Locals Only

Homeland security issues

It would be nice if the only thing local band lowcloudcover had to worry about was getting drafted into the impending military war games in Iraq. But it seems their homeland security has been compromised as well.

On Nov. 11, someone broke into the band's rehearsal space and stole all of their equipment. Tallied up, the band estimates it lost $10,000 worth of instruments, pedals and electronic thingamabobs. In short, their entire fiscal year is fucked.

You have to wonder about the perpetrator. This is someone who steals from the poor, and will probably sell the equipment back to the rich. Stealing from musicians is like a pickpocket working the welfare line. Shameless.

Especially insidious is that the thieves may be musicians themselves, which is like a man standing in the welfare line pickpocketing a man standing in the welfare line.

In this case, however, the welfare collective is uniting. Local bands Goodbye Blue Monday and Roots of Orchis are combining with touring band Oma Yang for a benefit show to help lowcloudcover recover their stuff. Goodbye Blue Monday is one of the better bands to emerge this year, a nifty guitar assault along the lines of Blonde Redhead and Fugazi. And Roots of Orchis are a criminally underappreciated band from Encinitas-Tortoise-like instrumental rock with an electronic heart.

The benefit show will be held at Che Cafe on Nov. 24. cover is a measly $5, and, as always at the Che, it's all-ages. For more info, call 858-534-2311.

Notables...

If one more individual tells me that Bad Credit is the best new band in San Diego, I'm offing myself. Equal parts Saturday Night Live skit and white boy comical rap collective, Bad Credit played to a nearly-packed house at the Honey Bee Hive in downtown last Wednesday. With two emcees-one who looks like a cross between Rivers Cuomo and a tax accountant, and one portly towhead clad in a golf sweater like a misanthropic MC John Daley-these guys are a riot. The band features the drummer from Revolver and the former bassist for Incredible Moses Leroy. An ancillary “dancer”-dressed like a crack head off the set of the Beastie Boys' “Sabotage” video-spasms uncontrollably to great comic effect. Reportedly, a few of these guys used to be entertainers at Sea World, so it's like a really demented version of “Up With People” meets the Beasties. Bring some bills down to the show-you can slide them through the paper shredder they use as a stage prop for their financially-themed tunes.

If you haven't yet checked out the Honey Bee Hive, do so. The cavernous dive bar is owned by Buckfast Superbee drummer Milos Jahudka (who works the bar, sound, door, and cleans the johns). With a small but theatrical stage for bands and a large bar, it's a cool space and an emerging rock dive.

Speaking of Incredible Moses Leroy-frontman Ron Fountanberry recently emailed to say he's finished recording his second album in Los Angeles with REM drummer Joey Waronker on production. Expect an early 2003 release on Ultimatum Records.

RFTC's John Reis has just re-issued the classic Drive Like Jehu album, Yank Crime, on his own record label, Swami Records. It was Jehu who originally attracted Interscope Records in the early '90s, not Rocket from the Crypt. And taking nothing away from Rocket's bigger success, you're reminded why when you revisit the album. A local classic.

Hometown-proud San Diego boys POD are now officially the top-selling band on Atlantic Records, and the No. 2 selling band on all of Warner Music Group (a huge conglom that includes REM, Kid Rock, etc.). Their newest album, Satellite, has sold over four million copies worldwide, and the band has sold over five million records to date for Atlantic. Vocalist Sonny Sandoval recently donated the handwritten lyrics to their single “Youth of a Nation” to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, which will put the artifact in their “Lyric Room.” On Nov. 12, the band released a DVD called Still Payin' Dues (and if you know their tour schedule, that ain't rock star hyperbole) which documents every stage of their career, from the garage in Chula Vista to sold-out arena shows in Europe.

Eve Selis was recently made a Kentucky Colonel by the governor of that state in honor of her song “Russellville,” which appears on her new CD Do You Know Me. Eve and her band consider Russellville, KY their adopted hometown after getting lost last year and discovering new friends in the quiet little burg. They have since performed two free concerts for their new “neighbors” and even dedicated their new CD to them. Other famous honorees include Dwight Yoakam, Tiger Woods, Whoopi Goldberg and the most famous Kentucky Colonel of all-Colonel Sanders himself.