San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
Tapedeck Mountain
PLAN A: Mark Hummel, Rod & Honey Piazza, Sugar Blue, Billy Branch and Mitch Kashmar @ Belly Up. If you’re at all fond of the harmonica, you won’t want to miss Mark Hummel’s “Blues Harmonica Blowout,” in which these veteran blues players take turns ripping it on the mouth harp. PLAN B: Hello Seahorse!, Madame Recamier @ The Casbah. Mexican indie-pop band Hello Seahorse!’s new album, Lejos. No Tan Lejos, brims with sweet melodies, cooing vocals and shimmering synths that make your heart melt. (Full disclosure: This is also the launch party for CityBeat columnist Enrique Limón’s new “Mexi-blog,” ElZonkeyShow.com.) PLAN ME: Bruisecaster, Paper Forest, Alti Veri @ The Park Gallery. If you were actually Peter Holslin, you’d be onstage rocking a drum machine and screaming into a microphone with psych-dance trio Bruisecaster.
Thursday, Jan. 13
PLAN A: The Black Swans, El Monte Slim, Michael McGraw @ Soda Bar. An Ohio trio that recently demonstrated its folk bona fides on a split 45 with Bonnie Prince Billy, The Black Swans pluck out acoustic fare that’s as smart as it is haunting. Don’t miss El Monte Slim, a local duo whose perfectly spare country tunes won them a Best New Artist nomination in last year’s San Diego Music Awards. PLAN B: Wet Ink Ensemble @ The Loft at UCSD. I’m a sucker for difficult music— and this New York collective’s fiercely avant-garde performance (they’ll perform works by experimental great Anthony Braxton, along with emerging New York artists) will be about as difficult as it comes. Expect squawking saxophones, arrhythmic percussion and other unconventional uses of conventional instruments. BACKUP PLAN: West End Motel, Fiend Without a Face, Pant Hoots @ The Casbah.
Friday, Jan. 14
PLAN A: Convoy, Blackout Party, Brothers Grimm @ The Casbah. Check out our feature on this page to learn all about Convoy, a great-yet-short-lived rock band that’s reuniting for a couple shows. (They also play on Saturday with Behind the Wagon and The western Set.) PLAN B: Baths, Lesands, D/Wolves at The Loft @ UCSD. Will Wiesenfeld, the mastermind behind Baths, is something of a musical genius. Inspired by L.A. electro luminaries Flying Lotus and Daedelus, he holed up in his room to make Cerulean, a beautifully complex electronic album that ended up being one of the best releases of 2010. PLAN C: Teengirl Fantasy, Pictureplane, Illuminauts, DJ WWDJ @ Soda Bar. Exploring the common theme of nostalgia, Teengirl Fantasy’s beat-oriented synth-pop sounds like a hazy update of ’80s electro-soul.
Saturday, Jan. 15
PLAN A: Sleep Lady, T.S. Brooks, Immovable Objects, Roswell That Ends Well @ Soda Bar. Read my feature on Sleep Lady, a local quintet whose cinematic instrumental rock compels me to write expletives in my notebook. PLAN B: Incan Abraham, In Motion Trio, The Mattson 2 @ Che Café. Moving from colorful soundscapes to Latin-esque grooves to hard-driving indie-rock, sometimes in the same song, L.A.’s Incan Abraham bring to mind all the usual influences (The Beatles, Animal Collective) in the most unusual ways. PLAN C: The Babies, The So So Glos, White Fence, Trap Gold @ Tin Can Ale House. The Babies don’t sound any better or worse than any of Vivian Girls’ several other side-projects, but fellow New Yorkers The So So Glos have an ear for a good pop-rock hook and the energy to make it stick.
Sunday, Jan. 16
PLAN A: Tape Deck Mountain @ Habitat House. Tape Deck Mountain’s long-awaited new EP, Secret Serf, has finally come out. Let’s hope their smoldering, volatile indie-rock immolates the California stereotype of insufferably hazy beach-side bedroom pop once and for all. PLAN B: Teaadora Nikolova, Primitive Noyes, Derek Hart, Old Lava @ Tin Can Ale House. An enigmatic folkie with an angelic voice, Teaadora Nikolova uses squiggling electronics and folksy acoustic guitar in solo material that’s sometimes dreamy and sometimes nightmarish—but always compelling. BACKUP PLAN: Sweet Apple, Dead Meadow, The Makeup Sex @ The Casbah.
Monday, Jan. 17
PLAN A: Rookie Card, Billy Midnight @ The Casbah. In their first show in three years, country-rockers Rookie Card (the only band featuring Cover Me Badd’s Adam Gimbel that doesn’t do silly cover-song mash-ups) will team up with Americana heavyweights John Meeks, Joanie Mendenhall, Josh Zimmerman and others to perform Wilco’s 1995 debut A.M. all the way through. BACKUP PLAN: Taylor Locke & The Roughs, Bleu, Lindsey Ray @ Soda Bar.
Tuesday, Jan. 18
PLAN A: The Album Leaf, The Hot Moon, Little White Teeth @ The Casbah. The Album Leaf is the big draw here, but I’m showing up early: I’ve been looking forward to the new record by indie-soul band The Hot Moon, and I’m always in the mood for some beautifully subtle indie-folk from Little White Teeth. BACKUP PLAN: Muriel Anderson, Tierra Negra @ Dizzy’s.
