Reports from the scene

Locals only

Three independent sources have told CityBeat that Rolling Stone is working on a feature about the San Diego music scene. While calls to Nathan Brackett, the mag’s deputy managing editor, were not returned by press time, sources say the story will likely focus on bands like Crocodiles and Wavves and may run in the June 11 issue.  

San Diego native-turned-Angeleno Greg Laswell landed himself in the iTunes top-10 charts last Friday after his new single, “Off I Go,” closed the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy. The song was specifically written and performed for the series and marks the fourth time his music was used in the show’s fifth season.

New band Gran Sasso’s first show will be an opening slot for Black Bone Child at Soda Bar on Friday, May 29. The band includes members from Sea of Cortez and The 7-10 Splints. Drummer David Mishoulam describes the sound as a “high energy, self-indulgent celebration of noisy rock, piling on whatever might have influenced us at any point in our lives.”

Earthless have new big-in-Europe bragging rights. The pychedelic instrumental rockers have been tapped to play not only the Supersonic Festival in Birmingham, England (July 24 through 26), but also the Festival de Psicodelia de El Castell de Guadalest in Alicante, Spain, on July 25.

In new-album news, bar-rockers The Shamey Jays will release their new CD, Four of Your Pretty Packages, on Saturday, May 23, at Brick by Brick, with Joey Harris, Anna Troy Band, Endoxi and Bedpost Buzzards also playing. And post-punks Thin Man will play an LP-release show for Flush with the Moon on Friday, May 22, with Earthmen, Strangers and The Anasazis opening.

The Enrique Experience

A staple in the lives of outstanding Americans like Homer Simpson and Larry the Cable Guy, beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage in the world. Hell, it even has its own Mesopotamian goddess, Ninkasi. In her honor, what must have been a world record for the busiest set of Port-o-Potties ever was set last Sunday at the corner of University Avenue and Ohio Street, at CityBeat Festival of Beers, which brought out aficionados and drunkards alike, who indulged in selections from 28 breweries.

As the sun set and after listening to acts like The Drowning Men and Kill Me Tomorrow, it was a short trek to Bar Pink, where I met up with a group of friends—including CityBeat food columnist Candice Woo—and engaged in a game of broken telephone, during which, for some odd reason, the word “Muslim” got wrongfully attached to 100 percent of the messages.

From there, it seemed a natural transition to top off the night at the Tin Can Ale House, the Bankers Hill hot spot that boasts more than 50 varieties of canned beer. My heart broke and my liver rejoiced upon realizing that it was closed for the night. Lucky for me, the SRO bar—an acronym for “Standing Room Only” that can also stand for Seriously Red and Ornate, thanks to its crimson walls, crystal chandeliers, floor-to-ceiling mirrors and overall Liberace-on-acid décor—was open for business. Here, the drinks are cheap and the wigs even cheaper, as it’s the watering hole of choice for the city’s middle-aged transgender and cross-dressing set.

I chatted it up with an Ecuadoran gal who called herself Britney Spears while a patron who’d just gotten off his shift at Starbucks sat his beer-chugging shitzu at the bar and gave out free cookies.

“I think I fucked up on the arrangement,” 86-year-old Georgie, the in-house florist told me of his red, white and blue carnation display, which was adorned with plaster likenesses of two revolutionary drummers and a flutist. “I swore today was Canada Day, and this was the closest I could get,” he said.

A belligerent Miss Spears then demanded that the bartender concoct a special shot she wanted called a “booty bump.”

“Just set it on the floor and put a long straw in it,” she exclaimed, making a squatting motion, which immediately made me think of my favorite brew earlier at the beer fest: Afterburn.

Text Confessions

Still don’t know what a text confession is? Well, if writer Will K. Shilling happens to have your cell number, you’ve likely gotten a text or 10 from him asking random questions. Shilling has much of the local music scene programmed in his phone, so we thought, Why not print some of their even more random answers? This week’s subject: The Doobie Brothers co-headline with The Allman Brothers Band at Harrah’s Rincon Casino & Resort on Friday, May 22.

Will’s text: “What’s in the Black Water of China Grove?”
Responses (unedited):
Allison Gill (singer-songwriter): A mullet?
Chris Leyva (Blizzard): swine flue and the remains of amelia earnheart
Charlie McRee (Hatchet Brothers): Diabolical Death Doobies
Rick Froberg (Obits): doodies?
Billy Gruff (The Shamey Jays): A refelection of the mississippi moon and the body of dear mrs perkins.
Michael Dean Damron (singer-songwriter): I think its the teacher and the preacher!!
Romy Kaye (singer-songwriter): My brother dropped his doobie in it and cried minute by minute ever since.
Zack Nielsen (sezio.org): the answer to everlasting life...
Curtis McCrary (Rialto Theatre): doobie juice, brother
Tim Crowley (710 Beach Club): Smoke on the water
Sam Yaffi (Mad Juana): a transsexual Japanese Crunk Star?
Matt Rothenberg (Noise 292): I dunno, but it’s time to empty the bong.