Idiot Glee is 23-year-old Kentuckian James Friley, a one-man-band who surrounds himself with keyboards, effects, and a looping device. But it would be inaccurate to say that Friley is Idiot Glee, or even a gleeful …

Speedo, Slasher, the Swami, and John Reis are all the same person, but each one does something different. Reis, a Pacific Beach native, has performed in Hot Snakes, Pitchfork, Drive Like Jehu, and the Night …

“I have this dream,” Claire Magner says, looking around the partially renovated insides of the Sunset Temple. “I’m really gonna make this Claire World.” If all goes according to plan, the 300-seat meeting hall on …

Colourmusic, from Stillwater, Oklahoma, is said to be Wayne Coyne’s favorite new band. Coyne is the frontman for the Flaming Lips, is also from Oklahoma, and is often seen crowd-surfing arenas during concerts from within …

Troubadour magazine will celebrate its tenth anniversary in the midst of what they describe as a folk-music renaissance. American porch music, says publisher Liz Abbott, meaning acoustic blues, country, folk, and bluegrass is being made …

Playing White Hills through desktop speakers or earbuds won’t cut it. This is a live band, and it takes a wall of giant speakers to get the full White Hills experience. This New York band …

“I tried to rescue the Starlight Bowl because I saw the amazing potential a venue like that had,” says Chris Leyva after learning that managers of the 4000-plus seat amphitheater had recently filed bankruptcy. “I …

Lorin Ashton’s transformation into Bassnectar the DJ began when he was a teen. “Being 16 and playing guitar in my death-metal band was an amazing way to learn the ins and outs of harnessing energy …

Fearless Records, a California-based alt-rock label, has announced the signing of homegrown rockers Pierce the Veil. “We are excited and grateful to be part of the family,” says singer Vic Fuentes. Pierce the Veil was …

Los Amigos Invisibles was discovered by accident. Their story begins in Venezuela in 1991. There they found a hometown audience still hungry for ’80s American disco, complete with glittery synth blasts, ubiquitous slap bass, and …

There are two things that Colin Bryce Fraser III would like you to know about him: he would very much like not to be homeless and he and his band Mercury Legion are filming a …

The Butthole Surfers proved they weren’t just another punk band with a foul name when they released Electriclarryland in 1996. “Pepper” was a chart topper then, and it still gets radio play. “Some will die …

“Alberta Cross hasn’t had an original idea since the day they started,” if you follow music blogs or the rock press. The Cross sound is favorably compared to Van Morrison, the Black Crowes, the Band, …

“We spent almost eight years in the lady’s room in Aztec Center.” Skot Norton, KCR faculty/staff advisor, makes no joke when he describes the many humble locations on campus that the KCR studios have been …

“I never got to interview him because [doctors] had taken his voice away, and I didn’t want to do that.” When Leucadia-based filmmaker Clint Burkett began work on a documentary about Steve White last year, …

Dave Alvin, the Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, guitarist, and younger brother of Phil Alvin, was at one time a Pleasure Baron. The Barons were a San Diego band formed in 1989 by Country Dick Montana, who …

Larry and His Flask are rehabilitated punks from Oregon. What was started as a scream-fest trio is now a six-piece fleshed-out hillbilly band that puts a torch to bluegrass and country and folk. The kicker …

There will be no Beastie Boys music played at Geezer’s weekend poolside gigs at the Handlery this summer. “We’re trying,” says singer-guitarist Adam Gimbel, “to turn it down a little for the family-ness of it.” …

This year there were two milestones in Richard Livoni’s life. He turned 60 in July and, following a hiatus of nearly 30 years, he decided to resurrect rock trio the Blitz Brothers. “We’re gonna do …

Slightly Stoopid says the band is a master of the “stealth groove.” That’s when you sneak a melodic hook or two into a long-winded jam. Otherwise, the laid-back Jack Johnson imprint abides. More skatepunk in …

Punk Love. “It actually started as a joke,” says Kyle Pagel. He is a promoter of punk shows and part owner of an indie punk label in Riverside called Muy Autentico. “There’s a guy we …

If hell has a jukebox, it plays black metal. Taken as a whole, the genre’s anti-Christian, pro-Satan polemic — with distorted guitars, bursts of drumming, and vocals that resemble the howling of a tormented beast …

Continental is Rick Barton’s newest band. They are presently on the road and would like to crash at your house. It says so on their Facebook page. “We have sleeping bags, will need floor space.” …

“We’re not just a weed station that talks about weed all day.” Michael “Ras Mike” Callahan is co-owner of Nug Radio (NugRadio.com), an offshoot of marijuana advocacy publication NUG Magazine. Call­ahan’s broadcast partners include NUG …

In June, two guitarists from San Diego advanced to the district finals in the nationwide King of the Blues competition sponsored by Guitar Center. Of them, 17-year-old Joshua Vasquez of Chula Vista eliminated Scripps Ranch …

