The life of night

The Enrique Experience

A few years back, veterinarian Sarah Lavely found herself under a lot of stress and felt the need to break something.
“I reached a point in my life where I wish I could just go somewhere and break stuff, so I created a space where it’s cool and safe to do so,” she said.

And so, Sarah’s Smash Shack was born.

An activity once enjoyed only during domestic disturbances or at Greek weddings, smashing plates and fine glass collectibles is not only tolerated at the Smash Shack, but strongly encouraged through an array of custom packages.

The Quickie, which consists of five plates, is perfect for the destruction newbie and will set you back $20. You can throw in a Juggernaut (two huge and delicate jugs) for $12. And for the broken-hearted, the Lovers Lane, a bouquet of breakable flowers for $10, is the recommended package.

Not enough breakage for ya? You can also bring in your own smashables for a fee of $20 to $30.

Why open something like the Smash Shack? Because these days, therapy is for wusses, road rage is passé and, while ’roid rage is fun, the shrinkage of one’s junk outweighs the adrenaline rush. With late-night weekend hours, the Shack will no doubt prove to be a great, if pricey, pre- or post-club destination.

“It’s a great place to bring in a first date,” Lavely said.

While putting on Smash Shack-supplied protective gear last Saturday during the opening weekend, one girl told another she felt “like a NASCAR driver.”

“We should have worn war paint,” the other girl responded. They were accompanied by three Marines, one of whom will go back for a third tour in Iraq next month.

“If only I had a printer,” he said to his buddies when he noticed the Sweet Memories package, which includes an empty picture frame, adding, “I hate you, Heather!”

Another good ol’ boy chimed in, “I just want to listen to some slow country and yell, ‘Stupid bitch, that ain’t my truck!’”

After getting wired on some Mötley Crüe, the group of friends went wild in one of the rubber-matted private rooms.
“It was great not breaking my own shit. Next time I’m bringing a sledge hammer,” one of them said. The group left with a memento from their evening, a clear box with some bits and pieces of the glass wreckage.

Simply smashing!

—Enrique Limón

Sarah’s Smash Shack is located at 1353 Sixth Ave., Downtown.

Locals Only

Ilya are back. After it seemed that most of the band members had officially traded in their instruments for day jobs and baby-making, San Diego’s ambient-music heroes made a triumphant, yet reliably mellow, return to The Casbah Aug. 16 with a lush set of fan favorites and some gorgeous new songs. Drummer Geoff Hill said that while the band never broke up, fans just assumed they were done.

“Everybody’s life changed significantly,” Hill told CityBeat after revealing that the band was “80 percent” done with a new record. “We got to the point where we just said, ‘Let’s do this for us.’ Live is one thing, but the recordings are going to be completely different.”

What to expect? Horns, a lap-steel custom built by guitarist Matt Baker and lots of layers and embellishments that Hill says the band would never have considered before. Once the band finishes recording and singer Blanca Rojas delivers her second child, they’re planning a West Coast and Midwest tour. Added Hill: “We’re officially back for the time being.”

Also returning to the local scene after an even longer absence is indie-rockers Lualta, who played a crowded comeback show on Aug. 15 at U-31 in North Park.

“I think it was more just we missed us more than anything else,” says lead guitarist Delio Bacalski. As soon as he heard “the first kick of that kick drum” during their first rehearsal together in four years, “I started smiling,” he said.

“I knew it was on. It was what we were missing.” Whether or not they still have an audience doesn’t seem to be a problem, either.

“We’re not too worried if this new generation gets it or not,” said singer Michael Hernandez. “It’s what they need.”

And while Ilya and Lualta are back, we’re sorry to report that both The Prayers and The Vultures are done. Both bands were formed out of the ashes of Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, with Plot frontman Brandon Welchez forming The Prayers and guitarist Charles Rowell forming The Vultures.

