My first concert of the new year invovled catching San Diego’s very own Almost Monday performing a sold-out show in their hometown on a pleasant, mid-January night. The venue was the multi-level Music Box — …

Alt-folk singer-songwriter Anna May moved to San Diego at the tail end of 2024. Her roots are in the northeast, but she has also called Durango, the Bay area, and Nashville her home. Small surprise, …

Rocket from the Crypt (RFTC) is so synonymous with Halloween performances that they should receive a royalty check every time someone carves a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern. The final show of their initial run was …

Jose Anguiana was raised in Little Italy and first discovered rap when he was around five years old. Born in 1980, he had been introduced to the genre by the likes of Run-DMC, The Fat …

Steel Beans is the long-running music project of Washington native Jeremy DeBardi. His story was a familiar one: a local act playing original material to thin crowds for years on end, churning through various lineups …

Rachel Hall grew up in Mobile, Alabama in a family that loved '90s country music: Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Randy Travis. She started playing alto saxophone in fifth grade in order to avoid having to …

Husker Du is one of the few highly successful punk acts of the 1980s that never reunited for a tour. Any chance of the original members coming together ended after their drummer/vocalist Grant Hart passed …

The Fearless Freaks is a 2005 documentary about the long-running Oklahoma City-based alternative rock act The Flaming Lips. When the film came out, the band was already 22 years into its run, but they were …

I don’t know if the Pixies and Spoon have ever toured together before their recent month-long jaunt across the US, but the pairing seems as natural a fit as jeans and a T-shirt. San Diego …

By 2019, local roots rockers Ypsitucky had been playing around town for about five years and were looking forward to recording and releasing an album. Now, six years later, that wish is finally coming true. …

PunchCard’s Chris Vanoli left the Bay Area and moved to San Diego in the mid-2000s. He was following the lead of his brother Mike, who had made the same transition about a year prior. Chris …

The long-running indie/roots band Dispatch made a stop at SDSU’s Open Air Theatre on a Thursday night in late July. With three openers in tow — John Butler and band/G. Love and Special Sauce/Donavon Frankenreiter …

In January of 2021, Max Lenail drowned in the San Diego River while attempting to cross over a swollen section of the water near the Jackson Drive entrance of Mission Trails Regional Park. He had …

A lot of people may know about The Rightovers without exactly knowing about The Rightovers. That's because a release by Conceptus, the 2010s Chris Tomorrow project that morphed into The Rightovers, can be seen on …

Local bands Pleasure Pill and Benches spent two weeks performing together on a tour that stretched from the Pacific Northwest to the mountain states before returning to southern California for a performance at Little Italy’s …

New York City's They Might Be Giants (TMBG) rolled into town recently for a two-night stand at The Observatory in North Park. I caught the second night’s performance (May 14) which featured an (un-announced) heaping …

Heath Cooley’s took his first stab at playing the drums when he was around 10 years old. He requested a full set — and got a snare and mandatory lessons instead. “I hated it,” he …

Former Brick By Brick, Kadan, and Radio Room owner Chris Heaney (and two of his ice-hockey buddies) purchased the old Second Wind bar in San Carlos circa 2015. Their new venue, Navajo Live, focused on …

North County’s Space Motor was active for just a short time, a blip that spanned from 2019 to early 2020. “We had some fast songs,” says drummer Scott Taylor (Whole Hog). “We kind of did …

Over the past 50 years, there have been just six instances of measurable rainfall in San Diego on April 26. So you would think the decision to stage an outdoor festival in Del Mar on …

San Diego’s premier group of baseball-adjacent rockers Rookie Card is back with their its full-length album in close to 20 years. Led by singer/guitarist Adam Gimbel, the band was part of a collection of alt-country …

Video:GONZO REPORT: Frank Black goes solo again at The MagnoliaOn a chilly Sunday night in January, I took my maiden voyage to The Magnolia to catch Frank Black play a solo gig with a full …

After graduating from Coronado High School in 1980, Bradshaw Lambert took some classes, first at Southwestern and then at Mesa College, before finally ending up at San Diego City College in their radio program. There, …

Jordan Krimston’s last solo album, 2023’s Somewhere I Might Go, was released on Boston’s Counter Intuitive Records. He was busy with other projects at the time, and decided that since this was his first album …

Video:BLURT: Michael Rennie brings the music home for Palo Verde House concertsMichael Rennie cut his teeth playing in local bands Roxy Monoxide, AM Vibe, and INIGO in the 2000s. By the end of that decade, …

Most neighborhood conflicts over live music involve loud bands that drive the neighbors nuts. But an unusual battle has been brewing in Ramona for over a year now, one involving musicians who most often perform …

