Wednesday 5/20 - Join me Backstage at The Bitter End every Wednesday for AMAZING music, no cover.  This week is especially tasty.  8:00 Alex Esther, 8:30 Jenna Mammina, 9:00 V Child, 10:00 Code, 11:00 Bobby Pena and The Stowaways

MUSIC NEWS

 Artist of the Week:  V Child makes their Listen Local debut and I can't wait to hear them live after enjoying their myspace tunes.  Catch them Backstage at The Bitter End at 9pm this Wednesday.

 Link of the Week:  Paul Green's School of Rock has long since been one of my favorite organizations and now I love them even more.  Because they appreciate the work we do, they offered a lucky Listen Local kid a 4 month scholarship to their program... an amazing opportunity!  I was happy to select one of my favorite musical kids, one Ms. Dakota Berkley as the first recipient.  There is a chance another scholarship will be awarded later this year or next.  If you have a child in mind, email me and I'll put their name in the "hat".  Thanks again School of Rock, love what you do!

 Good news people!  Rosey from SD:Dialed In has agreed to send us a "pick of the week" each week.  From Rosey:  "This week's pick is happening at Beauty Bar on Friday night. Featuring locals The Silent Comedy who will make you appreciate that we can drink freely now, their prohibition era sound will certainly make you raise your glasses high and scream "I am alright!" right along with them. San Diego's River City is opening the bill with some great local alt-country tunes and sandwiching San Francisco's Or, The Whale who you might not have heard of yet, but once you see them, you won't soon forget'em. Expect to see some crossover and dual band medleys at this show. 5.22.09, $5, Beauty Bar."

 The Shamey Jays debut album "Your Pretty Packages" will be released this Saturday night at a "Real Big Rock Show and CD Release" at The Brick By Brick with special guest appearance by Joey Harris, Anna Troy Band, Bedpost Buzzards, Endoxi and circus performers from Technomania Circus. (seriously? cool!) 

 

 Happy Ron says "I'm playing Mueller College at 7:00 next Saturday the 23rd with the Pitter Patters.  I'm playing early so I can go see the Shamey Jays later in evening."  Happy rules.

 Astra Kelly released this today: Clickity, click click...Astra Kelly passes the Homegrown torch! Tune in this Saturday night to 102.1 from 9pm-10pm (5/23/09) to find out who's taking over!  

 Catch Locked out of Eden at  O'Connell's May 19th, love this band!
 
 Kenny Eng hits the west coast for a little tour, check out the schedule and alert your friends!  "It's gonna be a fun tour. I'm heading out with my good friend/singer/songwriter (and owner of a functioning GPS) Ivan Cheong. Hilarity will ensure and it will all be captured on film (or at least in our memories). Be sure to check my youtube page for a tour vlog."  Drive safe, kids! 

 Link of the Week: The North Park Music Thing is still accepting bands for San Diego's own version of SXSW, which happens the weekend of August 7-9th.  All artists interested in performing must submit their music and an online promotional package, along with a $15 submission fee online via Sonic Bids.  Apply NOW here.  If you would prefer to send a package by regular mail, please click here for the performers application. Please send the registration form along with a non-refundable $25 submission fee to:  North Park Music Thing, c/o San Diego Music Foundation, 4876 Mount Royal Place, San Diego, CA 92117.  Promo packages, CD, DVDs etc will NOT be returned.  Selected artists will be notified no later than July 1, 2009 if they have been selected to perform.

 Thanks guys!  The San Diego Music Foundation (the crew in charge of The San Diego Music Awards and The North Park Music Thing) just added a page to the Music Award's site which explains eligibility and gives more info about the whole nomination process for the big event in September. 

 5/31 - The Couch Sessions still has a few spots left for featured artists.  Everyone else is invited to sing and/or play along with featured acts, watchers are welcomed, too!  At The Oasis in Sorrento Valley.  $5, refreshments available.  RSVP for info and directions

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From a Queen song to a better music search engine

New song dissection technology from UC San Diego

		IMAGE: A screen shot from the trivia game on Herd It, the new music discovery game on Facebook http://apps.facebook.com/herd-it/ created by electrical engineers at UC San Diego.... Click here for more information.

