Fairly Loud Noises

Fun and weird in equal measure, Business Lady was a very active band when I was new to San Diego. I’d been gifted a MiniDV camera by a fellow Tulsa expat, Alex Kallenburger, so when I went to go see them play an all-ages show at Gelato Vero, I popped in a fresh tape and… Continue reading Business Lady at Gelato Vero →

In 2002, one of my old bands coasted, gig-less, into San Diego on one of our numerous little tours. We’d had no success in actually solidifying a show to play anywhere, our roadie had broken his hand a couple nights before while skateboarding, and we didn’t have enough money in the fund to get a… Continue reading Mr. & Mrs. Tribute to Ugliness and Coachwhips at Gelato Vero →

A significant portion of my life has been shaped and influenced by varying degrees of depression, contorting much of my interaction with the world into a funhouse mirror of distorted perception. In the winter of 2000, I was living at a punk house at 217 S. Phoenix in Tulsa, Oklahoma (now an empty lot), and… Continue reading BG and The Handshake Murders →

For decades the Che Café has been a magnet for outsider pop and earth-scorching punk, playing host to diverse shows as awesomely weird as they are high voltage. This particularly sweaty evening in July that I headed up to see Some Girls deliver their furious take on noise-fueled hardcore proved to be no exception. I… Continue reading Quintron, Some Girls, Harry Merry, and Joseph Karam and David Scott Stone at The Che Cafe 07/07/06 →

Upon graduating from high school I moved out of my parents house, stopped going to church, and joined a local punk band called The Copulated ("it means the fucked, dude"). They had been on the market for a second guitar player and I was excited to be in a group that was booking shows. The… Continue reading Brother Inferior, Bastard People, Citizens Oppression Project and The Copulated at Mohawk Park Shelter 6, 04/11/1998 →

One of the big differences I noticed upon moving from Tulsa to San Diego was how different the live music scenes for young people were from one another, shaped a little by geography and a lot by liquor laws. My understanding of how this works in San Diego amounts to knowing that you can't really… Continue reading San Diego vs Tulsa: all-ages shows, plus The Prosthetics at Shelter 6, 09/19/99 →

Packing up and moving to a new city can be a bit tricky if you don’t luck out and make some solid new friends pretty quickly after arriving. The thing I remember most about the Some Girls, Das Oath, Look Back and Laugh show at the Che Café (besides that I went and filmed it)… Continue reading Some Girls, Das Oath, and Look Back and Laugh at the Che Cafe 11/20/04 →

One thing that set them apart from the staunch introversion typical of noise artists was their obvious attitude. Instead of staring coyly at their shoes or instruments, they gazed out at the crowd, challenging them as their pedals saturated the air with whirrs, clanks, and robotic wheezes.