"In terms of gay/straight/lesbian acts, we didn't book anybody because of their sexual orientation," Tour Booker Annie says via email. "We booked the acts because they play good music." This Ladyfest, she says, is not the same Ladyfest that the …

Monday, June 4, experimental music promoter Bonnie Wright continues her cutting-edge concert series, Fresh Sound with a solo-percussion performance by NYC based musician David Shively at Space4Arts in the East Village. Wright, who studied music at UCSD--has always been interested …

San Diego veggie pro-vine deathgrind powerhouse Cattle Decapitation recently got a (misspelled) shout out in Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse, a Spinal Tap-esque cartoon about death metal band DethKlok. Cattle Decapitation is touring this summer on the Shockwave Festival circuit with Fear …

On Friday, April 20, self-proclaimed “swag-rock” quartet DUDES posted a collection of unreleased songs and recorded conversations on Bandcamp under the title #RARE, which DUDES dude Ryan Solomon calls “a collection of song islands and candid skits birthed in my …

“They sent my prize package to the wrong address,” says Michael Tiernan, whose song “Easy” was a Top 5 winner in last month’s Great American Song Contest. “I actually forgot I entered. I gave up on chasing awards, but apparently …

And now for something entirely different: "Romance Metal." One can almost hear the grin in Clay Hackett's voice as he says the words. He's on the phone, talking up the Suicide Chord's current EP-in-progress. "We're trying to find our own …

Athenaeum Jazz at the Studio returns with what is sure to be a fascinating night of creative, boundary-pushing music this Saturday, June 2, with a performance by the New York–based TrioKinesis at 8 p.m. TrioKinesis is made up of saxophonist …

1. DFX2 On a sidewalk in Hillcrest near the Albertson's the letters DFX2 are inscribed into what was once wet concrete. I have to think it was done in memory of the band that everyone was talking about in the …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/29/25184/ With Legoland having unveiled its new Star Wars display, and the Blu-ray release of Star Wars: The Complete Saga, it’s a good time to be fool for the Force. Man of a thousand bands Rob Crow has referenced SW …

The final piece of music at Sunday’s concert was Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Pianist Horacio Gutiérrez appeared to be a master of illusion. His hands appeared to be hovering above the keys as he played the daunting solo part. …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/28/25107/ McPherson, Castellanos & Lowe by TOM HARTEN A capacity house was on hand to celebrate trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos and his hand-picked San Diego Jazz Legends at Tango Del Rey last night. Featuring as many as eight musicians sharing the …

On Sunday the San Diego Symphony completed their 2011-2012 Jacobs Masterwork Series. The concert was an interesting one. The first piece was Ansel Adams: America by Chris and Dave Brubeck. This piece of music represents a direction classical music could, …

"I am in hospital and had my first major surgery," said Penetrators singer/guitarist Gary Heffern this morning. "There was a hole in my appendix and and they had to open it about six or seven inches by knife. Hopefully they …

A small, but hip crowd showed up at 98 Bottles last night to take in the magic that happens when guitarist Peter Sprague teams up with his long-time associate, vocalist Leonard Patton. This wasn't the typical guitar + vocals gig. …

This week, The Reader’s own Club Crawler gave a shout out to tomorrow’s I Love This City festival at Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre, which features some of the biggest names in popular electronic music crammed into an all-day extravaganza open to …

Athenaeum Jazz at the Neurosciences Institute concluded their spring concert series with another sold-out performance--this one by the understated, yet masterful pianist Kenny Barron. The evening was made doubly satisfying by the sonic purity of the constituent circumstances: one man, …

The San Diego Symphony finishes its Jacobs MasterWorks concert series this weekend with a trio of concerts that should be a great conclusion to a successful season. Sibelius’ Symphony No. 7 begins the concert. It is a symphony written in …

Two of San Diego's finest musicians team up on Friday night, May 25, for a concert at 98 Bottles. Local guitar king Peter Sprague joins the soulful vocalist Leonard Patton for an intimate series of duets. Patton and Sprague go …

By the late 1980s Christopher Hollyday's jazz career was on fire. Critics were calling him a Young Lion along with Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Joshua Redman, and the rest of the bebop and hard boppers trying to save the doomed …