The system "listens" to songs it has never heard before, labels them based on the actual sounds in the song, and then retrieves songs, as appropriate, when people type descriptive words—like "mellow jazz"—into the team's experimental search engine.

At ICASSP, UC San Diego electrical engineering Ph.D. student Luke Barrington presented a new model for music segmentation that can capture both the sound of a song and how this sound changes over time. By modeling music in this way, Barrington showed how to automatically segment songs such as Bohemian Rhapsody into homogenous sections such as verses, choruses and bridges. This new approach to training computers to dissect songs into heterogeneous segments and then accurately label each chunk could improve the accuracy of the new music search engine built by engineers from the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. View the paper here: http://cosmal.ucsd.edu/cal/pubs/Barrington-MusicDTM-ICASSP09.pdf

The team's nickname for their experimental music search engine is "Google for music". Users type descriptive words—rather than song titles, album names or artist names—and the search engine returns specific song suggestions. The engine currently works for more than 100 words that cover music genres, emotions and instruments. The Jacobs School engineers are working to expand the search engine's "vocabulary" before opening it up to the public later this year.

		IMAGE: A screen shot from Herd It, the new music discovery game on Facebook http://apps.facebook.com/herd-it/ created by electrical engineers at UC San Diego. Click here for more information.

In order to "teach" the search engine new words, the engineers need to show it many different examples of songs that fit that description. Initially, the engineers paid UC San Diego undergraduates to manually label songs that would serve as training materials for machine learning algorithms. But instead of continuing to rely on this expensive option, the engineers built online music games that encourage people connected via the Internet to do the song labeling while listening to music online.

In April, the electrical engineers launched their games on Facebook as an application called Herd It. http://apps.facebook.com/herd-it

To play Herd It, log in to Facebook, open the Herd It app, select a genre of music, and start listening to song clips and playing the games. Some games ask users to identify instruments, while others focus on music genres, artist names, emotions triggered by the song, and activities you might do while listening to a song. The more your answers align with the rest of the online crowd playing the game at the same time, the more points you score.

"The Facebook games are a lot of fun and a great way to discover new music. At the same time, the games deliver the data we need to teach our computer audition system to listen to and describe music like humans do," said Gert Lanckriet, the electrical engineering professor and machine learning expert from the Jacobs School of Engineering steering the project. Lanckriet also leads UC San Diego's Computer Audition Laboratory, housed at the UC San Diego division of Calit2.

For the system to "listen and describe music like a human," it must find patterns in the songs using the tools of machine learning. For example, for the system to learn to identify and label romantic songs, it must be exposed to many different romantic songs during the training period.

		IMAGE: Herd It is a new music discovery game on Facebook http://apps.facebook.com/herd-it/ created by electrical engineers at UC San Diego. Click here for more information.

This exposure enables the machine learning algorithms find patterns in the wave forms of the songs that make the songs romantic. Once trained, the system can identify romantic songs that it has never before encountered, offering the tantalizing possibility of amassing a huge database of songs that can be tagged and retrieved based on text-based searches with no human intervention.

"The more examples of romantic songs our search engine is exposed to, the more accurately it will be able to identify romantic songs it has never heard before," explained Barrington.

Part of Barrington's Ph.D. dissertation will involve demonstrating that data collected from the Facebook games reliably improves the accuracy of the search engine.

"Once enough people play our new music discovery games on Facebook, I'll have the data I need to both improve our search engine and finish my Ph.D.," said Barrington.

The song-word combinations collected by the Facebook games will also enable the researchers to grow their music search engine's vocabulary and increase its coverage in genres and classes of music.

2009 ICASSP (IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing): "Dynamic Texture Models of Music," by Luke Barrington, Antoni Chan and Gert Lanckriet from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering. To appear in ICASSP 2009.

