Reports from the scene
We tie up some loose radio ends, Enrique experiences a big fat butt and Sonic Youth never changes
Photo by James Norton.
It was with open minds that we made our way to the Guido & Guidette Ball at Stingaree on Saturday night. After all, Jersey Shore’s Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino was in the house (you know, the guy from the MTV show who’s always showing his abs and going to the tanning salon). And while we certainly had pics of The Sitch doing fist pumps for the camera, we went with these guys instead. We’d love to think that these bros broke out the orange tan and bedazzled hoodies just to be thematically ironic, but look at those perfectly waxed eyebrows, and peep the perfectly matched cross and dog tags. Nope, these guys are real-deal “creepers” and proof positive that you don’t need to go to Seaside Heights to find genuine Jersey. We got ’em right here. That (sigh) is the situation.
Locals Only
Following up on the story we published last week, the Broadcast Company of the Americas (BCA) has officially acquired radio stations 91X, Z-90 and Magic 92.5 from Finest City Broadcasting. With help from an affiliate of Toma Bravo LLC, a private-equity firm, BCA bought the Finest City stations in a foreclosure sale held Thursday, Jan. 7. While there were no employee cuts and regular programming continues, employees say they were essentially terminated on Thursday and then rehired on Friday after the company moved offices.
Meanwhile, deejay Mikey Esparza announced on his website Tuesday that he’s officially moving his morning show (The Mikey Show) to FM 94.9. The show was previously broadcast on the Clear Channel-owned Rock 105.3, but Esparza was let go after negotiations on a new contract fell through. The show will begin rebroadcasting Jan. 25.
Former 91X deejay Chris Cantore has inked a deal with NBC San Diego to launch an online television program called SoundDiego. The show will focus on local and national arts and music.
Ubiquitous electro-rocker and scenester Dan Merino (of Sex Mannequin) has started a new band with girlfriend Melissa Moorcroft called Gaux Nu Vaux. They’ll make their live debut on Friday, Jan. 15, at U-31.
In CD-release news, singer songwriter Greg Gibson (formerly of Waterline Drift) will celebrate the release of his debut album, Black Glass, on Friday, Jan. 15, at The Ruby Room with Erica Davies and The Hundred Days supporting. Also that night, troubadour Kenny Eng and hardcore metal-heads Murder on the Dancefloor will play shows (at Lestat’s and SOMA Sidestage, respectively) in celebration of their new albums. Finally, on Saturday, Jan. 16, alterna-rockers Eclipse 79 will play at Beauty Bar to mark the release of their new album, Pompeii.
An earlier version of this story said that the band Trophy Wife is splitting up. That's not accurate—they're replacing some members.
The Enrique Experience
Growing up in the border region, copyright infringement has a sweet spot in my heart. Plaster Picachu donning a Nazi helmet? Sign me up! A T-shirt that says “Crack Kills” and features Bart Simpson crushed between an obese woman’s butt cheeks? Hell to the sí. So, naturally, when I saw the luminous image of not one, but two Jiminy Crickets outside the aptly named Cricket’s Pub (3339 El Cajon Blvd.) I was sucked right in, like a bootleg moth to an imitation flame.
Inside the narrow space, a sign that reads “In this site in 1897, nothing happened” proudly hangs by the bar, and patrons can choose to either be poked in the ass by a pool cue, or risk loosing an eye to a stray dart. A display case houses dart accessories, including “XL shafts” for just $1.50 (a bargain in anyone’s book).
Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” mashed with 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” blared from the sound system, skipping every three seconds. “All you gotta do is skip with it and keep goin’, shiiit,” a microphone-holding woman said. Her name is Miss Patty, the Tina Turner of this particular Thunderdome, a large-and-in-charge regular celebrating her 50th birthday.
“I ain’t going home Coyote Ugly tonight, just plain ugly,” she said, chugging a shot of Patron. Later, she paraded around offering sheet cake, declaring her hatred of “skinny bitches” and proclaiming that after quitting smoking, she gained 40 pounds—in all the right places. “Look at this big ass. I know I look good,” she boasted, as she dropped it low.
At the party’s zenith, an elderly mute woman—who earlier had tried to make conversation with me—formed a circle and started showing her dancing ability, from Krumping to the stanky leg. Not wanting to be outshined, the birthday girl took to the mic and put her in check. “You know how when you’re at the beauty shop and they’ve got walk-ins? That right there’s a walk-in. I don’t know the bitch.”
Sure, the bar’s logo might be a knock-off, but, child, Miss Patty’s brand of sass is 100-percent genuine.
View from a stool
More than a decade ago, a story in a British music magazine compared Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore to Dorian Gray, the un-aging protagonist of the Oscar Wilde novel. It’s a comparison that’s been made countless times since then—the frontman for the noise / art-rock band looks pretty much the same now as he did when Sonic Youth formed
in 1981 (there was no photo pit at the band’s Jan. 7 show at House of Blues, so you’ll have to take our word for it). Where others have grown fat, bald or just weird, Moore, who’ll turn 52 this year, is the Peter Pan of ’90s college-radio rock stars.
And, to some extent, the same could be said about Sonic Youth’s music: It hasn’t changed much over the years. While there’s a fullness to 2009’s The Eternal—their 15th studio record—compared with earlier recordings, a Sonic Youth song is a Sonic Youth song. They’re a band you listen to not necessarily to hear your favorite song—not to say there are no stand-outs among their catalog—but, rather, to hear a sound. They’ve hit on a formula in which dissonance and melody are given equal weight and where noise jams are supported by one of the better rhythm sections in rock.
With that kind of uniformity, they’re also one of the few bands that can get away with playing an entire set of all-new music. Well, sort of. On their current tour, Sonic Youth’s played almost every song from The Eternal and not much else. It’s a good record—CityBeat contributor Jim Ruland gave it an 8.1 out of 10—but it’s a ballsy move for any band. About three-quarters of the way through the show, there was an almost tangible disconnect between the band and the audience that might have been remedied by a little nostalgia in the form of “Cool Thing” or their fantastic cover of The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” They pulled out two songs from Daydream Nation for the first encore but opted to skip the second. No “Death Valley ’69” for San Diego.