Feline electro-pop duo Lion Cut recently released a video for their new single “Tiger Bomb” featuring Russian dance moves, fiddle skills, and uncompromising lyrics such as: “Making potions so some guy can try to get a hardon. Killing tigers is …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/24/24925/ May 1969: Two hundred years after Father Junípero Serra founded the first California mission on Presidio Hill, San Diego celebrated its bicentennial. The Ferry still shuttled passengers and cargo across the harbor, as it had for over eighty years, …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/24/24918/ “Could you be the one I’m thinking of? Could you be the girl I really love? All the people tell me so, But what do all the people know!” -- The Monroes, “What Do All the People Know” "I …

My man Morrissey is one sick son of a gun. At his birthday concert he showed the Meet Your Meat video as a backdrop for Smiths-classic "Meat Is Murder." As a long time vegan, I never needed to see footage …

"The overall idea," Vic Fuentes says, "is of people jumping off of ground that is breaking up beneath them." He's on the phone from his home near Mission Bay, talking about the cover art for Pierce the Veil's next album. …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/22/24822/ This Sunday, May 27, local trumpet master Gilbert Castellanos will be assembling a special cadre of the area's most illustrious musicians--all of them bandleaders in their own right, for a concert at Tango Del Rey celebrating San Diego Legends …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/22/24766/ Lee Chapman, drummer for early 1990s local rockers Powerdresser, apparently passed away over the weekend. He was found unresponsive at a friend's house. No official cause of death has been determined, though friends and family report that he'd been …

Keeping with the Mighty Handful, who the heck was Cui? He’s kind of like Carreras in The Three Tenors ala Seinfeld, “You know, Pavarotti, Domingo, and that other guy.” So with The Five there’s Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, and that …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/21/24745/ Jazz guitar icon Mundell Lowe turned 90 last month, and has been celebrating with a slew of gigs. Last Tuesday night, it was Jazz Live at City College with a quartet comprised of guitarist Ron Eschete, organist Bill Cunliffe …

I’ve wanted to get back to Balakirev ever since I mentioned him in regards to Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. Here is my chance. If you’ll recall, at the San Diego Symphony concert a few weeks back, Nuvi Mehta came out …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/18/24655/ I have occasionally described the attendance at 98 Bottles as "packed," or, "sold-out," and while those descriptions were true, they don't come close to illustrating the audience situation for last night's Jaime Valle concert celebrating the Jewish experience in …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/18/24650/ It's been nearly a year since Joey Harris and the Mentals keyboard player Mighty Joe Longa went under the knife to remove extensive cancer in his abdomen. Scheduled to complete chemotherapy this June, Joe's recovery has been a long …

"We did some unconventional things. And we played local artists. We played their albums." --Roger Agnew "The buzz was all over town. This was an AM station that was doing something that nobody in town was doing." From the beginning, …

Mozart makes you smarter? Find out Saturday night at The Neuroscience Center. Is there a more appropriate venue? At 6:30 pm, the presentation starts with "with an eclectic music-brain exposition" curated by Tim Mullen and Grace Leslie of UCSD's Swartz …

Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) hit the Casbah on Tuesday night with his UFO tribute band, Flight To Mars, which includes Seattle mates Tim DiJulio (guitar), Gary Westlake (bass), Mike Musburger (drums) and Paul Passereli (vocals). The crowd got a special …

Local superhero Candye Kane has checked in with a report about her recent cancer surgery. "The good news: I had no positive lymph nodes this time. The surgery was successful in that my pancreatic duct is unclogged. The bad: I …

The groundbreaking and innovative flutist Nicole Mitchell offered up an evening of stellar music to a small, but enthusiastic audience at the acoustically superb Conrad Prebys Hall last night at UCSD. The program was divided into two parts--the first being …

Amazed: "It's about three friends who are always getting into some kind of mystery and going on adventures to solve them. But what it boils down to," show creator Richard Allen says, "is friendship." New episodes stream every Wednesday on …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/16/24506/ The Athenaeum Jazz at the Neurosciences Institute series continued last night with a bang: the long-awaited return of the Brad Mehldau Trio, a concert that had been sold-out virtually since its announcement a few months back. For a jazz …