Herd It game on Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/herd-it or http://herdit.org

Watch a two minute video about the development of the music search engine at: http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_video/play.sfe?id=28

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded some of the research leading to this publication, as well as some of the students who contributed.

UC San Diego's von Liebig Center provided funding that enabled the researchers to create Herd It's professional interfaces for the music games. The von Liebig Center also provided the engineers with entrepreneurship advisory services and "incubation space". http://www.vonliebig.ucsd.edu/

A self proclaimed “Southern California girl,” Sarah Lavely has taken the long scenic route to find herself in sunny San Diego. Sarah grew up in Los Angeles and quickly progressed along the traditional path laid out before her. She attended a prestigious school of veterinary medicine, the University of Pennsylvania, before receiving her doctorate and practicing veterinary medicine with an emphasis on veterinary emergencies for 5 years in Los Angeles, and 5½ years in New England.

Now she breaks things for a living. Or rather her clients do.

After passing through a difficult period of frustration in her life, Sarah had a vision of going into a special room where she could let loose of all her pent up energy and destroy everything in sight. She thought to herself, “Other people must want to do this too. I can create a place where that's just what we'll do. We'll break sh-t, and it'll be fun.” It turns out she was right.

“I was ready for a change of career at that point, anyway. I went to my friend, Ed & told him about my idea for a business. He thought it was great, and we started spinning ideas for how to make it happen. A couple of years later, we opened our doors.“

Sarah’s Smash Shack was born.

She’s only been in San Diego since 2006 but success has followed her every step of the way. The Smash Shack has quickly become an integral fixture in downtown, helping us blow off some collective steam. She and her team host monthly fundraisers for such causes as the Susan Komen 3 Day Walk, Rady Children's Hospital, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. They also have wasted no time getting noticed by the national media, apparently we were beaten to the punch. Damn you Katie Couric! [angry fist shake]

“We have been covered by ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, KUSI, CNN, Good Morning America, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric (no, that's really what they call it), NPR, KNX, KFI, and so on. I have given probably 100 radio interviews, both nationally & internationally. I have been live via satellite on Austrailia's number one morning show -- those guys get it! Psychology Today ran an article on me in February, we've been in RedBook, Inc. Magazine, BUST Magazine, People Style Watch, Everyday With Rachel Ray, Fortune Small Business, City Beat, The Union Tribune, Where Magazine, 944, multiple foreign magazines, a couple of in flight magazines...and we have a piece coming up in Self Magazine & Expo Magazine.” The LIST goes on and on. Pun intended."

 

”Our most recent big things around The Smash Shack are the VIP Lounge area, which allows us to host great group events! We can easily accomodate 30 people, with the new set up. People come in, hang in the lounge & chill...bring in their own food & beverages, then we gear them up & they go down & smash sh-t...then hang in the lounge some more, etc. Some of the group events we've had up there: bachelor & bachelorette parties, girls night out, corporate team builders, kid's & adult's birthdays, support groups, holiday parties, etc. And, we have The Smash Shack Mobile, which is starting to make appearances at local events. Expect to see us at some cool events this summer!” 

An especially heartwarming story: "I had an incredible woman come in from out of town, specifically to visit Sarah's Smash Shack. She had a plan. She wrote the name of a disease on her breakables, and smashed the hell out of them. I packed them up in a little acrylic to-go container, so that the broken words and lovely pieces of glass could be admired. She was here with her grown daughter, and she turned to her daughter and said, ‘That's it. I'm done with that. It's over.’ It was very moving. It was amazing to have been a part of someone closing the chapter on her experience with cancer.”

Many of her clients’ stories are as incredibly moving as this, while others offer a lighter side of smashing:

** Several young men have brought in their girlfriends, as a "peace offering", for something they had done wrong. These young men were obviously in the dog house!

** A women's support group came in & visualized, discussed, destroyed and let go, as a team!

** A mother brought her daughter here, to bond before sending her off to college.

** A father brought his young son in here, because the boy had specifically asked if there was somewhere he could go to break some stuff, since he knew he wasn't allowed to at home!

