November Shows Recap (it's never too late)

It's been a really busy and kind of stressful month. The holidays are hard on me for a number of reasons. Either way, I made it out to a few shows this month before I had to start traveling. I got back into town on the 29th. Before I left I think I made it to something like 8 shows and 12 bands in 11 days. Hmph. Anyway, here is a recap of all the November shows I attended.

Note: I only listed the bands I actually saw, not necessarily all the bands that played. Also, I took some really shitty pictures with my phone, and have since fixed my digital camera. I will soon be buying a new one as well.

11/08 Thursday - Swim Party @ The Ken Club

This was the One Year Anniversary for Sd Dialed In. I got there late didn't see Writer or Pocket Utopia. Swim Party was good. I had only heard myspace snippets before, but I enjoyed them live. They reminded me of what I what consider "classic" indie rock, like Yo La Tengo, or Guided By Voices. They got a nomination for Best Alternative Album at last year's San Diego Music Awards. A friend of mine who's only a few years younger than me said she felt like she was the youngest person there. The crowd was a little older, but I hadn't really noticed til she pointed it out. That night I also accomplished putting a face to the name behind SdDialedIn Rosey, when Swim Party tried to get her on stage. Go to SdDialedIn for more pictures and words on Rosey's blog, where she says " I don't think there's any band that I've written about on my site more than Swim Party."

11/09 Friday - Stars @ House of Blues

Canadian indie pop/rock is awesome. Stars is kind of at the forefront of what people like to call the Canadian Invasion. At least three of their members are part of the Canadian collective ubergroup, Broken Social Scene. They can be a little cheesy at times, but very catchy nonetheless. Throughout the show they kept throwing flowers into the crowd. They play the kind of songs that are familiar after the first listen. They played as a six piece, there was a lot of lush delicate instrumentation and really pretty arrangements to compliment the dual male/female vocals. It's just really pretty music.

11/09 Friday - Cabron, Fascination @ The Alibi

Stars ended pretty early, so I made my way to the Alibi in time to watch the last couple of bands. This was a fun show. There was blood, a human auction, weird dudes in overalls, semi nudity, a lot of drunkenness, oh and even some bathroom sex. It was a benefit for the Red Cross organized by the Strike a Match organization for fire victims. I missed Pen and Ink, Death on Mars, and Behind the Wagon. I've never seen Death on Mars before, but am familiar with the other two. Pen and Ink is Cullen Hendrix's band (Ex-North Atlantic, City Beat, Music Matters...). They practice in the same building as my band does, and we've played with them before. They have a strong Sunny Day influence and remind me a lot of Capp'n'Jazz and The Ivory Coast (damn, old school). I've also seen Behind the Wagon before. They are awesome honk-if-you're-honkey-tonk whiskey-drunk-country-rock (say that ten times fast). They stuck around after their set and got fucked up. Those boys like to drink. I did make it in time to see Cabron and The Fascination. Batwings is "tight bros" with both of these bands, we've played with each them a bunch of times. Cabron also practices where we practice. Oh yeah, there was this guy in overalls, the overalls guy... well, my friend Lori put it well: "we notice some dude wearing a one-piece dickies coverall kind of thing. he unzips it, so it's hanging around his waist. During Cabron's soundcheck, he's prancing around like he's ready to fucking rock you know. jumping, throwing a few punches here and there. Carmen, friend who is with me, and I look at each other after spotting him: "THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME!" He was pumped, he kept on doing like Tae-Bo moves and shit, and his coveralls kept falling off his ass. So Cabron had just started when I walked in. Bob, the guitarist, was pretty wasted. At one point he knocked a mic stand down, and on its subsequent path to the ground it shattered though my aforementioned friend, Lori's drink, cutting her hand pretty badly, and also hitting her in the head. Their intoxication lent itself to very enthusiastic stage show, they were all drunk and pissed. I think Bob cut his arms up rolling around on the floor with the broken glass that he had made as well. Between sets, Billy from Behind the Wagon got auctioned off by the night's totally wasted MC, Todd Price, for five bucks. The young lady that bought him didn't waste a lot of time getting her money's worth. I'll leave it at that. The Fascination were in good form. They played their fancy dancey brit pop complete with disco lights, and Robin hopped around in his white boots. Forrest and Merwan played a rock solid set, and Merwan stripped down to his underoos. Kickass standard Fascination fare.

