San Diego Indie Music Fest!

Get Ready to be completely underwhelmed!

Its almost that time of year again when the best in the ‘Indie’ world descend on Northpark for two days of music and mayhem! Who? That’s what I thought when I got an email from Citybeat, directing me to the Indie Music Fest website. Hey, I know who James Marsters is! He’s Buffy’s other boyfriend from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, his character, Spike made watching Buffy worth every minute of pain I endured during season 4 when Buffy started dating the Initiative guy, Riley [what a total douche nozzle that guy was]. Spike was delightfully manipulative and you could see his budding obsession with the Buffster. Apparently he’ll be performing with his band. I wish it was a different famous actor turned musician, like Zooey Deschanel and M Ward instead, but I’ll settle for Spike.

The Indie Music Fest ‘performer’ list reads like a whos who of who. I guess that is the point at an Indie Music ‘fest’. Though Kid Beyond would be worth seeing, he’s a genius using live midi-on the fly samples. I’m wondering where all the San Diego Bands are though? No Prayers, Muslims, Vultures or Transfer? What about Grand Ole Party? Why the fuck do these great San Diego bands always get passed over? How about Weatherbox, one of the best melodic hardcore bands to come out of SD in years?

People get so bummed out when talking about the local ‘scene,’ and I can guess why. Scolaris will now be the exclusive bar of the new world order in North Park. All those bourgeois 30-thousand dollar millionaires will need a watering hole closer to their prefab domiciles across the street and Bar Pink Elephant is thankfully too ‘weird’ for those gaslampers. The Alibi won’t be having shows in the near future or possibly ever again. Beauty Bar and U31 have cornered the asymmetrical haircut movement and don’t even get me started on Soma or the Che where exclusionary IS the norm.

Even Music Fest sponsor 91x treats their Loudspeaker show like a shameful experiment by having it air from 1am to 3am monday mornings. I guess that ensures that the only people who’d listen and be interested are fast asleep. In the interest of full disclosure my brother is a DJ for the loudspeaker show so yes I’d like to hear loudspeaker ‘live’ and not through their podcast monday afternoons.

It boggles the mind. But maybe it is too early to assume there won’t be any bands there that I’d like. Or maybe my discriminating tastes are too music snob and not quite Joe Public enough. I hope to be pleasantly surprised, or more so than last year when Fishbone was one of the few attractions.

Here’s who I’d pick for a ‘Locals Only’ Stage, if given the chance.

Grand Ole Party
Archons
The Prayers
Get Your Death On
Hostile Combover
Joanie Mendenhall
The K23 Orchestra
Weatherbox
Some Girls

Consumption Junction: Expecting Less but Getting More (CityBeat Update)

So here’s an update on that whole Citybeat thing courtesy of Rosey over at SDDialedin who posted an informative bit about a change at Citybeat. Actually, she makes some good points but SB editor Dave Rolland gives the best two middle fingers to San Diego I’ve read in a while by stating in an email:

We’re actually working on a replacement feature that would incorporate some of what Locals Only offers. Beauty, as always, is in the eye of the beholder. Some people like to read about the same local bands every week; others like to read about touring bands coming through town. We’ve begun to tire of the Locals format. Over the last couple of years, it’s come to feel a little too much like public relations for local bands, and we’d like to make better use of the space. Sometimes you have to kill your babies and try something new to keep things fresh. Hopefully, you’ll like the new feature.

I don’t really have anything to add to that but I will say that if you want to know what’s going on around SD just go online (SDDialedin, Sandiegopunk.com, myspace.com/loudspeakersandiego), if you want to know about touring acts pick up a Rolling Stone, Spin or Blender. While you’re at it, beer me that flesh turd—forgot to throw it out with the bathwater.