** Both men & women bring their FIRST dates here...it's a great barometer! How will they react? And, it makes a great first date impression! A lot of new & long time couples leave here...kissing, hugging, smiling, laughing and holding hands!

What's next for Sarah's Smash Shack?

"Family Day Sundays...15% off, with the kids in tow.  Kids love this!  2 for 1 Mondays -- choose one item off of the menu & get a second of the same item for free.  Check YELP...we always have an offer there, and scour around...we've got coupons & deals out there, all over the place...you've just gotta keep your eyes open!  Oh, yeah...we've got something HUGE in the works, but I can't say anything, yet. I mean really huge. Wish us luck.”

Sometimes...you just need to break something.

MORE NEW MUSIC STORIES THIS WEEK

	The Great Unsung by Barnaby Monk Doves alight at House of Blues. The Manchester trio trade in anthemic pop like Coldplay and Oasis, but without the Grammys, Mercurys, or tabloid-drama pomposity. Still and all, these three gritty songsmiths ...
	Cliks by Dave Good The Cliks (not to be confused with the Clicks, a three-woman punk outfit from Brooklyn) are a "queer-identified" (this from the band's management) Toronto power-pop trio. They are fronted by a transgendered androgyne whose name ...
	Bugs in Your Chin Wig by Jay Allen Sanford "I wrote the song when he was on that Rock Star Supernova show," says "Dangerous Dave" Swain of local punk-rock trio the Bugs. Swain's talking about their controversial track "Dave Navarro's Goatee F-cking Sucks." He ...
	New York Dolls by DJ Mookie There was a time when I was an ambitious, snot-nosed, obnoxious young dude just getting into the radio business. Not much has changed, but I digress. Around that time, I became interested in finding out ...
	Manic Diffusion, the Ambassador, Necrolepsy by Brian Carver I thought it was good. It's not my type of genre, but I liked the solos, the riffs, and the bass lines. It's one of those songs that you could probably play on Rock Band. It's contemporary rock, but you can tell there's a new twist ...
	Stand Still, Laddie by Ken Leighton A multi-deejay event called Klub Therapy debuts Friday night at the 8Teen Arts and Cultural Center in North Park. It is one of the first all-ages music events at the venue, which opened last December ...
	Fischerspooner by William Crain No one wants to see a show where everyone onstage is standing motionless behind a keyboard. For years, electronic-music acts have struggled with different ways to address this -- with varying levels of success. They've ...
	From Parlor to Parking Lot by Josh Board Alison Brown went from playing banjo outside of Shakey's Pizza in La Mesa to performing with Alison Krauss + Union Station, being named the Banjo Player of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association, ...
	Tick, Tick, Tick... by Ken Leighton San Diego just lost another all-ages music venue. Sergeant Glenn Giannantonio of the San Diego Sheriff's Department says that an April 18 show at the Jumping Turtle in San Marcos got out of control and ...

Recording artist Jon Foreman joined the DARFUR FAST FOR LIFE today following activist-actress Mia Farrow and Virgin Group Founder and Chairman Sir Richard Branson. A longtime activist and front man for multi-platinum selling rock band Switchfoot, Foreman will undertake a water-only fast in order to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis currently taking place in Darfur, as well as to encourage long-term U.S. Government actions to bring lasting peace to the people of Sudan. Foreman begins his three day fast today and is joined by U.S. Representative Donald Payne who is Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health and works tirelessly to end the suffering in Darfur.

Expressing his outrage at the situation in Darfur, Foreman said, “Can it be possible that right now, two and a half million people are waking up in camps and refugee camps having been driven from their homes by violent means? Under the same sun, could it be true that almost half a million people have died of starvation, violence, and disease over the past six years in Darfur? Is this true?!  And if this is true, why has the media remained almost completely silent on the issue? Why has our government maintained it’s current stance of inaction?”

Foreman follows Actress-Activist Mia Farrow and Virgin CEO and Founder Sir Richard Branson and others in sharing their experiences during the fast through video and blog posts at www.fastdarfur.org <http://www.fastdarfur.org> .

