San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
The band started last year when Pearson and Gabe Serbian of The Locust teamed with L.A. musician Thor Dickey and Michael Crain, a former member of defunct hardcore band Festival of Dead Deer. They recorded an EP and posted it online for free download last December (it’s available on iTunes, and you can listen to it at retoxrules.com), but Ugly Animals will be a more professional effort.
“It’s pretty brutal hardcore, but it’s definitely developed more musically,” Pearson says. “With the EP, there was little effort put into it.”
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After laboring for months, jazz singer Miss Erika Davies is ready to drop her full-length debut, Galaxy Lakes. “During mixing / mastering, I had listened to it so much that I couldn’t hear or play those songs for a while after I was finished recording them,” she says via email. “Now, listening to the finished album, I think it turned out pretty dang beautiful.” She hasn’t set a release date yet, but she’ll have an album-listening party at El Take It Easy in North Park on June 15.
Indie-rockers Mrs. Magician have built such a rabid local following that their manager, Eric Howarth, has decided to release a limited pressing of their debut album, Pity Party Animal, via his label, Hi-Speed Soul Records. The album will come out on colored vinyl and digital download on Tuesday, June 28. Howarth says he’s shopping the record to different labels and hopes to put out a full release in all formats in the fall.
Chula Vista rockers Useless Rhetoric will perform at the latest installment of the “Play It Forward” benefit series at Ruby Room on Thursday, May 27. Proceeds will go to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Shapes of Future Frames, Sour Soul and A Scribe Amidst the Lions will also perform, and DJ Gonzo will spin tunes.