11/10 Saturday - The Hives, Feist, Vhs or Beta @ 4th and B

Not a big fan of the venue, but I am a fan of Leslie Feist's voice, it's really powerful and expressive. Unfortunately like her albums, a live show for Feist is a tragic pairing of a few really amazing and catchy songs, and a whole bunch of slow boring ones. She's a great guitarist as well as vocalist, it's just too bad her music plays like adult contemporary. The backing band looked suicidal, they were so damn bored. VHS or Beta are a good band, but I still thought they were kind of boring too. I think mostly, they are just not my cup of tea. Some might say it's blasphemy, but I think I've had my fill of shoegazer wannabe brit pop. Cure fans would most definitely dig them, I just thought that there were too many people on stage to be playing such simple music. Also, I don't think it's an accident how much the vocalist, Craig Pfunder, sounds like Robert Smith. The Hives are pure gimmick in the best way, they know how to put on a show. That said, if you've heard one Hives song, you've heard them all. I knew what to expect musically. The stuff from the new album sounds just like the stuff from the old albums, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The beer was was expensive and the mosh pit (yes there was a mosh pit) was fucking annoying. There were a couple of jocks with no shirts trying to start fights.

11/11 Sunday - Hostile Combover @ The Zombie Lounge

Shamefully, I had no idea who had opened the show at the time. I got there as Hostile Comb-Over was setting up. If you've never seen them, prepare yourself for heavy riffs, jarring changes, beards, dual yelling/bellowing vocals, and veins popping out of Ben Johnson's neck and John Cota's head. The two bands I had missed were two San Francisco bands called Bottom and Floating Goat.

11/13 Tuesday - King Khan and BBQ Show @ The Pink Elephant

There were a shitload of people there. Among others, I saw members of The Atoms, The Sess, Dissimilars, Slab City, The Spits, The Corvinas, Rich White Males, and of course three of us from Batwings were there. I also saw Troy Johnson (formerly of Fox Rox and City Beat), and Foundation Skateboards' own Josh Beagle. King Khan and BBQ play stripped down, stomped out, doo-wop meets punk rock. Mark Sultan, or BBQ, actually has a really good voice. He plays guitar while playing a kick and snare with foot pedals bare-footed. King Khan plays most of the lead guitar parts and sings back-up vocals. Things got good and rowdy. I like the Pink Elephant, it's a nice bar, and Pabst and Tecate cans are only 2 bucks, but it isn't really suited all that well for a packed house show.

11/16 Friday - Beatmo, The Predicates @ Scolari's Office

I have to be honest, the only reason I ended up at this show is because I was killing time before meeting up with a friend. I looked up all the bands on myspace. In an email, a friend warned, "Beatmo - they're stylish and interesting, but they're missing something. they need more rock or something. The songs start off good, but then they get boring. and i don't like her voice either. it's unpleasant. also, listened to The Predicates -- didn't like them. boring and both their voices were extremely nasally." I felt similarly about both bands. Beatmo is an east LA six-piece consisting of four guys and two girls. After looking up Beatmo and seeing them in action, I felt like someone in Beatmo must have taken a marketing class or something. It was either that, or someone put them together like P-Diddy and Da Band or whatever. Either way, they seem like they are in it to win it. They've got a bunch of professional promo photos in matching outfits on their myspace profile. They even brought along this pornstar looking hooker-boot-wearing merch girl. I'm sure she was just a friend of the band, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em. They are all young, fresh faced, good looking Latinos, and naturally, they have a gorgeous eye-candy front-woman named Alexis. I was sitting in the back near where they had their merch set up, and each time she passed me she would say "excuse me," or "thanks hun," and rub my arm up and down, or my knee back and forth, you know very affectionately... too affectionately. That kind of irritated me, because I knew it didn't mean what that kind of thing ought to mean, she was just being a fucking a flirt. Marketing. Maybe my reaction was supposed to be, "Oh dood, that girl lust rubbed my leg, I'm going to go talk to her, maybe buy a t-shirt or something... well, just as soon as she's done rubbing up on those three other guys" It could have been that she was just really nice and a little touchy-feely, but it felt like she was working the room, and I like my own space. I think if it were the other way around and a man was doing that to all the girls in the room, they'd get their ass kicked. The crowd was totally into them. They have some Spanglish words and song titles that went over really well. They are really talented, and they play a tight set. A couple of the guys are multi-instrumentalists... but somehow it still feels like there is just a little something missing. The crowd asked for an encore, and I think they played an extra song. That's a little awkward for an opener to do, and pretty shitty for the other bands. Decide for yourself, they play the San Diego Sports Club on Dec. 8th.