The Darfur Fast for Life |  We are leaders, activists and citizens around the world who fast in solidarity with the people of Darfur because they do not have a choice. We fast as a personal expression of outrage at a world that has allowed the suffering of millions of innocent people. We fast because as we simply watched, Darfur’s defenseless people were forced into wretched camps where today they are facing starvation and disease. We fast because those in positions of authority who know what is right and just, could and should do more to alleviate their suffering and bring peace, protection, and justice to the people of Sudan.

We fast for Darfur’s courageous people —because we yearn for a world where human rights are respected and a life of dignity is the legacy for every man, woman and child.

For more information, please contact Jaime Rosenberg and Carla Sacks at Sacks & Co., 212.741.1000, [email protected] or [email protected].

THE GRATEFUL DEAD IN SAN DIEGO...

5-11-69: The Grateful Dead headlined SDSU's Spring Fling concert at the Aztec Bowl. Held on Mother's Day, the show included Canned Heat, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Lee Michaels, Tarantula, and Tijuana-bred Carlos Santana. Jerry Garcia performed "Morning Dew," and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (four years before he died) sang lead on a 20-minute version of "Hard to Handle." Pigpen also fronted the band for "Good Lovin'," "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl," and "Turn on Your Love Light," the last highlighted by a jam with Santana's percussionists and singer.

One of Spring Fling's promoters was future mayor Roger Hedgecock, who at the time aspired to create a local concert scene similar to San Francisco's. "There was a lot of opposition from the city," he recalled in a 1980 interview with Kicks Magazine. "But all the predictions of total chaos and calamity did not come true." Hedgecock recruited the local chapter of the Hell's Angels to provide security, sealing the deal with a complimentary case of Jack Daniel's. "I got a note back from them thanking me for the case," according to Hedgecock. "They drank it all at one party."

Space was provided for arts-and-crafts exhibits, as well as a booth for the city's brand-new free clinic. "Even the Black Panthers had a booth," said Hedgecock. Much of the show was aired live on KPRI-FM, and tapes of the broadcast still circulate among tie-dyed and squinty-eyed collectors.

MORE DEAD IN SAN DIEGO...

12-28-78 - The Grateful Dead at Golden Hall: This second of two nights at downtown’s Golden Hall was one of the Dead’s last performances with soon-to-be-fired keyboardist Keith Godchaux. An audience-recorded tape of the show has long circulated – with an much-cursed break during “Eyes Of The World” - but now a soundboard recording of all twenty-one (or so) songs, provided by Dead guitarist Bob Weir, is available to fans online.

Some review excerpts from the trading website Deadbase:

“The Tennessee Jed solo has always fascinated me and this one is in my top twenty percent...[Bob] Weir of course screws up the lyrics to Truckin’…5:01 into Wharf Rat, Jerry yells ‘Quiet!’ I think he was directing it to Keith.” “Nice Sugaree opener, although in the middle, Donna [Godchaux] gets a little too wobble waily [sp].”

“The Shakedown [Street] is tight and super-funky. Bob's rhythmic fills are just fantastic…Check out the transition between Truckin’ and Wharf Rat. Picture perfect.”

“The Estimated Prophet lead, it's a friggin' anthem. One can imagine ancient Irish warriors racing into battle with the bagpipes playing this tune.”

“The Eyes of the World is quick-paced but clean. In the jam coming out of it, there's a short section where Phil [Lesh] and Keith are definitely playing Turn On Your Lovelight, sans Pigpen, alas.”

"Eyes is glorious in its noodley [sp] splendor. What are those, 1/164th notes?”

7-1-80: Grateful Dead fans, however believable their addled faculties may be, usually cite the band's 1980 album "Go To Heaven" as the nadir of their recording career, though "Alabama Getaway" and "Don't Ease Me In" became later concert staples. That year's tour still managed to bring out the tie-dyed and squinty-eyed in big numbers for an appearance at the Sports Arena. Advance press reports made it clear that local police were "on guard" for the expected influx of illicit drugs and illegal activity in the parking lot and audience seats.

