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The Torn Images’ ‘Reviver’ Aims to Revive 90s Grunge

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By Layla Marino

With indie rock sounding more and more homogenous these days as it combines with pop to create an amorphous blob of musical pabulum, many bands are looking to the past for inspiration.

Folk and blues were the first genres to be mined for their creative spark, as exemplified by Jack White, Mumford and Sons and the Arctic Monkeys. The indie artists of today then began their sacking of vintage stores everywhere for old synthesizers to re-create the haunting new wave sounds of the 80s.

It only follows that the next genre to be pilfered would be grunge. Unlike some bands who only got the bright idea to appropriate the feedback-and-integrity-driven sounds of the early 90s, Fountain Valley’s The Torn Images have been drawing influence from grunge and early indie rock for a few years, since 2012.   [Read more…]

Jazz Pianist Josh Nelson at Croce’s Park West

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By John Lawrence

A rare night out on the town took Judy and me to San Diego’s premier jazz supper club, Croce’s Park West, at 2760 5th Avenue, to hear Los Angeles pianist Josh Nelson and his trio for a tribute to the great American composers – Cole Porter, Harold Arlen and the Gershwins.

Arriving there we decided to use the valet parking since Judy is ambulatorily challenged. For $5 it was cheaper than a lot and within 10 steps of the door. What a deal! Croce’s has a music room separate from the noisiness of the bar area, full of comfortable seating, warm ambiance and great sight lines. The non-amplified music was gentle on our ears.

Josh was running a little late having had a harrowing day. His car carrying himself and drummer Dan Schnelle had broken down in Long Beach. Fortunately for him and for us, there was a rental agency nearby. It was a miracle that he made the gig at all.   [Read more…]

Echo Sparks: How Country Music is Supposed to Sound

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By Layla Marino

The term “junkyard country” was coined by an artist called Ponyboy in 2013. It seems that re-naming country is necessary nowadays, as it’s been co-opted by the mainstream media to include pabulum such as Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley and, of course, the ubiquitous princess of snooze-pop, Taylor Swift.

Even fans of the already overly evolved country of the 90s such as Billy Ray Cyrus or Garth Brooks would agree that country’s current state of affairs has very little to do with cowboys, spittoons and Americana.

Having grown up in a largely country-hating household, I was not exposed to much of it as a child, and I can distinctly remember my dad saying most of it sounded like “two cats fighting in a burlap sack.” However, some of the old country music isn’t completely unfortunate.   [Read more…]

Bay Area’s CommonUnion59 Captures the Essence of Folk with No Hipster Pretense [Video]

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By Layla Marino

Many music fans nowadays are feeling the weight of ironic hipster folk and blues bands pressing down on them like a big, plaid, beardy lumberjack’s boot.

Though it seems folkster bands like Mumford & Sons and Fleet Foxes are sincere in their reverence for the mountain people music of days gone by, there is a definite hint of irony in most of the culture surrounding these folk throwback sounds. Just because one enjoys a full beard and dueling banjos, one should not feel obligated to begin whittling Adirondack chairs and the canning of one’s own pickles.

CommonUnion59, a duo from San Francisco, have found one way to combat these fervent folksters.   [Read more…]

Hold on to Freedom

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By Bob Dorn

Freedom.  A word we don’t hear lately, cheated of life by politicians who told us that’s what wars are for.

After all those wars fought in its name, did we lose the concept, freedom?  What took its place? Hate?  Maybe that’s what’s left.

We’ve been suffocated by war; our culture is dying from it.  Road rage is normal. The military mails advanced war games to little boys whose memories of all those explosions can be tickled once they reach 18, all ready for the next “conflict.”  War is just a digital metaphor, a collection of remote buttons until they’re turned into launcher’s buttons.

Yipeee… they’re all gonna die, is that what Country Joe sang?  Nope, he said, we’re all gonna die.   [Read more…]

San Diego Community Speaks Out Against Police Brutality

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Don’t Shoot: Show Love to Take Place in Barrio Logan  

By Nepantla Collective

In light of an ongoing epidemic of police brutality, both locally and around the globe, where targets are predominantly impoverished, marginalized and/or people of color, the Nepantla Collective will be hosting a one-day event in Barrio Logan, entitled “Don’t Shoot: Show Love”. This event will take place on Saturday, November 8, 2014 from 3pm to 10pm in in Barrio Logan’s Barrio Arts District.

Monica Hernandez of the Nepantla Collective breaks down why they decided to organize the events and why Barrio Logan was chosen as the venue:

A few years back, my best friend was severely brutalized and beaten by SDPD. Granted he had been rightfully stopped for a traffic violation & had drank a few beers that evening, but by no means did that warrant the excessive force that left his entire body severely bruised. He could barely walk for days, but what hurt me more than to see him in such physical pain, was the look in his eyes that reflected a loss of dignity, which had been brutally stripped from his soul that day.