"I'd heard from the School of Rock in Denver that they'd been able to get some of their kids on stage with Roger Waters, so I started looking around for contact information." Tyler Ward is the general manager and music …

Although this is very short notice, I urge everyone interested in the state-of-the-art in jazz and improvised music to head out to UCSD tomorrow night, May 16, for the extremely rare opportunity to experience one the finest exponents of the …

It's a Saturday in May and borderline hot in spite of the relentless onshore breeze. 500 or so teenagers, all with music instruments, some of them held weapon-like are gathered under the shade trees on the campus of Coronado High …

What were the circumstances surrounding Tchaikovsky’s death? There’s the Cholera story that says he drank water that was not boiled, became sick the next day, and died four days later on November 6th, 1893. Cholera is out because it doesn’t …

Chuck Perrin, in a Dizzy's production staged in The Back Room at 98 Bottles, elevated the excitement factor to a "dizzying" degree last night by bringing in the uber-creative jazz/classical/rock ensemble, Sketchy Black Dog to packed and enthused audience. Sketchy …

Local imprint Elk Beats dropped a new release today from label co-founder and acetate dubplate jockey Donnie ‘EshOne’ Valdez. The double single, "Allergies" & "Reflective Wallpaper” ($2 download at elkbeats.com), is the label’s fifth release to date and sees a …

Surf: A Double Concerto for Alto Saxophone, Violin, & Orchestra May 12, Swarmius, with Orchestra Nova, Irwin M. Jacobs Qualcomm Hall (Five out of five stars) "I wanted to see how things sounded under water." This is how it starts …

After last weekend’s triumph I entered Copley Hall with anticipation on Saturday night. It’s safe to say my expectations were through the roof. There were no expectations for the first piece by Qigang Chen. Geek alert—Qigang is not just the …

Manual Scan is writing songs with former child actor Robbie Rist, best known as little Oliver the Jinx in the final season of the Brady Bunch TV show, and are recording their first new music since the late 1980s. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/13/24289/ …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/12/24288/ MP3tunes, the online "music locker service" launched by controversial (and oft-sued) MP3.com founder Michael Robertson, has racked up so many bills over a long-running copyright lawsuit that it says it must file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Just last August, …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/12/24282/ Of all who've appeared on the TV show America's Got Talent, the most controversial contestant is probably Boy Shakira, a heavyset man in a blonde wig and halter top, enthusiastically belly-dancing to both cheers and jeers. Didja know that …

Ernie Becquer sees trouble ahead for salsa music in San Diego. "It has been brought to my attention that a certain venue (he will not say which) is going to put a six-minute blockade on songs. No band will be …

Since February, promoter and noise musician Sam Lopez (aka Zsa Zsa Gabor) has been curating the monthly all-ages Stay Strange series at the Kava Lounge as a forum for San Diego’s tradition of experimental sound. Tomorrow night’s showcase features local …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/11/24244/ In a spellbinding performance worthy of a sell-out crowd, master musicians Joshua White on piano and Marshall Hawkins on double bass collectively made magic, told stories, and stimulated the senses last night at 98 Bottles. This was a perfect …

Everybody is a nerd nowadays. At least, that’s the premise of the monthly Nerdcore night (every second Thursday) at the Ruby Room, which features musicians, performers, and comedians who speak the esoteric dialects of fellow fanatics. “We all grew up …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/09/24149/ Veteran San Diego jazz guitarist Jaime Valle brings his long-standing Latin-jazz ensemble Equinox to 98 Bottles on May 17, for a concert celebrating the connection between the Jewish and Latino cultures, sponsored by the A.D.L. ( Anti-Defamation-League). "There were …

Boutique label Kill Quanti is celebrating the release of a limited-run blue cassette featuring the ambient, glitched-out beatscapes of sonic spelunker Mystery Cave and avian death jockey Killer Swan tomorrow night at the Kava Lounge. “I'm so pleased with this …