Even before the show started, several people were arrested for smoking pot. One bust was witnessed from alongside the stage by Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and band manager Danny Rifkin.

The trio tried to intervene, cajoling onlookers to join them in separating the young potsmoker from police offers trying to effect the arrest. Cops pulled out additional handcuffs and arrested Weir, Hart and Rifkin for "suspicion of inciting a riot."

The three defendants had to return to San Diego several weeks later to face charges. Their offense was reduced to a low grade misdemeanor, fines were paid and everyone walked out of the courtroom with a grudge against the SDPD that lingers to this day. "We couldn't believe what fascists they are down there," Weir told Golden Scarab, a Dead fanzine, in 1999. "We almost never went further south than Irvine after that. We didn't wanna set the kids up to be busted by a bunch of gorillas with no education, who hate rock and roll music."

Related links

"Where Have All The Deadheads Gone?" Local flower children, after the head Deadhead was dead.

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/aug/31/rock-operas-leaving-town-plus-playing-with-michael/

DO BANDS EVER MOVE FROM L.A. TO SAN DIEGO??

The list of local performers who seek success by moving near L.A. is long – from Ratt and Stone Temple Pilots through Stolen, Delta Spirit, Anya Marina, the Soft Pack, and more.

But, once in awhile, it works the other way ------------- 

 “We had so many bad experiences in L.A.” says Tyler Monks, whose band JuneNine has been enjoying U.K. airplay on BBC, Vox, and Kerrang Radio. “Stolen cars, homicides, alcoholic producers, one and a half-hour commutes, roommates with poor hygiene…I decided I was done with L.A. and moved to San Diego, to enjoy a lifestyle free of traffic, parking tickets, and pollution.”

“L.A. is intoxicating,” says Monks, “and the buzz of the music biz is undeniable, but you really have to spend time in L.A. to network. That’s the one thing San Diego lacks; well-connected industry people. San Diegans have a healthier lifestyle, though.”

Dave Madden’s path to Ocean Beach wasn’t paved until after spending 25 years with L.A. Doors tribute band Wild Child.

 “I lived in Los Feliz, across the street from Griffith Park,” says Madden. “Madonna and Gwen Stefani had houses up the hill from me, and I would frequently run into and shoot the sh-t with Beck on my walks through Silver Lake.”

So why quit the successful band he co-founded and move to OB? “If you’re already disposed to having an addictive personality, it will eventually catch up to you,” he says. “After two stints in rehab, I found myself in the hospital…I had complete organ failure, fell into a two-week coma, was diagnosed with double pneumonia, and I flatlined three times. To this day, my doctors have no clue why I didn’t die.”

Here in SD, Madden fronts That '70s Rock Show.

“It’s a theatrical production using lasers, strobes, blacklights, fog machines, and everything you’d expect to see at 1970s concert,” he says of the show, which opens for his former band Wild Child at the Ramona Mainstage on May 22. “It’s a lot less stressful, with a lot less temptations, than touring the world with ‘Jim Morrison.’”

Starting June 28th, That '70s Rock Show hits the stage every Sunday at Winstons in OB.

Free JuneNine MP3 download

• Safe To Say - Add to playlist

Related links

• JuneNine MySpace page
• www.juneninemusic.com
• That '70s Rock Show
• www.that70srockshow.com

 

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BEWARE OF BOOTLEG GUITARS!!!

“I’ve heard too many stories of kids who are saving their money for their dream Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul, only to find out later they’ve been burned by a cheap fake,” says guitarist David Szabados. “Counterfeit instruments are being produced in China and Korea, and then sold off here as the real thing by unscrupulous sellers on places like eBay, Craigslist, local storefronts, and pawn shops.”

 

 

 

“I just did searched ‘Gibson Les Paul new’ on the San Diego Musicians Craigslist,” he says, “and right away found one that was certainly questionable, due to the location of the volume and tone knobs.” Szabados mentions other ways of distinguishing fakes, including whether inlays are real or painted on, and number of neck bolts.

