All that is night

Locals Only

After more than two years’ worth of rumors, it’s been confirmed that ’90s rockers Three Mile Pilot are working on new material and will play two shows at The Casbah on Jan. 19 and 20. Featuring Zach Smith (Pinback) and Pall Jenkins (Mr. Tube, The Black Heart Procession), the band hasn’t played in San Diego in more than a decade. No tour plans have been posted as of press time.

Local hip-hop may finally have a home at, of all places, the mostly metal club Brick by Brick. MCs Young Mass and Kayo have announced a monthly hip-hop showcase called LIVE-MassFrye Presents and will feature seven to nine artists performing for 20 minutes each. The first one will be held on Thursday, Nov. 20, and will continue on Thursdays before moving to a weekend slot in early 2009.

In other hip-hop news, promoters House of Rep will celebrate their fifth anniversary with a party this Friday, Nov. 14, at Riley’s Music Lounge in Point Loma, featuring performances from Deep Rooted, Blame One and Anti Citizens, among others.

Finally, As I Lay Dying will film their performance on Monday, Nov. 17, at The Jumping Turtle in San Marcos for their first live DVD.
—Seth Combs

View from a stool

The Dirtbombs’ two-drummer punk ’n’ soul party was the perfect warm-up for the sold-out crowd at 94.9-FM’s sixth-anniversary party last Saturday night at 4th & B. Mick Collins, the opening act’s lead singer and guitarist, is a true rock lifer—at 42, he’s lost none of his vigor, high-kicking across the stage like his band’s own personal cheerleader.

It’s clear that a working-class Detroit ethos still guides the band. At the end of their first set, as Collins, baritone guitarist Ko Melina and bassist Zach Weedon packed up their gear, drummers Ben Blackwell and Pat Pantano continued to pound away, with Blackwell heading into the crowd, floor tom in hand. Making his way back to the stage, he climbed atop Pantano’s kick drum, contributing rim shots while the crowd cheered.

It would be a difficult act to follow, and it took local roots-rockers Delta Spirit nearly six songs to loosen up. When frontman  Matt Vasquez belted out the spine-tingling “Children,” it made me wonder why they didn’t show that fire earlier.

As for TV On the Radio, they’re becoming legitimate stars on their own, but the highlights of their set were the antics of touring woodwind player Martin Perna, who looked like Tobey Maguire grinning through an ecstasy trip. Perna’s enthusiasm was infectious enough to support an early crowd-surfing attempt, and it may have been the first time in history that a saxophonist was eagerly received by a sea of hands.

With his massive mitts outstretched like E.T., it feels like vocalist Tunde Adebimpe is the benevolent greeter for a band whose heady mix of artful experimentation, politics and pop songwriting could make them the best-loved band of this generation. Judging from the joyful audience reception, they’re on the right path.
—Todd Kroviak

The Enrique Experience

“This is the beginning of a whole new world—are you fucking ready?” a very excited Madonna asked her fans on Election night at Petco Park for her Sticky & Sweet Tour stop. Lately, the diva’s name hasn’t been necessarily synonymous with grace under pressure, but after a rocky year that included a tell-all book by her douchebag brother, talk about her Malawi-born adopted son being taken away and—oh yeah—divorce, Madonna proved she’s still got the goods and rocked new tunes like “Give it 2 Me” and “Hung Up,” as well as vintage “Into the Groove”-era jams in front of a crowd of almost 40,000.

The evening, which the singer described as “the best day of my life,” saw Madge jumping rope, getting freaky with dreadlocked Enigma-like monks, dry humping her Orange-brand amplifier and making out with a dancer dressed as her “Like a Virgin” self.

Her much-talked-about video of John McCain / Hitler / Robert Mugabe juxtaposed with images of Barack Obama, rainbows and unicorns resonated particularly well that night with the proud “I Voted”-sticker-donning crowd.

During the performance of one of her signature songs, “Ray of Light,” the chiseled chanteuse forgot the lyrics on three occasions, proving that even she has her senior moments. “I have a lot on my mind right now, as you can imagine,” she told the audience.

“What is this space shit?” she asked, pointing at some noticeable gaps left on the floor section for crowd control. “Come up and put your hands around each other.” Pissing off the red-jacketed Elite Security team, the frantic crowd bum-rushed the stage. Hey, when Madonna talks, you listen. I was able to get so close I felt her spittle land on my upper lip—free clinic, here I come!
—Enrique Limón

Country in the city

Borrowing from one of River City’s song titles, Jon Kruger, the vocalist, guitarist and harmonica man for the local band, could be described as “poetically indifferent.”

When asked about the music he makes with his year-old band—musicians who switch from instrument to instrument and play everything from the banjo (Andrew Armerding) and pedal steel guitar (Bubba Lee) to the washboard (Rob Ivy, who also plays drums) and piano (Chad Pittman)—Kruger says, quite aloofly, “It’s just enjoyable, it’s nice, it’s fun to play and I think it speaks well to people.”

If you push Kruger a little more and ask him to describe the specific sound River City is going for—which I’d personally say is mostly melancholy poetry set to sometimes twangy, other times soothing, folk music—he’ll answer, “I usually say indie folk or something. Rob called it ‘sonic folk’ when he first heard us.”

But maybe calling Kruger “indifferent” is unfair. Maybe he’s just the poetic part and the indifference comes when people ask him to put his abstract thoughts into straightforward, journalism-friendly quotables. The guys is, after all, an artist (he does all the poster and flier art for the band, a surreal collection of cute anthropomorphic characters that can be viewed at www.myspace.com/ rivercitytheband), and the band is what it is: a group of talented, city-dwelling musicians who like to play music that makes listeners feel like they’re in the country—like they should be sitting on hay bails stomping their feet on wooden floors while a rooster crows somewhere in the distance.

And for those who think urbanites don’t know the first thing about country, they should see a River City show in a greasy San Diego dive bar, close their eyes and see how easy (or hard) it is to shake off pre-conceived notions.
—Kinsee Morlan

River City plays The Radio Room, 3519 El Cajon Blvd. in Normal Heights, at 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13.

Counter-culture roll call

When author Amy Wallen gets behind the mic, you know something funny, sassy or self-deprecating will come out. Last Friday night, at The Grove in South Park, she played the gracious, but not-too-gracious, host of the 4-year-old monthly open-mic series Dime Stories, which invites San Diego’s literati to read three-minute prose and is now officially sponsored by San Diego Writers, Ink.

“You know about the three-minute time limit, right?” she’d ask each writer before he or she stepped nervously up to the mic. And Wallen wasn’t kidding; the second her little plastic oven timer beeped after the three minutes were up, she was on top of the readers like a schoolmarm on kids chewing gum. Only one nice older lady was able to convince Wallen to give her a few more seconds so she could finish reading her piece.

The fast pace of Dime Stories—which happens at The Grove every first Friday of the month, with a special showcase event at The Loft @ UCSD on Tuesday, Nov. 18—helps make the open-mic session one of the best and most interesting in town. Plus, since the host herself is a bestselling author, the quality of writing at Dime Stories is a cut above your average anything-goes open mic.
Pete Hepburn, who received an honorable mention in CityBeat’s recent Fiction 101 contest with a story titled “Barstow,” was spotted at last week’s event, as was Eber Lambert, a local poet and writer whose satirical piece on Dr. Seuss was by far the best, most hilarious reading of the night.
—Kinsee Morlan