Stuff that happens at night
The new El Dorado bar and the rest of this week's local nightlife gossip
Hong Kong to El Dorado
Ryan Koontz of local rockers Dirty Sweet and the three Stanton brothers (Nate, Marshall and Matthew) have been bartending in the Gaslamp Quarter and saving their money for the last decade in hopes of opening a bar one day.
That day has finally come, and as long as the bar passes a health inspection Wednesday, El Dorado Cocktail Lounge (1030 Broadway, Downtown) will open this weekend.
The foursome’s creation is a dark, rustic-meets-modern, dive-like bar with big red booths and a dance floor finished with gold-leaf flakes. Decoupages of old Sam Russell western prints pasted onto hand-cut wood hang on the walls, old-timey chandeliers with flicker bulbs hang from the ceiling and a mysterious albino buffalo head is mounted between the “Dudes” and “Dames” bathrooms, just above a jukebox.
“You can kind of see the crowd we’re going for,” Koontz said as he flipped through the music collection, which offers everything from Daft Punk and Run D.M.C to Kings of Leon, The Beatles and the entire Stax and Motown box sets. A yet-to-be-built DJ booth will be put to use down the road on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
El Dorado (www.eldoradobar.com, www.myspace.com/eldoradobar) is taking the place of Hong Kong Nite Club, a hardcore dive bar known best for its cheap drinks poured by friendly female bartenders; coin-operated, less-than-pristine bathrooms; and the kind of patrons who treated drinking as a serious hobby. Koontz and the Stantons kept the kitschy-but-cool Kong bar top, which is covered in 40-year-old cartoons and newspaper clippings.
“We kept what was good and got rid of what was bad,” Koontz said. “It was more of a restoration project than anything else.”
—Kinsee Morlan
Locals Only
Sources at 91X and the Radio and Records website (a weekly newspaper that provides industry news) say local DJ Steve West is the latest victim of Finest City Broadcasting’s (owners of 91X) recent budget cuts. A staple at the station for over 20 years, the redheaded Brit hosted a weekday slot and the Resurrection Sunday show. Promo coordinator Morgan McGuire was also let go. The latest batch of layoffs follows that of program director Phil Manning and Reggae Makossa host Makeda Dread.
As reported in last week’s CityBeat, ambient group Fantastic Magic is one of the best local bands you haven’t heard of, or, at least was one of the best. According to FM’s Sundar, “The current of magic has lifted and bewitched a few wizards or so.” That is, the group has split, leaving a void only partially filled by Nathan Williams’ Wavves. See “View from a stool” below.
Live Wire, the North Park haunt, is hosting the new Club Vid night featuring DJ Gabe Vega. A noted music-video aficionado, Vega will spin tunes and showcase videos on the first and third Thursday of every month starting Nov. 20.
Some recent local record releases of note: Garage-rockers Hotel St. George released their new EP, Hundreds & Thousands, and Manuok released their second full-length, No End to Limitations.
—Seth Combs and Todd Kroviak
Calling all acoustic players
Kung Food, the vegetarian restaurant and community center in Bankers Hill, closed its doors in April 2007. Vegetarians and activists were surprised and upset at the loss of the space, but the owners never really gave patrons or CityBeat a good reason for the closure.
“That’s in the past,” said manager Mitch Wallis, “and we’re all about looking toward the future.”
Wallis recently reopened the Kung Food building as Nature’s Express (www.natures-express.com), a vegan fast-food drive-through and buffet-style restaurant. Kung Food had its share of noise complaints and citations because of the live-music events that were thrown there, so, this time around, Wallis plans to open the venue to quieter, more neighbor-friendly acoustic-music events.
“We’re really focused on local acoustic music,” Wallis says. “It’s the only thing we’re hosting in terms of live music and events. We want to talk to all the people that are involved in local acoustic music and invite them into a dialogue and see what the best way we can help the community and local musicians.”
—Kinsee Morlan
View from a stool
Kicking off a productive Sunday evening that would take me to see three bands at two venues, local duo Spirit Photography played their first show in more than a year to a fertile crowd at the Che Café. Consisting of Brian Carver and Craig Oliver from Christmas Island, this is a gloomier affair, with the two guitarists looping their instruments over primitive drum-machine clicks and rudimentary floor-tom bashing. At the moment, it’s more evolved in concept than in execution, but the two locked into enough cacophonous grooves to overcome the minor mixing problems hindering their set.
Wavves is the “solo” project of former Fantastic Magic member Nathan Williams, and with only a handful of live shows under his belt, Williams and drum-buddy Toby Francis followed with a quick set of trashy, no-frills punk tunes. Like L.A.’s No Age without the self-conscious artiness (read: better), Wavves has arrived almost fully formed, and Williams’ pop melodies proved instantly memorable underneath the thrashing.
And then it was on to The Casbah, where Gang Gang Dance’s aural onslaught proved to be among the most impressive live acts around. Caged behind stacks of electronic equipment, multi-instrumentalist Brian DeGraw hit sample pads with a drumstick and simultaneously played keyboards as vocalist Lizzy Bougatsos wildly pounded on dual drums. At times, it seemed impossible that the kaleidoscopic expanse of sound was being created by four human beings, but as chaotic an impression they may have left, the band remained in control throughout, moving from improvisation to more recognizable material.
Gang Gang Dance understands the communal rhythms that bind all forms of music, and with a barrage of fractured percussion, treated guitars and electronics, they caused even the most uncomfortable of dancers to jerk all at once. It was a beautiful sight to behold.
—Todd Kroviak
The Enrique Experience
Hosted by self-proclaimed “Rancho Peñasquitos tract-home baby” Troy Johnson and held in Balboa Park’s Hall of Champions last Thursday, the Orchids & Onions awards ceremony honored the best in local architecture, as well as the worst, or what one attendee described as “archi-torture.”
Each award presentation was accompanied by a different song. Petco Park’s warehouse initiative received an Orchid for urban design as “Always Something There to Remind Me” played, while “Dust in the Wind” provided the soundtrack for the historic preservation Onion awarded to the demolition of Hotel San Diego (where a new federal courthouse will stand). Local architect Ted Smith accepted Onions for all those project managers who decided not to show their faces. By the end of the night, he had enough to start his own certified-organic farmers market stand.
“Is Lou Dobbs in the audience? I’d like to give this to you,” Smith said as he accepted the “planning policies” Onion for the proposed triple border fence to the tune of Green Day’s “American Idiot.”
Perhaps because of three-hour-long awards-presentation ennui, or maybe because of a need to upload some racy pics to their Facebook profiles, two teenage girls in attendance decided to ditch the ceremony and tour the Hall’s displays. Camera-phone in hand, they snapped away as one of them gave a simulated blowjob to a cardboard likeness of Helix High School alum and 49ers quarterback Alex Smith. Dry-humping a Heisman trophy followed while, back inside, the Grand Orchid was awarded to Lux Art Institute and the Grand Onion was given to a proposed Lindbergh Field parking structure. Unimpressed by even the climax of the O&O gala, the teens continued their antics, finally reappearing, giggling, after a 15-minute stint in the Moores Family Baseball Exhibit.
Note to the Hall of Champions staff: Time to disinfect Steve Garvey’s 1984 World Series bat.
—Enrique Limón