 

 

“Many fake Gibsons have their pickup cavities painted black inside,” he says of one commonly bootlegged axe. “The counterfeit organizations sell in bulk, ten guitars at a time, shipped direct from China or Korea, and then the purchaser resells them locally…pawn shops might sell them as the real thing without even realizing, [since] they have no expertise, so someone ends up paying $1,000 or more for a guitar that only cost $150.”

 

To illustrate his point, Szabados created a video called “Destroying a $5,000 Guitar” for his LegendaryTones.com website. “We smashed a counterfeit PRS, complete with Paul Reed Smith logo on the headstock, bird inlays, and other signature PRS details. The guitar came out of a factory in Korea, and looks real enough that people are really shocked to see us destroy it…it seems like a good way to raise awareness.”

 

At this writing, http://www.zxcmusic.com posts several guitars evincing known bootleg earmarks, advertised as authentic, such as an Epiphone Ace Frehley signature model (normally retailing for $1,000 but selling for $259), as well as a Slash Les Paul Gold Top (missing headstock logo) and a left-handed Zakk Wilde signature edition Gibson (minus legit factory inlay).

 

 

Tips on spotting fakes can be found at FenderForum.com, LesPaulForum.com, and Forums.Gibson.com.

 

One dead giveaway seen in Craigslist ads purporting to be local is a tendency toward foreign-sounding text, as in the suspicious Gibson Les Paul pitch; “Wish we can cooperate happily with and possible do more business in future waiting for you do good news.”

Related link

• http://www.legendarytones.com

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  WHAT I’M LISTENING TO...

I came across the MySpace page for local punk rockers The Bugs/Dangerous Dave - all their songs clock in at around one and a half minutes, but my favorite was "Dave Navarro's Goatee F-cking Sucks," which made me fall off my chair laughing! There's a terrific video, with shots of Navarro that hopefully won't get the band sued. I was so inspired, I created a 45 single sleeve for the tune ----

Checkout the tune here - The Bugs/Dangerous Dave on MySpace

“I wrote the song when he was on that Rock Star Supernova show,” says “Dangerous Dave” Swain of the Bugs. He used to be in Jane’s Addiction/ Now he’s on TV trying to earn a buck He was so much cooler when he was on drugs/ Dave Navarro’s goatee f-cking sucks “All that makeup and jewelry,” says Swain, “what a jerk. Where the hell is he getting off wearing all that crap? He’s so full of himself. Anyone with any soul would want to tell him to go [screw] himself.” The Bugs may have a problem with their video for the song, which features a couple dozen enlarged photos of Navarro on a screen behind the group as they mock his facial hair. “I keep waiting to hear from his attorney about the video,” says Swain. “I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate us using his pictures without consent. If they do email me, I’m printing it in the insert of the next album.” With tours booked around California, are the Bugs worried about running into the rock star? “I’m really not the fighting type. But if he came at me, he’d definitely get a little chin music. I don’t really want to [meet him]. He may try to French me.” The band’s other songs include “No More Emo Haircuts,” “Meth on My Mind,” “Lesbo Lesbo,” and “Email From a She-Male” (also an amusing video). Clocking in at around two minutes each, the songs will appear on the Bugs’ upcoming Cabana Records seven-inch vinyl album. “Yeah, that’s right, the whole album fits on a seven-inch. And there’s still room for another song or two!” ***************************************************

  WHAT I’M WATCHING...

 So I finally watched one of the new Futurama movies, Bender's Game - I was falling down laughing ---

"Eat the wizard

eat the slut

eat the robot's shiny butt!"

 

 The Scary Door/Twilight Zone bit rocked - there were a buncha Scruffy cameos, but my favorite was when I spotted him cleaning up centaur poop. Not sher how many people "get" the Mork attack (the creatures all quote Robin Williams punchlines from the old Mork and Mindy TV show), but I almost bust a gut with this one:

 

Lela: Is that a hobbit?

 

Farnsworth: No, it's just a hobo and a rabbit. But they're MAKING a hobbit....

