Reports from the scene

Locals Only

Mission Beach music venue and restaurant ’Canes Bar & Grill will close in early November. Talent buyer and marketing coordinator Pamela Johnson confirmed to CityBeat that the venue will shut its doors on Nov. 2, but declined to comment further on the reason for the closure or whether there are plans to reopen in the future. ’Canes will release an official statement later this week, and CityBeat will update this story at Lastblogonearth.com.

Pop-rockers Silent Armada have split. The band’s blog says guitarists Earnie Ashwood and Evan Gillig will start a new project together and that singer Jamie Ramirez is considering an R&B project.

As busy as the members of Beaters and Ale Mania are these days (see “View from a Stool” below), there are two new side projects of note. Jeremy Rojas is also playing in a band called Psychic Youth with Kristal Barbosa, while Beaters bassist Craig Barclift is in the live version of a new project called Whorio Goes to Clown School, which also includes Craig Oliver (Spirit Photography).

Vision of a Dying World have released a new EP, I Will Not Fear What I Don’t Understand, and Vision member Keith Milgaten has released two new compilation albums. The first compilation, available for free download at the Keith Milgaten Recording Collective MySpace site, is Recording is Rewarding, a collection of various bands he’s recorded at Stereo Disguise studios. The other is an album, from Milgaten’s band Jamuel Saxon, of remixed tracks from local bands like Buddy Akai, Tape Deck Mountain and Gray Ghosts and is available for free download at the Jamuel Saxon MySpace site.

In other CD-release news, lo-fi popsters Christmas Island will celebrate the release of their debut LP, Blackout Summer, at The Casbah on Monday, Oct. 12. The Intelligence and Wounded Lion will also play. Hip-hoppers Broken Dreams will release their new EP, It’s All Happening, with a performance at Beauty Bar on Saturday, Oct. 10. Parker and the Numberman, Archie Dean and others will also perform.

—Seth Combs

The Enrique Experience

Legendary for picking up tricks and the occasional street treat, it’s only fitting that Gilly’s Bar pay homage to its El Cajon Boulevard location by staging crazy karaoke nights, which, thanks to hostess Sonya’s vast array of costumes, celebrate Halloween all year long.

A small red carpet greets potential crooners, but with its corner Lotto ticket scanning machine, a toilet that flushes via a jury-rigged screw and a sign atop the bar that reads “Liquor first. Keno second,” this place is as far from Hollywood as it gets. But don’t tell that to Sonya, whose one-car garage is stocked with endless outfits and props rivaling the inventory of the Warner Bros. costume department.

Struttin’ her stuff in a Queen of Hearts outfit and celebrating her 35th birthday, the saucy maiden arrived last Friday and was greeted by Jonas Brothers-like crazed-fan screams. She set up her station under a round silver Christmas ornament that, hung up high, doubled as a mini disco ball. Not a minute later, a sauced bargoer came up and complimented her outfit: “You look great! Except I was betting on a birthday suit,” he slurred. Unfazed, the sing-along diva replied, “Well, honey, looks like you lost that bet.”

One by one, patrons—who apparently sopped listening to the radio in 1988—stepped up and belted out their best Gloria Estefan, Ratt, Salt-N-Pepa or Nu Shooz with the sort of gusto that’d make the producers of American Idol’s gag reel shout, “We’ve struck television gold, boys!”

“It only hurts at first,” Sonya told Birdie, a middle-aged woman about to rock out to Reba McEntire’s pedo-prostitution anthem “Fancy (Don’t Let Me Down).”

By the end of the night, the emcee’s crown was a tad crooked, her red feathered boa not so fluffy and her vocal cords a little tattered (thanks to an impromptu helium-balloon-assisted performance of New Edition’s “Candy Girl”), but her plans for bigger and better costumes remained.

The crowd favorite?

“You know, I’ve done everything from elaborate Queen of the Damned and A Clockwork Orange get-ups,” she said, “yet the ones that garner the most tips are sexy cheerleader or slutty nurse. It really pisses me off.”

—Enrique Limón

View from a Stool 

“I can’t play guitar worth a darn,” remarked Kristin Gundred about halfway through Dum Dum Girls’ first San Diego show at the Che Café on Friday night.

That certainly didn’t matter to the screaming girls next to me who bounced along to tracks like “Catholicked” and hollered, “I want to marry you, Kristin!” in between songs. It certainly didn’t matter to Jeremy Rojas and Andrew Montoya (one half of Beaters and Ale Mania), who served as the Girls’ rhythm section for the night while Gundred searches for replacements to round out what she says will eventually be an all-girl group.

And it certainly didn’t matter to Sup Pop Records, which signed the band a few months ago even though they were barely a blip in the blogosphere and Gundred’s previous band, Grand Ole Party, were reportedly still together. So, after months of rumored secret shows around town and speculation on relocation to L.A., you’d think “Dee Dee” (Gundred’s alter-ego) and Co.’s first proper local show in front of fans would have been anticlimactic, right?

But here’s the thing. They’re actually pretty “darn” good. I was bobbing my head throughout the eight-song set and found that there was way more to the Girls’ songs than what you hear on their MySpace site. Tracks like “Rest of Our Lives,” “Yours Alone” and the closing “Jail La La” were a lovely reminder of Gundred’s talent as a songwriter, even if they’re not all there yet when performed live. And the lyrically stand-offish “Don’t Talk to Me,” accented by guitarist and harmony singer Julianna Meideros, came across more like a fuller, lush song about a bad day than a torrid, lo-fi reenactment of a lover’s quarrel.

For many local music fans, 2010 was supposed to be the year that GOP lived up to their local hype on a national level. Fans of that band will certainly miss Gundred’s dual drumming and singing, especially now that her amazing pipes are lost in a haze of reverb. But on Friday night, looking past the band’s initial onstage jitters and awkwardness, I couldn’t get over how happy she looked.

Dum Dum Girls’ distorted, shoegazey sound may never reach a mass audience the way we all thought GOP’s poppy blues would, but years from now, when Gundred and Dee Dee are sitting around the table together, I doubt Gundred will blame her doppelganger for leading her astray. She’s following her heart. Not only is that nothing to regret, but judging from Friday night, it’s worth listening to, as well. 

—Seth Combs