Video:BLURT: Jazz guitarist Alex Ciavarelli pays tribute to pianist Oscar PetersonAlex Ciavarelli’s first instrument was the violin, but he stopped playing by the time he was ten. “My parents said they would give me some …

Video:GONZO REPORT: Goose may have indie vibes, but they’re still a jam bandGoose had been kicking around for five years by the time they played the jam-band heavy 2019 Peach Music Festival in Scranton, Pennsylvania. …

Angel Mariscal had a short-lived stint playing the piano when he was in elementary school. “The teacher would be, like, ‘Play this,’ and then I would want to go outside to play with my friends. …

Most people don’t notice power lines unless there’s a problem with them. And as a kid, I was like most people — until my dad pointed up at the lines as we drove the backroads …

Jerry Flack’s lifelong devotion to music was sealed at an early age. “I was three or four and my father’s band was practicing in the living room, and they were playing ‘Day Tripper’ by The …

Video:BLURT: Play "Name That Tune" with The Beard and the BirdJon Hasz met his future wife, Cathryn (Cat) Curry Hasz, at a music store in Ramona when they were both still in high school. “She …

Greg Jacobs met John Reis when they both worked at Cargo Records in the early ‘90s. Jacobs had previously worked for the legendary Los Angeles-based label SST and its subsidiary, Cruz Records in the late …

Local art-punks King Whisker filmed a video for their new single “Utopia” in late spring. The song is a commentary on how the world and life can be simultaneously beautiful and brutal. To hammer home …

Video:GONZO: House of Blues’ Voodoo Room hosts Mind’s EyeA cursory look at the downtown House of Blues’ calendar reveals that the venue has been booking nearly as many acts into their smaller events space (the …

The rise in popularity of e-bikes around San Diego County has grown so much over the past couple of years that it seems more commonplace to find cyclists utilizing them on the local roads than …

Tourmaline is a legendary surf spot nestled between Windansea and North Pacific Beach; longboarders flock to it for its mellow break. So if you’re familiar with San Diego surfing culture, you’d probably think that a …

Peak Covid-19 was a tough time for Rob “Roob” Blackwell. “I, like many people, started struggling with pretty significant mental health issues during the lockdown,” Blackwell explains. “I have always had major depressive disorder, and …

Video:GONZO: Neil Young performing "Harvest Moon" at Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theater on 4/24/2024I caught a Neil Young show last summer when he performed at the Rady Shell as part of his Coastal …

Rand Anderson’s parents were big country fans. So naturally, he rebelled against the sound at first, and embraced punk and metal. But eventually, he returned to the fold. He even played with the Phoenix outfit …

Blair Gun’s Joedin Morelock and Zach Cavor started writing songs together in 2020. “We had just met up and we were jamming with some different musicians,” Morelock recalls, “but Zach and I really connected on …

Owl Be Damned took its time getting out of the nest. In the late ‘10s, singer Douglas Thompson (Low and Be Told, The Marsupials) pitched drummer Ben Johnson (The Long and Short of It, Hostile …

Video:Save Ferris was signed to Epic Records in the mid-’90s, after fellow Orange County ska band No Doubt rocketed up the chartsSka music has a habit of popping up every decade or so to ride …

Video:BLURT: Anya True ditches school to battle on The VoiceSeventeen-year-old Anya True says she has been singing pretty much since she could speak. She picked up playing the guitar when she was five and, two …

Island civilizationWithin the Coronado Ferry Landing, you will find Coronado Tasting Room. Purveyors of Craft Spirits, Extra Virgin Olive Oils, Balsamic Vinegars, Spices and Gourmet Foods. Every other Wednesday evening, Michael Gonzales (aka Gonzo) and …

Some musicians see forming a tribute group as a way to get into the music industry. Copping someone else’s successful act may seem their only chance at earning a bit of applause, adulation, and — …

Video:BLURT: Archie Thompson sings “My My My Little Baby” from the Bill Burr film Old DadsArchie Thompson’s music-intensive life is back in full swing after being derailed by Covid for a couple of years. His …

When Ryan Ruff was in high school, his two best friends were in a band that couldn’t find a bass player. Somehow, he missed the sign the universe was holding up. “I should have picked …

Clayton Payne and Ryan Fischer met when they were both serving as drummers for The Liquorsmiths, a folk-rock trio led by singer/guitarist Drew Thams. After that band’s run came to an end, the duo continued …

<a href="http://www.sandiegoreader.com/bands/matthew-phillips/">Matthew Phillips</a> has his grandmother to thank for starting him on his musical journey. “She had a piano at her house,” he recalls. “I would go and play when I was a young kid …