In musical terms, Sunday’s concert at the symphony wasn’t that different from Friday’s. The differences were in minor cases such as the clarinet solo at the top of Rhapsody in Blue being a tad smoother and Jon Kimura Parker “milking …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/08/24104/ DJ Tiësto, one of the world’s top ranked DJs (at least according to The DJ List and DJ Mag) will be spinning a daytime set at the Hard Rock Hotel’s Intervention Pool Party on May 20. After Grammy-nominated Tiësto …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/08/24092/ KSDS Jazz 88 kicks off the summer Jazz Live concert series with a show that invokes a history-in-the-making sense of gravitas. Legendary guitarist Mundell Lowe will be returning to the Saville Theatre on May 15 with a special quartet …

Noisy minimalist SD/TJ rockers The Electric Healing Sound recently posted their debut music video, which features the track “Tangled Up.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnJBnFVWSTo “We take advantage of the San Diego-Tijuana thing,” guitarist/vox Ricky Soltero told The Reader last July. “Up here we …

Montalban Quintet Who is this band, and what were they thinking? No matter - fans are talking. Bright tones, driving rhythms, mildly dark and pensive at times. They say: post- punk, minimalism, jazz, new music, 50′s schmaltz and field recordings. …

Poppy chillwave-ish outfit TV Girl blew up last year when, within a week of posting the track online, “If You Want It” had garnered attention from Pitchfork, the UK's Guardian, and a BBC podcast. The song sampled Todd Rundgren’s 1973 …

Last week I said the people putting the programs together at San Diego Symphony deserved a raise. After going to the Rhapsodies concert both Friday night and Sunday afternoon this weekend, I’m demanding a raise for them. I think that …

"I grew up in a place called Elfin Forest. It's kind of between Stagecoach Park in La Costa and the Escondido Auto Park." Josh Ottum, 34, is on the phone from the campus of UC Irvine where he is completing …

After nearly seven years of curating Fashion Whore (largely at the Ruby Room) in addition to Club Pop and other parties, May Star is dropping her usual dance/mode nights to initiate a new monthly event at the under-construction Kitty Diamond. …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/04/23910/ Pianist Joshua White teams up with the sublime bassist Marshall Hawkins for an intimate evening of duet music on May 10, in the Back Room at 98 Bottles on Kettner Blvd. I've seen White and Hawkins in a trio …

For a little over a year now, some of San Diego’s most innovative electronic music producers have been getting together for regular under-the-radar hob nobs at the Kava Lounge to share formative sounds with fellow musicians. Tonight, the invite-only assembly, …

I’m looking at three concerts for this weekend. All three have smart and well-balanced programs. Friday Night: San Diego Symphony is going all out for rhapsodies. There are four pieces on the program. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody …

“In 2010, my first year at Burning Man, I danced myself to the medic's tent,” says Ninja Bunniez Entertainment promoter Hopper, who partially credits sporadic alcohol consumption for her crippling dehydration after seven days in the Black Rock desert. “Pinch …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/03/23848/ Matt Rhea (Manganista, No Reply) has a new split 7-inch coming out with Monkey Wagon called "Spooky Tunes" that's now available for pre-order at http://www.quasirecordings.com . http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/may/03/23849/ "The theme for the record is new interpretations of old spooky classics," …

The protean contrabass magician Mark Dresser will be performing a Telematic concert tomorrow evening in NYC with Ellery Eskelin on tenor saxophone and Jim Black on drums with Sarah Weaver conducting. That's the U.S. part of the ensemble. The other …

During intermission, my concert companion noticed several youths sitting next to us. When asked if they were with a group they said yes. They were all engineering students at UCSD. As it turns out, once a year the Jacobs buy …

Fresh Sound concert curator Bonnie Wright's next installment in her monthly series will feature BRIM: Eve Beglarian and Mary Rowell, on Thursday, May 10 at Space 4 Art, 8 p.m. This continues the series focus on musicians Wright observed, and …

“Shred the Gnar Records is a group effort of Sculpins, Last Years, HoodRat, and Mr.Nobody born out of partying, close friends, and punk rock debauchery,” writes Sculpins bass/vox Branden Parish. “A band of brothers in bands. We are gonna try …

While Monti Rock, 73, recuperates from heat exhaustion in a Las Vegas hospital his television likeness is at the center of a small controversy brewing in the East County. Last week, a San Diego drummer named Jim Daugherty found the …