All things night

The Enrique Experience

“A word of advice for those of you aspiring filmmakers,” Scott Dunkee told a packed house waiting to see his film, The Matador. “Don’t try this at home.”

Dunkee’s documentary, which profiles the rising career of the Spanish bullfighter known as El Fandi, was one of the films exhibited at this year’s San Diego Film Festival. Now in its seventh year, SDFF managed to fit in 75 films that ranged from the funny (The Last Cup: The Road to the World Series of Beer Pong) to the tragically sublime (Crazy, the story of 1950s legendary guitarist Hank Garland).

And, of course, there were the parties. Saturday’s GQ Magazine Actors Ball & Awards Ceremony drew a crowd to The New Children’s Museum, where the combination of a full bar, a Tommy Bahama Rum ice luge and an array of hands-on activities originally designed for kids ended up being the night’s best entertainment. Industry peeps went indoor rock climbing and had a go inside the Porta Party (a 4-by-4-foot capsule complete with disco lights, calypso music and a spinning mirrored ball thrown in for good measure).

“I’m surprised. I’ve never won anything before,” Jared Davis said after his short film, Residue, which tells the story of the CIA’s involvement in Cambodia in the early 1970s, took home Best San Diego Film. “I felt that this story needed to be told. We’re in a similar situation in history, and what happened there has a lot of relevance to what is happening in other places today.”

The local film fête came to a close Sunday night with a Heineken-sponsored wrap party at EXY after the premier of Walt Disney Pictures’ high-seas adventure documentary, Morning Light.

“Watching an audience watching the movie was really rewarding—they laughed and cried and did all the right things,” executive producer Roy E. Disney told CityBeat.

With the unofficial Gay Days at Disneyland right around the corner, we then asked Disney who he thinks the gayest Disney character of all time is. “I’ve never been asked that question before,” answered Disney. “Gimme about an hour. I know too much.”
—Enrique Limón

Locals Only

Despite rumors to the contrary, Kill Me Tomorrow are not breaking up, although it has been confirmed by current members that founding member and bass player Kate “K8” Wince has moved on. Four-string duties have been taken over by James Goldbach (Thin Man, ex-The Vultures). It’s also been confirmed that last year’s “lost” album, Trap Like A Steel Mind, which was supposed to be released on Gold Standard Laboratories until the label folded last year, should be out within the year. The band is also working on new material, along with a new novel from drummer Zack Wentz, the debut release from Thin Man and yet another musical project featuring members of the current lineup that will be revealed soon. Kill Me Tomorrow will perform at the benefit show for the late Willy Graves Oct. 4 at The Casbah with The Muslims, Crocodiles and Wild Weekend.
—Seth Combs

Beneath the underground

Matthew Rothenberg has a pet theory on his peers who rocked UCSD’s Che Café in various bands in the 1980s. “The biggest bulge in the Che Underground membership was born around 1964-1965,” the UCSD grad and current web pro in New York City tells CityBeat, “which is right at the cusp when the national baby boom gave way to what’s called Generation X. My theory—which I’d like to check with county records—is that we were actually at the center of a San Diego mini-boom created by new families arriving in droves from the ’60s through the early ’80s.”

Rothenberg started the Cheunderground.com website in 2007 as a way to keep in touch with old friends from the 1980s San Diego indie-rock scene who are now “scattered around the country and the world.” Rothenberg focused his online nostalgia on the summer of 1983, and bands such as The Answers, Hair Theater, Noise 292, The Rockin’ Dogs, The [original] Wallflowers, The Tell-Tale Hearts, The Gravedigger V, The Morlocks, Everybody Violet and Manual Scan.
“The pending 25th anniversary seemed a good occasion to reflect on a scene whose echoes outlasted its place in the history book,” he says.

The fact that the scene was promoted in a pre-Internet world figures heavily in the content.

“It’s a digital view of an analog world clever San Diego kids created for themselves,” he says. “In the days when our music was targeted for suppression by local authorities, the tools of distribution were expensive and labor-intensive and rare. It’s very empowering, digitizing these hand-drawn flyers, delicate cassette tapes, the lovingly hand-colored ’zines. We poured such a lot of blood, sweat and tears into our creations.”

