Musician Interviews
“We play a broad mix of acoustic and electronic styles,” says Nathan Samuels, who programs the melodies and beats for downtempo trip-hop trio XIV. The band uses an array of keyboards, guitars, trumpets, and analog …
November marks a decade since singer-songwriter-guitarist Jason Blackmore, known to friends as “Captain Blackie,” left his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, for San Diego. “I didn’t know anybody,” Blackmore says over a beer at the …
Folk troubadour Roy Ruiz Clayton was raised in the steel-mill town of Fontana, California, before moving on his own to San Diego at age 16. “I started writing songs while playing guitar at an early …
On the day that I go to hear the man many hail as San Diego’s preeminent straight-ahead jazz tenor saxist, he is playing piano. Sunday morning at Croce’s is the only gig that Daniel Jackson …
Of Sons and Ghosts are based in North Park and played their debut gig in May 2010. “The band is named after the recent departure of three of our most influential father figures,” says singer-keyboardist …
Longtime San Diego resident Gary Wilson, conceptual artist and second-generation lounge musician, has been an underground legend since his 1977 lounge/soul/freakout debut LP You Think You Really Know Me. His new album, Electric Endicott (named …
“My inspiration growing up was Billy Eckstine and Nat King Cole,” says jazz singer Jesse Davis, whose first solo gig in Las Vegas came courtesy of a recommendation from Frank Sinatra. “I’ve been compared to …
Twelve years ago, Eric Howarth was living in San Francisco and running a label called M-Theory Records, which released albums by Slackjaw, Alien Crime Syndicate, Mars Accelerator, his band Suplex, and, later, Congress of the …
Based in Encinitas, the New Archaic was formed in early 2007 by Joe Harrison (guitar, keys, vocals) and Sean Carroll (drums), friends since grade school. The duo emerged from the local punk scene with their …
It was more years ago than he can remember when Tom Courtney, a blues singer from Texas, became known as Tomcat. “It was some woman in New Mexico that gave me that name,” he says. …
February 1964: The Beatles’ “Do You Want to Know a Secret” and “Love Me Do” dominated the U.S. and U.K. charts. British songwriter Dave Humphries remembers it well — he was there. Humphries moved to …
“We figured out we had enough in common to make music we liked,” says Matt Cliff, bassist for indie-pop rockers the Midwinters. “We started playing shows around San Diego and Southern California in 2006. With …
“I go for a groovy vibe,” says singer-percussionist Debora Galan, “mixing old jazz and Latin jazz standards with lounge music, along with whatever surprises I decide to add in.” Born in Madrid, Spain, Galan says …
“I never sang a note until I was 30 and didn’t even think about a music career until my 40s,” says Ronald Hill, aka Happy Ron. Beginning with open mikes and tutorials found in books …
Primitive Noyes describes their music as “electroniscape pop.” The band’s sound is redolent of those 1960s-era anti-drug films intended to scare junior high school kids away from dope. To wit: “One senses the invocation of …
Based in University Heights, Normandie Wilson is a self-taught pianist who worked as an accompanist in her small West Virginia town from middle school through high school. “I grew up listening to 1960s music — …