Normal Heights Stories
The Adams Avenue Recreation Council voted Tuesday night to take action seeking curfews at two parks that will allow the police to roust the homeless who are camping there. "Who wants to bring their children ...
“I’ve tripped over that metal piece so many times [that] I stopped counting,” said Sharon, as she walked back to her car that was parked on C Street under the Interstate 5 overpass. “I’ve only ...
“It’s shameful. I don’t feel safe walking in my own neighborhood or even using this park sometimes. You can’t go more than few blocks without seeing people sleeping on the streets.” This was from a ...
Messy, free-ranging, raw-boned music that sometimes comes with an explicit-language warning. Big Thief makes music that hangs together on a thread of workman-like monotony, using chords in progressions that were hoary and predictable way back ...
One of my favorite parts about living in San Diego is that I can be cruising down a street on just about any day and spot a little cart selling tamales. I noticed Tamales el ...
How does one begin to describe Slim Cessna’s Auto Club? The band, forming 25 years ago in Denver, defies categorization, though many have tried. Some have labeled their sound — a wickedly enchanting mix of ...
“We just lost their main flagship,” said Mr. Robinson, a resident who lives one block away from the Pancho Villa supermarket at 3245 El Cajon Boulevard. Robinson said he is “bummed out” by the pollos ...
After a particularly hard crunch was suffered by his car's front end on the really bad pavement in front of his Normal Heights house, Kevin G. used the city's Get It Done app to ask ...
“God invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world,” as Ed McMahon once said, but that hasn’t stopped them from exerting a considerable influence over Normal Heights nightlife. A Guinness-branded butcher board along ...
Since before Little Miss Brewing began churning out beers from its Miramar brewhouse in August, the plan was to open a satellite tasting room in a San Diego urban neighborhood. Now, as the business hits ...
They’re a good three decades late to the dance, but don’t paint them into the retro corner. This is a living, breathing band, fresh, and coming off the launch pad as if they could restart ...
“Welcome to the new America, I guess,” mumbled frontman Joe Casey a few songs into Detroit band Protomartyr’s set the night after Election Day. And then, just off-mic: “What a bummer.” The band launched into ...
Adams Avenue businesses are considering a pitch from a San Francisco Bay Area company that holds pop-up events with food trucks, music, and more to start an event at the Masonic meeting hall on the ...
If one were to travel back to when AOR guitar-rock ruled the charts, they would have a difficult time tracking down a band that featured four guitarists. Welcome to the 24-string world known as Diarrhea ...
At least three of San Diego's joint-use playground parks have limited or eliminated public access to playgrounds in North Park, Normal Heights, and Kensington, and no one knows who is responsible. After three days of ...
Shopping for beer makes me hungry. Actually, it makes me thirsty, the kind of thirst that precipitates going home to try a few of the beers that I just purchased. That in turn makes me ...
When imagining a band composed of two acoustic guitar players and a drummer, most would envision some sort of mellow country or folk group. That ain’t the Yawpers. The Yawpers play acoustic guitars, but they ...
Peter Sprague alone on the small stage is enough. But double down by putting the show in an arts venue where there is no bad seat, and add Leonard Patton, Nina Francis, and Gregory Page ...
With the sudden departure of its founder Dena Harris — who took her four children with her — parents of students at the San Diego Global Vision Academies in Normal Heights say they are worried ...
In January of 1907, the Venice Construction Company optioned from D.C. Collier's Ralston Realty 50 acres of land in a canyon on the northeast end of Adams Avenue overlooking Ward Road in Normal Heights. Water ...
Get it done? Hell, the city apparently can't even count the number of reports coming into the Get It Done app and its companion online complaint system launched barely three months ago. Dozens of reports ...
"Why is this neighborhood named 'Normal Heights'?" is a question asked frequently by residents and non-residents of this neighborhood. Here is the answer: In 1905, when Col. D.C. Collier and the University Heights Syndicate bought ...
So much is (justly) made of barbecue styles. It’s the ultimate sign of a culinary asshat to say, “You can’t get good XYZ-style barbecue outside of XYZ place.” But there’s a nugget of truth in ...
Before Royal Headache started their set, I spotted their bassist, Joe, taking a stab at the NFL Blitz ’99 arcade game nestled in the club’s main room. Perhaps he was using it to learn the ...
Most jobs associated with concerts have been around for years — musician, roadie, sound tech, merch guy. Jimmy Ovadia created a new job description, and he says it’s been his primary means of support for ...
Though she was instrumental in cracking the 2014 case of the serial attacker in North Park and Normal Heights, Carrie Spillane didn't feel right about accepting the $10,000 reward. So she asked the city to ...