He adds, “It’s just so much easier to distribute them today.”

Rothenberg thinks the computer-savvy, socially networked local bands of today can learn a lot from his peers’ pioneering spirit.

“Our scene was the opportunity for many kids to take off their stylistic training wheels and start riding in bigger, more varied groups.”
—Will K. Shilling

Happy birthday, douchebag

The Ivy Hotel celebrated its one-year anniversary with a party that was more bomb than bombastic. Patrons shelled out $30 on Saturday for admission into Ivy clubs Eden and Envy, though the lure of celebrity guests like Kiefer Sutherland and Sarah Michelle Gellar was stifled when the stars generally stayed in their private cabanas. Upstairs at Eden, the kinda-important VIPs sipped free Dom Perignon while taking in a rather boring all-covers set by Melky Jean (uh, Wyclef’s sister). The people-watching was fab, but the whole night remained surprisingly empty.

But the real story here is The Ivy itself. With companies like EnDev (owners of Side Bar and Stingaree) in dire straits and Jade Theatre shutting its doors after barely half a year, The Ivy and its ilk are still pretending it’s 2005. If you aren’t on the list (and sometimes even if you are) and don’t have double-Ds, you’ll be lucky to get in. According to Ivy employees, Miami-based co-owner Michael Kelly wants a vibe of exclusivity (after all, the guy’s married to one of the Playboy Playmate Dahm triplets).

The fact of the matter is that San Diego is not Miami, and this shtick is getting old with the local club-going throngs. San Diegans are a fickle bunch, and when you’re constantly surrounded by knucklehead security and waiting 25 minutes (at least) for a $15 (or more) poorly mixed drink, then most people move on, or head back to P.B.
—V.H. McLoughlin

Silver Jews top-five

Dave Berman and his Silver Jews rolled into San Diego for the first time ever last week, and a large, enthusiastic crowd at The Casbah greeted their reclusive hero. With a get-up similar to that of Luke Wilson’s in The Royal Tenenbaums, all eyes were on Berman as he dropped deadpan jokes amid his hysterically awkward stage demeanor. Here are some highlights from the show:

1. Berman’s “Joos” belt buckle.

2. Berman and his wife, fellow bass-playing “Joo” Cassie Berman, and their endless exchange of loving glances.

3. Berman claiming Clay Aiken came out of the closet because of the Jews song “Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed.”

4. The song “Smith and Jones Forever”—so, so good.

5. Berman’s never-ending battle with his microphone stand.
Would somebody put this guy in a movie (besides the Silver Jew documentary) already?
—Dryw Keltz

View from a stool

SDSU’s Open Air Theatre commenced the fall season with back-to-back burners from The Raconteurs and My Morning Jacket last Wednesday and Thursday night, respectively.

The Raconteurs, whose Consolers of the Lonely was released earlier this year, have proven to be no mere side project, and guitarist Jack White’s commitment was apparent as he ripped through songs like “Steady, As She Goes” and the fried guitar solo on “Level.” Co-songwriter and guitarist Brendan Benson looked like John Holmes circa 1977, wielding a paisley Telecaster with porn ’stache and bangs.

The Raconteurs are like rock comfort food—nothing groundbreaking, but well-executed, forceful and entertaining enough to give Zeppelin and Who fans some old-school satisfaction.

Meanwhile, MMJ performed a mind-blowing, nearly three-hour set, hitting all the points throughout their career.

Although the cuts from this year’s Evil Urges couldn’t hold a candle to closer “Mahgeetah” and the transcendent “Wordless Chorus,” singer/guitarist Jim James was his usual jovial self, periodically donning a cape, cracking jokes and bouncing wildly around the stage. Somehow, they managed to get better as the night progressed, and by the six-song encore, fans were probably wondering if James and Co. had been taking notes on live Springsteen bootlegs.
—Todd Kroviak