The Predicates are total fucking cheesballs. This was supposed to be their cd release show. Their third album is called "Wicked Smart," a follow up to "Dissin' Treez" which featured such gems as "Taco Bell." You say Po-tay-to, I say puh-tah-to. You say witty and talented, I say joke songs haven't been cool since Cheshire Cat. I didn't think they were very funny or talented. The chorus to one of their songs is "yo quiero taco bell" for crissakes. Maybe I'm being hard on them, maybe I just don't get it. They took a long time between songs and kinda wouldn't shut the fuck up. They are pretty whack. Don't be mad at me though, blame Blink-182. They ruined it for all the marginally talented funny musicians. I had to leave after the first few songs of their set, and I missed The Drowning Men.

11/18 Sunday - The Long and Short of it @ The Pink Elephant

This "Sunday Mass" made it two consecutive Sunday performances for Ben Johnson, who plays drums for Hostile Combover, as well as handling the all the redfaced HR-style vein popping hooting and hollering for The Long and Short of It. They are a bunch of badass Rockevangelists, preaching the word in the form of relentlessly driving and noodley AmRep style post punk. There was a decent crowd gathered for a Sunday afternoon.

P.S. We once played an Anti-Monday League show at the Casbah with them. It was like the second or third Anti-Monday League that Tim Pyles had put together, and so someone at the Daily Aztec, the SDSU newspaper, decided to write and article about it. I just happened to be on campus the day the article ran. There in the Tempo section was a close-up picture of Todd Price of Batwings on the mic with a caption that read "Ben Johnson of the Long and Short of It..." I thought is was hilarious. Unfortunately, throughout the whole article there was no mention of the bands that had played that night they took the photo, with the exception of the incorrect photo caption. But I still think Ben got screwed. Now people think he looks like Todd. Poor guy. Just kidding Todd. Click on the picture to read the article.

11/29/07 Thursday - Los Esmiths @ The Ken Club

Los Esmiths are from Calexico, a border town just south of where I grew up. They play Smiths and Morrissey covers. Not much more to it. They do an excellent reproduction, so if you like the Smiths... it was good, recommended if you like Smiths, but don't expect anything particularly spectacular. They don't have costumes or pompadours. The singer won't spin around with flowers in his pocket and claim to be asexual or anything. The opener that I missed was an artist named Bez. I have no idea if he just played records or if he has songs or whatever, but he's got some other minimalist electronica project called 01101o. I've met him before, and though I can't say for sure whether or not he is, he seems like a prick, a prick proud to be prick. Either way, a wise old friend once told me "Never trust anyone that thinks they are cool enough to wear sunglasses at night. Only assholes wear sunglasses at night," and Bez wears sunglasses at night. Hey, I don't make the rules...

11/30/07 Friday - Westwind Boys @Scolari's Office

This was another night where I had been busy until really late, and just went to Scolari's to see if I could get a drink or two in before last call. I walked in and said to myself, "What the fuck is going on?" Everyone was drinking Coors Light and wearing backwards baseball caps. The Westwind Boys do really trite rap, white boy Ocean Beach frat boy rap. Rad. That was a weird night.