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Freak Out!, the first of some 60 Frank Zappa albums. Last weekend a new documentary called Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words was released to ...
Though they come from “the land down unda,” Australia’s Royal Headache has been growing a loyal following in the states. That’s not bad for a quartet two LPs into the game. The group is about ...
Since the state is shaped like a mitten, Michiganders often hold up their left hand so that they can point to where they’re from. Italians are generally too proud to point to a thigh-high boot, ...
Domenic “Nicky” Palermo began recording songs as Nothing about five years ago in Philadelphia. He was depressed and in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Nothing’s initial demo couldn’t be deemed a “bedroom project,” as ...
A work crew recently tearing the stucco face off the old O'Connor's Church Goods building on El Cajon Boulevard uncovered an intricate red brick face that one planning group member said "may be the prettiest ...
Normal Heights and Kensington dog owners took their concerns over the new Ward Canyon–adjacent dog park to the Adams Avenue Recreation Council last week (May 25). The rec council took up the matter in response ...
A little while back, I caught wind that hipster sandwich shop Burnside had rebooted itself with a barbecue theme. As self-appointed local barbecue doyen, a position I realize is somewhat oxymoronic, I knew I had ...
J.D. Wilkes is a backwoods renaissance man. The singer/banjoist/harmonica player may have invented punk bluegrass when he fronted the Legendary Shack Shakers and later, a tamer version of that same ethic with his wife in ...
Detroit quartet Protomartyr delivered a blistering set of post-punk goodness to Soda Bar. The band performed selections from all three of their albums, which the packed house lapped up like enthusiastic Rottweilers. Vocalist Joe Casey’s ...
The first time I heard about the San Diego Association of Governments’ plans to significantly change the street alongside my house was at a planning-group meeting — for a different community. I was stunned for ...
The Normal Heights Community Association, with support from the Adams Recreation Council (and the city's Park and Recreation Department), the Normal Heights Community Planning Group, and the Adams Avenue Business Association worked for nearly a ...
Some history before the interim off-leash dog park opens next month at Ward Canyon Neighborhood Park… Ward Canyon in Normal Heights appeared on maps in 1921 as a "Deep and Steep Grade to Mission Valley," ...
Mikey Belknap’s helium-spiked vocals ended up at Kids in Heat’s lead microphone almost randomly. “My brother Stan was always playing guitar in bands. I wasn’t a musician, just really into skating. I was in Texas ...
Over the years, Black Sabbath has proven to be an easy mark for the creative tribute band. In a recent issue I wrote about Mac Sabbath, a bona fide tribute that, while keeping the music ...
On Wednesday, July 28, 2010, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the new central library in downtown San Diego, one month and 56 years after the current library at Eighth and E Streets opened in ...
On Monday, October 19, the ground for the interim off-leash dog park at Ward Canyon Neighborhood Park in Normal Heights was cleared and leveled and orange temporary fencing set up. There was no official groundbreaking"ceremony, ...
“We are fans of the tiki culture,” says Andy Tolley, who as Captain Coconut plays with Freddy Canoe (Rick Roessler) in TikiTronic. “We’re very retro culture. Bachelor-pad lounge mixed with space age.” It’s not Nick ...
An August 26 email from District 3 councilman Todd Gloria's office to the Normal Heights Community Association provided an update on the plans for an interim off-leash dog park at Ward Canyon Neighborhood Park. A ...
The nature of journalism, even food writing, is to report “news,” not “olds.” The result is that foodies and food writers will often focus on the next food trend or new eating spot at the ...
Last weekend I found myself drinking canned craft beer at an underground synth-pop show in an apartment upstairs from a fabric store on Adams. People at the party seemed pretty energized and were just starting ...
Normal Heights lost a coffee shop in June, then promptly gained a replacement, as the owners of Broke Girls Coffee Bar (3562 Adams Ave) sold their business, brewing equipment and all, and moved on to ...
“Yes, we decided we wanted to play a show because [bassist] John Castro was gonna be in town from NYC,” Rugburns ringleader Steve Poltz revealed to the Reader about the band’s surprise reunion next Tuesday, ...
Normal Heights has been waiting for an off-leash dog park for ten years, and it looks like this year it might get it. Sort of. After holding a dog-park rally in February, collecting 1200 signatures ...
A day of sailing did not end well for a driver towing his boat home late Saturday afternoon on March 21. The boat sailed off its trailer and docked itself along Adams Avenue. Witness Alex ...
“The spice scale is one to ten, but three is medium,” said our server. She looked to be in her early twenties, but she worked the tables in the small, crowded space with the easy, ...
The Normal Heights Community Association is leading a new effort to bring a bona fide dog park to mid-city. The group is set to launch a public relations campaign in hopes of convincing elected officials ...