, Life Is the Meatgrinder That Sucks in All Things, recent American history is split into two distinct parts: before and after September 11, 2001. The spoken narrative serves as ...
Paradox Effects — serious gear for those who play
"That's our robot," built from a streetlight, a heater, old speakers, and hoses
The workshop of Paradox Effects looks a lot like what you might picture when you imagine “Tijuana do-it-yourself boutique guitar pedals.” The low-ceiling warehouse overlooks TJ’s affluent Hipódromo neighborhood from the lower-class residential hillside of ...
No man is an island or sky except maybe Daniel Isle Sky
“I didn’t smoke and didn’t drink enough to keep up with my bandmates.”
In the early days of Daniel Isle Sky’s music career, which essentially started by playing piano for church functions, he still managed to make time to earn a degree in aerospace engineering. Soon, however, he ...