It was the same look my brother had when he was released from incarceration after being arrested at a student protest. My brother had been charged with assault and battery of a police officer, when in fact it was them (about 3 – 4 officers) who had kicked and broken one of my brother’s ribs. Fortunately we had video footage of the incident and after over a year in court, the Superior Court of Alameda County not only dismissed all charges but also granted a factual finding of innocence.

  [Read more…]

Barrio Arts District Shines with Multiple Cultural Events in Barrio Logan

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Barrio Art Jam, Barrio Art Crawl and Concerts in the Barrio Take Place this Weekend

By Brent E. Beltrán

Barrio Logan is becoming well known for its thriving, grassroots arts scene. This weekend’s activities are proof of that. From Friday through Sunday numerous cultural events will take place within San Diego’s most historic Chicano community.

The events include the 2nd annual Barrio Art Jam at La Bodega on Friday night, Barrio Art Crawl throughout the Barrio Arts District on Saturday afternoon/evening and the Barrio Logan Association’s Concerts in the Barrio at the Mercado del Barrio plaza on Sunday afternoon.   [Read more…]

Bay Area Poets and Musicians to Share Talents on Behalf of Refugee Children

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Logan Heights Restaurateur to Host Flor y Canto and Future Community Events

By Brent E. Beltrán

Flor y canto. Flower and song. Poetry. Music. Love.

This Saturday afternoon Mark Lane of Poppas’s Fresh Fish in Logan Heights is going to help share some musical and literary love. The parking lot of his small restaurant will be the site of the 3rd annual Flor y Canto where poets and musicians will share their words on behalf of the border refugee children.

Mark Lane was thrust into the immigrant rights spotlight after calling for a boycott of Murrieta, California and taking in a refugee family from Guatemala. I interviewed him recently about the hate and threats he faced from those wanting to send refugee families back to their country of origin to face possible death.   [Read more…]

Video Pick: Which Side Are You On?

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Wanted:  A Living Wage

By Anna Daniels

It is useful exercise to remind ourselves that the battle for an increased minimum wage/sick leave benefit in San Diego is not a new one. Peel back the right wing maker versus taker meme and you get Howard Zinn, placing today’s minimum wage struggle firmly in our collective history of bitter class conflict between the rich and the poor and working class.

In 1944, when Franklin Roosevelt was running for his third term, he emphasized the need for an economic bill of rights as a vehicle for addressing the limitations of the political Bill of Rights. This economic bill of rights would have constitutionally guaranteed that workers have a living wage, would not have to work more than a certain number of hours and that the people would be entitled to vacations and healthcare. An economic bill of rights never materialized. Today, here in San Diego, we are experiencing the results of this omission.   [Read more…]

Few Are Left Fighting For The Ché

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By Kyle Trujillo, UCSD Undergrad

On Wednesday of finals week, June 11, I cut short a study session and hurried across campus to Scholar’s drive to the Ché Cafe Collective. I knew it as the Che. Besides, it had recently been stripped of its “collective” status. It was the first time I was going to a meeting and not a show.

As I approached the colorful building I slowed down to listen. The walls could talk. The faces of Rigoberta Menchu, Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr., Karl Marx, former student Angela Davis, and a prowling black panther. In red and black, the face of Ché Guevara stares fiercely from an outer wall and looks out proudly on the inner courtyard. The many murals are not just the work of students, but also local artist Mario Torero and the designer and activist Shepard Fairey.

On the cooperative’s Facebook event page, about 120 had clicked to attend. My heart sunk when I saw that only 20 were actually able to join in. My heart sunk further when I learned only three of us were students. I should have expected this. It was finals week – people who weren’t studying were already flying and driving home.   [Read more…]

Howard the Homeless

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By Bob Dorn

About 50 feet away, at another bench, a metals guy with two giant white bags calls out, as I take a rest, “Can you play something.”

It’s not exactly a question, but it’s no insult either. It is an interruption, but then so is the trumpet played in the park.

I was doing exercises, at length, three of them: a sounding of all tones on the horn, from a wobbly low F that’s nearly false on up to high C; about 20 odd fingering combinations down in the lower range that are to the fingers what tongue twisters are to the tongue; and II-V-I chord progressions in all 12 keys.

They’re meant to defeat the sometime player. I know I’ll never be able to execute them flawlessly.   [Read more…]

Living Publicly with the Trumpet

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By Bob Dorn

I started practicing the trumpet in the park near my home back in 2009, about the time I thought I’d acquired enough control over the horn to avoid embarrassing myself.

I’d been at it a total of about 11 years, not counting the month- or 2-month-long abandonments that flowed from extreme frustration with the difficulty of the instrument. Tom Harrell, one of its best contemporary players and a much admired composer, has said, “(T)he hardest part of playing the trumpet is the physical act of making the sound.”

It’s a six-foot-long metal tube about one-half an inch in circumference which is interrupted by three cylinders – valves – that can be opened and shut by the fingers in seven different combinations that alter the distance air travels through the tube in degrees precise enough to change the tones the tube produces. Lip tension can raise those tones but most – not all – the notes produced by altering the lip tension require a change in the fingering.

That’s all there is to it. Like teeth are all there is to a shark.   [Read more…]

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