“Mexican food is huge. It’s definitely what I miss. I still bring tortillas with me back to New York.” When Brooklyn-based Sandra Velasquez and her band Pistolera host a CD-release party July 22 at Balboa …

A rockumentary about London-born Paul Hudson has been in the works for years. Hudson, 55, better known as H.R. (Human Rights), formed Bad Brains with his brother Earl Hudson, Dr. Know (Gary Miller), and Darryl …

Kelly Crisp and Ivan Howard were married the week they formed the Rosebuds while still at college in North Carolina. Merge Records released their folk-rock debut, The Rosebuds Make Out, in 2003. Two CDs later, …

The Euphoria Brass Band, a New Orleans–jazz outfit, is working out some rhythm parts on a Monday night in the band room at Mission Bay High School. When fully engaged, it is a brassy conflagration. …

Lest we forget: Ted Nugent’s three-chord opening to “Cat Scratch Fever” was schoolin’ for a generation of adolescent guitarists during the late 1970s. You didn’t even have to know how to play the rest of …

Oceanside’s Nathan James became a blues guitarist by mastering the Piedmont fingerstyle, which produces a complex ragtime sound and is created by thumbing the bass string while picking out a syncopated melody with the fingers. …

“I see Tommy Castro maybe once a year,” says Michael Kinsman, “and he always says, when are we gonna do another blues fest in San Diego?” Castro, a Bay Area blues artist, performed at two …

Critics called A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out electro-dance and emo and vaudeville, but I heard power pop. In many ways, Panic! at the Disco reminded me of the Nerves, a 1970s pre-new-wave band that …

Lollipop, the Meat Puppets’ new country-rockish CD, isn’t even close to the sun-baked 1990’s desert thrash that defined the trio. If you’re looking for anything akin to 1994’s Too High to Die, you won’t find …

“Rock and roll didn’t officially come to San Diego State University until the Buffalo Springfield concert in 1968. That was the first show that was actually called a rock and roll concert.” Jamie Lennox, 28, …

“Some people said they wouldn’t even listen to us because of the band name.” Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. is Josh Epstein and Daniel Zott, a Detroit-based indie-pop duo. Their first EP was called Horse Power, …

“I just did music for fun back then,” says Sara Petite. “About six years ago, Martin from the Ould Sod asked me if I wanted to play at their amnesty benefit.” Petite and drummer John …

You can’t make this stuff up: Acrassicauda, a Saddam-era Iraqi thrash band, survived the war but lost their equipment — and the entire building they practiced in — to a missile strike. They suffered death …

“I couldn’t do it anymore.” After eight years, owner Jason Nascimento closed the doors to Portugalia, his Portuguese restaurant on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach. The last Live Wednesday was held there on May 18, …

“I don’t stay in touch with Mike as much as I probably should,” Texas blues guitarist Anson Funderburgh says by phone from Dallas. “You just never know where Mike is,” meaning Mike Judge, UCSD grad …

The current Serious Guise lineup has been around since 1996, but the band’s roots go back to 1986. Serious Guise includes founding guitarist Dennis Gonzales, Rick Williams on drums and vocals, guitarist-vocalist Mark Griffin, and …

In 2007, the pop-music writers at MTV thought Yeasayer was a great band. They couldn’t say enough good things about them, and they thought that the band had gotten lost and went unnoticed amidst all …

“We’re gonna have live music, but we’re gonna change the atmosphere,” says Colin Wickersheim. “Not so much the heavy metal anymore.” In December, Wickersheim’s wife Shelby, owner of Canvas Hair Studio on Garnet Avenue in …

“I’m not gonna kick somebody out because they’re selling something other than punk,” says Josh Barnes, “but that’s kind of it,” he says about the Shakedown’s punk-record swap meets. “But punk,” he says, “covers a …

Are the majority of country-western songs built on heartache and misery? “I would say it drives a lot of the genre, for sure,” says Bob Ryan. “Just like blues. A lot of times you get …

The blues-man’s stock-in-trade: endless metaphors for infidelity. “I got a feeling you’re eating out now, baby,” sings five-time Grammy winner Robert Cray, “and someone else is doing the fryin’.” But when Cray sings, it’s not …

“The music scene is going downhill. It’s gone downhill,” says former Battalion of Saints band leader Chris Smith in the opening seconds of the trailer for the coming feature film Garageland. Dated by his bottle-blonde …

“We haven’t been a band for seven years.” Kitten with a Whip founder Audrey Moesch says that, aside from the occasional reunion gig, the Kitten has been silent until now. “We did a birthday gig …

The concept was simple: Brothers Zac and Ethan Holtzman wanted to find a Cambodian singer and relive ’60s Cambodian pop. Things clicked into place when Chhom Nimol, a singer working a Cambodian lounge in Long …

Haley Allen started playing drums at age nine. As alumnus of the Hollywood School of Rock, she says Kevin Fig (drummer for Extreme and Perry Farrell) showed her the ropes. Allen, now 22, says she …