Joshua Taylor picked up guitar when he was 12 years old. However, by high school, music had been relegated to hobby status, as AP classes and the track team became a priority. After he graduated, …

The city of La Mesa is planning to turn a 2.84-acre lot on the northwest corner of Waite Drive and Murray Hill Road (just north of Highway 94 near Massachusetts Avenue) into a new community …

The 24th annual Rolando Street Fair is set to go down for the first time in two years on Sunday, March 20. On the music front, five bands are scheduled to play on the main …

There was a five-year span in Greg Vaughan’s childhood that was little more than a whirlwind of commitments. He was playing soccer and baseball; pursuing his interests in music via voice, piano, and guitar lessons; …

Bluegrass beginnings: Mandolinist Randy Hanson first met guitarist Mark Miller in 2012 at Cliff Keller’s San Diego Songwriters MeetUp. At the weekly gathering, the two were paired up and given a song title, “Every Second,” …

On January 29, 2021, Max Lenail was finishing a long run around Mission Trails Regional Park when he attempted to cross the San Diego River near the Visitor Center Loop trail. It was a stormy …

La Mesa goes live : “My mom was on welfare,” says Dean Velasco, who was raised in a La Mesa household with little money. “We had government cheese, and when we ran out of that, …

I caught a Stones N’ Roses set at Soda Bar on November 1. Their Guns N’ Roses costumes would have been more fitting on the previous evening, but their mash-up of GNR, The Stone Roses, …

The year 2020 was a transitional one for Belladon. The progressive-pop quintet released two interconnected four-song concept EPs over the summer. Dreaming arrived first in May, followed by Dreading in July. Nearly simultaneously, the group …

Aaron Carnes started working on a book about ska in 2013. He didn’t have a game plan; he just loved the genre and “wanted to contribute something about ska to the narrative that was lacking.” …

Remember taxis? Those orange, yellow and, to a lesser extent, blue, white and silver automobiles that you would hail from a sidewalk or commandeer via voice call to transport you from one location to another? …

On a Saturday morning in mid-September, I drove to the Park de la Cruz skatepark in City Heights to meet up with a crew of skaters. The sun was shining bright, but it felt like …

San Diego rock stalwarts Mrs. Henry were about to embark on a west coast tour when Covid shut down the live music industry. So they pivoted, creating and releasing a couple of YouTube episodes of …

When she was in sixth grade, Stefanie Schmitz didn’t put much thought into her decision to play the clarinet. “I just sort-of picked it,” she explained. “I didn’t really know what to pick, and it …

“We didn’t pick the best year to start but we survived it,” is how San Diego Loyal interim president Ricardo Campos sums up getting a division-two United Soccer League team up and running in 2020. …

The California Geological Survey released new earthquake fault zone maps in late September – and San Diego-area homeowners may be surprised to learn their property sits atop a fault. A press release from the agency …

If you’re still unsure about the level of influence that gaming culture exerts on present-day society, take a moment to consider this fact: there is now an entire ecosystem of bands whose sole purpose is …

Writer, film director, and Casbah manager Ben Johnson thought the manuscript for the final installment of his Webworld trilogy, Children of the Web, was in final draft form. Then he passed it to his beta-readers …

Super Buffet smorgasbord: After teasing two songs as a single on Big Stir Records this past spring, North County’s Super Buffet self-released their debut full-length, Self Styled, in July. The majority of the recording was …

Javi Nunez was into gothic metal and punk before he dove into deathrock, a subgenre of punk and goth that originated on the west coast circa 1980. The crossover act for him was Rudimentary Peni, …

Circa 2006, Sam Lopez was in a band, playing what he refers to as “straight music” and feeling as if he had reached a plateau. He felt he needed to take his music in a …

Even though it won’t reach attendance levels that put it in competition with the likes of Wonderfront and Kaaboo, the first music festival in the San Diego region since the pandemic started is about to …

Breakdance with Olympic prospects Kearny Mesa/Old Town Breakdancing will be an official sport at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, and local b-girls and b-boys have been practicing breakdance maneuvers in hopes of repping Team USA. …

On January 29, the San Diego River took the life of Max Lenail. The 21-year-old was at the tail-end of a long run through Mission Trails Regional Park when the weather took a turn for the worse …

