After suffering through the Covid shutdown, Summergrass, San Diego’s Premier Live Bluegrass Festival, is back! Headliners include top national talent: The Lonesome River Band, Special Consensus, Bluegrass Etc., High Fidelity, the Po Rambling Boys, and a covey of great local bands, including Virtual Strangers, Chris Cerna and Bluegrass Republic, Drought Tolerant Bluegrass, Bluegrass Brethren, and […]
It was sometime in August on a warm summer evening. I remember that the clouds hung low over Point Loma, making for a brilliant sunset. A Saturday night, my girlfriend and I went out dancing, leaving her teenage daughters home with some videos and the chores to clean up after dinner. We made it to […]
Last June, while the world was just getting used to being quarantined, Faunch released a nine-track disc, 80 Spheres. Then, even more recently, prolific guitarist/writer/singer Andy Faunch was back with another group of songs, Sodium Vapor. His L.A. band with quirky British prog/new wave influences has a San Diego connection—Fallbrook producer/multi-instrumentalist Dave Blackburn was a […]
Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world We cannot cure the world of sorrows But we can choose to live in joy —Joseph Campbell As legendary Doors drummer, John Densmore, offers his third book, The Seekers, Meetings with Remarkable Musicians (and Other Artists), he opens the gateway to spiritual awakening through music and personal […]
To celebrate July 4, here’s a 1979 home movie of a UC San Diego computer main frame, performing “Stars & Stripes Forever” (tune into the music portion of the video at 6:52) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih1psGzLvlw That classic Sousa march, via the whirrings of a 1970’s Control Data CDC 3600 computer, comes courtesy of colleague Pea Hicks. Hicks […]
In the beginning, there was monophony. Basically just a bunch of monks moaning in monasteries. Oh, there were many other sacred and secular musical forms developing in other cultures before and during, but there’s next to no documentation of it. Not like the European church music of centuries ago. Ascetic monks make fastidious clerics. Then […]
Electro-pop singer/songwriter Jane Lui has a new album that is her debut under her new performance identity, Surrija. The former San Diego artist who now lives in L.A. wrote or co-wrote (with Albert Chiang) 11 of the 12 tracks as a concept album, inspired by the life and works of Picasso. The new disc is […]
Born and raised in Chicagoland in “Little Slavia,” I was introduced to Balkan music in my early childhood. I immediately loved the drums. The bass drum was especially fascinating to me. My young wiry body caught the bass drum vibe in my little chest. Clinging front and center to the stage at the Croatian Culture […]