Fans need not fret, though, as the two are now reunited as a duo called Crocodiles, and judging by their show at The Casbah last Saturday, they still plan on kicking up some shit. They’ve traded in the harmonious garage-pop and punk swagger of the former bands for what seems to be a darker, more caustic brand of shoegaze rock, complete with feedback, drum machines and pedals galore. As one onlooker remarked, “If [Factory Records exec] Tony Wilson were alive, he’d sign ’em.”

“The hype and buzz were always bigger than the actual reality,” Rowell explained, blaming unreliable members for the demise of The Prayers and The Vultures despite both bands garnering national press. And while there was no truth to the rumors that The Prayers were asked to open for Oasis, Rowell said, Crocodiles have already booked an East Coast tour and a show at the CMJ Music Conference in October.

“This is for real. We want to hit with as much force as possible.”

—Seth Combs and Will K. Shilling

No more sports

As first reported right here in Nightgeist, the boisterous Tony Vee has officially sold the San Diego Sports Club to Paul Smith and Sean Cute, two San Diegans who plan to compete against venues like The Casbah and Belly Up Tavern.

“We want to push the envelope on the place and bring it to the next level,” Cute said. “We’re going to get bigger bands in there and really focus on live music, local music and DJs.”

At the music-booking helm will be Neil Gutierrez of local folk/indie-rock band Team Abraham and Andy Robillard of The Andy Robillard Quartet.

As for the name and the décor, “the sports stuff is toast,” Cute said. They’re ripping down the sports memorabilia, and the new, sports-free name of the club will be announced at the official grand reopening scheduled for October.

Plans for the new place also include room for more avant-garde entertainment. “We’ll have more burlesque shows, belly dancers, even sword swallowers—we don’t care. We just want to make it a kick-ass venue and start doing our own thing and start utilizing the place to its fullest,” Cute said.

Two things that will remain the same are the club’s goth nights, Club de Sade and Sin Factory, and the overall dive-bar nature of the joint.

“We want to keep the gaudiness of it alive,” Cute said.

—Kinsee Morlan

San Diego Sports Club’s closing party on Friday, Aug. 22, features a performance by Fishnet Follies and Black Hondos plus a long list of local DJs. The soft-opening party will be Saturday, Aug. 30, featuring the bands In Every Breath and Signs of Betrayal.

Word

Just back from the National Poetry Slam—where San Diego took out top-notch slam teams and made it to the semi-finals, where they finished third in the nation—San Diego Slam Team member Ant Black offers another helping of local spoken-word ingenuity, a new CD called Peace of Resistance.

The recordings flow in song, samples, R&B, hip-hop and spoken word. Special guest voices interweave with his own to pay homage to his inspirations, from Langston Hughes and KRS-One to marriage, grits and God.

“It’s a little bit of everything, life experience and politics,” says Black, “because life experience is based on the political landscape of wherever we are.”

He says listeners will notice a lot of maturity since his last record.

“Instead of attacking social problems and ranting, there is a lot more storytelling and skepticism and offering of solutions,” he says. “It is more beneficial to tell the story of the people who have not been heard than to go on the attack,” he says.

Over the last few years, Christopher Wilson, organizer and host of the San Diego Poetry Slam and coach of the 2008 San Diego Slam Team, has seen and heard hundreds of the best national and regional performers. “Ant Black’s new CD,” he says, “is by far the best in terms of professional quality and content. You will listen over and over again.”

—Michael Chung Klam

Ant Black’s pre-release live performance is at 9 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 21, at Eveoke Dance Theatre, 2811 University Ave. in North Park.

Shot on Scene

Photo by Kinsee Morlan

The closest you’ll get to male strippers in San Diego are the lovely “ladies” at Lips. While a plethora of female strip clubs keep the Marines entertained, we ladies have to travel to Tijuana to get our nudie action. While Mike’s (on Revolucion and Sixth) and Club Extasis (located about 10 yards from the turnstile gates of the border) are the staples of nude-male entertainment in TJ, this past weekend we snapped this dripping dude at a special event at Oxygen Bar (on Ninos Heroes in Zona Rio).