 

My face hurts again just from typing it ------

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WHY AL KOOPER HATES LOCAL WRITERS (BUT LOVES SAN DIEGO)

The legendary Al Kooper has been making regular appearance at the old Normal Heights church that hosts the Acoustic Music San Diego series. During one visit, he ran somewhat afoul of music columnist Buddy Blue; on Kooper's return, he took issue with a Reader columnist.... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2009/jan/09/why-al-kooper-hates-local-writers-but-loves-san-di/

 

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METALLICA IN SAN DIEGO - LARS LIKES US! HE REALLY LIKES US! 

The Metallica San Diego footage streaming on the band’s website is top-notch, pro-shot, and fairly impressive – I can take or leave Death Magnetic, but it looks like they still command and destroy on stage. They’ve been such cartoons of themselves, for too very long now.... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2009/jan/09/why-al-kooper-hates-local-writers-but-loves-san-di/

 

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Famous Former Neighbors - The Article: Underground With The Celebrity Dead - Local gravesites of the rich and famous... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/jan/31/famous-dead-neighbors-plus-public-access-mtv

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Do It Yourself Music Television - A history of local public access music TV shows... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/jan/31/famous-dead-neighbors-plus-public-access-mtv

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Weird Beatles Merchandise - WTF were these licensors (and bootleggers) thinking... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/feb/06/my-brunch-with-yoko-plus-weird-beatles

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My Brunch With Yoko - Brunch with a Beatle bride... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/feb/06/my-brunch-with-yoko-plus-weird-beatles

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Yoko Ono Comics and Stories  - When Johnny Met Yoko, with dialogue and captions paraphrased from published Lennon interviews. Plus John Lennon: A Life in the Day... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/feb/06/my-brunch-with-yoko-plus-weird-beatles

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Snotley Crue Comics and Stories  - spoofing U-know-hooey... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/jan/30/snotley-crue-comix-and-stories

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When Your Love Is Locked Up - On California women's prisons and the families and loved ones of prisoners. Focus is on my good friend Danielle Barcheers, the 2nd youngest female ever convicted of a capital crime in CA state history (now ten years into a 20-to-life sentence). Plus 100 Rockin' Local Lawsuits.... http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/jul/30/when-kids-go-to-prison-plus-100-rockin-lawsuits

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"Before It Was The Gaslamp: Balboa's Last Stand" - Cover story 6-21-07: In the late 70s/early 80s, I worked at downtown San Diego's grindhouse all-night movie theaters, for the owner of the Pussycat Theatre chain, Vince Miranda - this detailed feature recalls those dayz, the death of the Balboa Theatre, etc.

More Before It Was the Gaslamp

 

"Battle Of The Peeps" - feature article about a weird gig I had in the mid-'80s, running a strip club called Jolar, for the nation's second biggest pornographer, Harry Mohney (Deja Vu Showgirls founder).

More Battle of the Peeps - An Insider History of San Diego Porn Shops

"Field Of Screens" - Cover story 7-6-06: Complete theater-by-theater history of San Diego drive-ins thru the years, including a few which screened X-rated fare for awhile.

More Drive-In Theaters in San Diego: Complete Illustrated History 1947 thru 2008

  

"Pussycat Theaters - When 'Cathouses Ruled California" -- for the first time, the detailed inside story of the west coast Pussycat Theater chain of adult moviehouses, which peaked in the '70s but later died out. Told by those who actually ran the theaters!

More Pussycat Theater History: When Cathouses Ruled CA

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Today's Top MP3 Downloads

• Bill Travis - 4 Hands
• (760) - (760)
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• View all MP3s

 

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Like this blog? Here are some related links:

OVERHEARD IN SAN DIEGO - Several years' worth of this comic strip, which debuted in the Reader in 1996: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/photos/galleries/overheard-san-diego/

FAMOUS FORMER NEIGHBORS - Over 100 comic strips online, with mini-bios of famous San Diegans: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/photos/galleries/famous-former-neighbors/

SAN DIEGO READER MUSIC MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/sandiegoreadermusic

JAY ALLEN SANFORD MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/jayallensanford