The inaugural Wonderfront Music and Arts Festival was held in late-November, 2019. In the weeks running up to the event, Wonderfront organizer Ernie Hahn (who also serves as the general manager of the Pechanga Arena) …

Steve Rosenbaum can trace his journey as a musician back to two sources. The first was receiving a toy guitar and the second was The Banana Splits TV show. One fateful day, he was in …

If you heard Jordan Krimston’s history of playing in bands, you would likely assume he was a grizzled, local music scene vet in his mid-50s. The 23-year-old has played in more groups over the past …

Mike Kociela’s old band, New World Spirits, got signed to Universal Records in the mid-90s. They were chewed up and spit out by the label a couple of years later. By 1997, he had formed …

Once upon a time, playlists were nothing more than a collection of songs grouped together on your iPod whose only purpose was to make your workouts less miserable. The value of playlists has changed drastically …

The San Diego River Crossing Trail intersects the Visitor Center Loop Trail just to the northwest of Mission Trails Regional Park’s Visitor Center. It’s your typical fire road with a moderately steep grade. On February …

The Beat Farmers’ debut album Tales of the New West was recorded in the summer of 1984 with a bare-bones budget of $4500 — the majority of which was spent on a single-day marathon session …

“Here’s a little history,” said Paul Smith. “We started up in 2008. It was the Ruby Room up until about 2013, and then switched over to the Merrow. Not necessarily starting over, but building up …

Late last April, City of San Diego parks that had been closed since the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic began to re-open. As gyms stayed shutdown and tennis and basketball courts remained off-limits, people began …

You remember The Inept, right? The band composed of five English teenagers that played a handful of gigs in the small town next to their boarding school in the mid-80s. Ring a bell yet? They …

Nick Costa became interested in guitar when he was ten years old. He noticed a friend that he admired playing one and thought he looked cool. Lessons commenced and he became skilled at the instrument …

Since March, the only students and personnel permitted on the campus of Palomar College have been those connected to the nursing program. The enforcement is so strict that it took Rob “DJ Roob” Blackwell a …

Christmas Jerk I managed to avoid being homeless on Christmas Eve 1979, but just barely. Unemployed since that summer, I found a cheap flophouse on 12th and Island where 70 bucks a month got me …

Brendan Boyle began his vinyl education while working at a record shop in Sacramento. Following that, he went solo and spent about ten years selling vinyl online. The combined experiences gave him a 20-year education …

Wanted Noise is a bit of throwback to the free-for-all attitude that bands such as The Minutemen personified. The execution of their songs falls comfortably under the punk rock umbrella, but the influences at play …

Look for the online list of Best Of voting winners soon. We have printed and re-stocked extra copies of this week's print version where the Best Of voting winners are listed. Best place in San …

Katryn Macko met Ryan Stanley while they were both living in Tallahassee and attending Florida State University. Macko worked at a venue called Club Down Under, which was run by a student organization. She describes …

Encinitas to the core, that’s what Tate Sanderson is. He was raised in the North County beach community and has returned to live there. He pays homage to his hometown roots with “Back In Encinitas.” …

By the time Jefferson Jay started hosting the Thursday night open-mic at Winstons, he was already an old pro. At that point, Jay already had a long history of running these events at venues that …

Say goodbye to 30th Street as it is “You guys are just thinking about North Park residents shopping here and eating at your shops,” she said. “You’re not thinking about the people coming from down …

If you are one of the millions of Americans whose couch and flatscreen have transformed into personal, makeshift AMC theaters, you may have already rented the Pete Davidson film, The King of Staten Island. Local …

Friday the 13th of March capped off a week that most Americans will never forget. The NBA had shut down the remainder of their season that Wednesday, and the NHL followed suit the next day. …

When California enacted Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) at the beginning of 2020, the music industry braced for a heavy shake-up. The law created a new standard (the ABC test) that employers would have to meet …

The world of live music came to an abrupt halt in mid-March as concerts large and small were canceled. While most of the local attention centered on the postponement of major events such as Coachella …

The Mother Hips formed in Chico, California in the early 90s. They were operating against the grain from the start — most of the bands in their college town were playing covers. They set out …

Yale Strom first learned of Lou Curtiss back in the 1970s. He attended the folk festivals that Curtiss held annually at San Diego State University. Strom’s father encouraged Yale to ditch high school to attend …