Category Archives: san diego music

Imagery Machine • San Diego Indie Rock

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There are so many talented bands in San Diego playing original music and Imagery Machine has been a favorite of mine for a long time now. While their lineup has changed since the first time I saw the band back at the Art on Adams Street Fair back in 2016 (only singer/songwriter/guitarist Jennie Shimkus and her husband, Tyler on drums, remain) they still play a captivating blend of indie rock combined with a host of other influences. They are now joined by Adam Schumann on lead guitar and Victoria Argimon on bass.

Here’s the track “Time Traveler” off of their excellent 2021 album, Reflections of Reality. This “indie-prog-rock” song starts softly and then builds gradually as new instruments and musical ideas are introduced. The song keeps evolving and growing in intensity until finally the guitars take over with big riffs supporting an electrifying, melodic guitar solo. The song then transitions back down into a dreamy haze until it eventually fades away.

Imagery Machine also released two singles in 2024, “My Energy” and “Zombies”. Give them a spin!

Imagery Machine: website •  instagram • facebook • spotify • youtube

Swive & Psychlops at the Black Cat Bar

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San Diego has so many great bands and I was lucky to catch two of them, Swive and Psychlops, at The Black Cat Bar in City Heights on Saturday night. Not only that but both bands played new songs live for the first time on this night!. I’ll have more on both bands coming up soon, but in the meantime here is Psychlops playing their new song, “Eye of the Night”…

And here is San Diego indie-rock band, Swive, playing “Sky High” live for the first time…

Birdy Bardot • Candlelight Vigils

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From the MaxSounds Vault…

Birdy Bardot – The Casbah, San Diego – Feb. 24, 2016

I won’t pretend to know how all the members of local super-group, Birdy Bardot, are interrelated.  It seems that every San Diego musician of note is in at least 3 bands and this group has collected many of them together. I do know that the creative duo in the group are Birdy Bardot, who also sings for the New Kinetics, and the indefatigable Al Howard, who must be in at least 27 bands including: The Heavy Guilt, Midnight Pine and Black Sands, and more…

I have wanted to catch Birdy Bardot ever since I read a great feature on them late last year in CityBeat magazine.  It was only after reading that article that I went to my first New Kinetics shows and I was curious to know how the same singer would front both the frenetic garage rock of The New Kinetics and the retro/psychedelic influence promised in the CityBeat piece. 

It turns out that Ms. Bardot handles both styles with ease and though there is not a lot of overlap in sound, she does seem to lose herself in the songs in both configurations.  Where the New Kinetics are all about raw, relentless energy, Birdy Bardot is a much more restrained affair.  Though the group does let go and rock out, like on the track “Hearts and Smoke”, it’s really just enough to provide a contrast to the soulful, torchy atmosphere created throughout the rest of the set. 

The 7 pc band (which is a lot of players on a pretty small stage) creates a sound and mood on stage that mixes a lot of influences without ever camping out in any one style.  There are touches of the blues, hazy psychedelia, retro-60′s pop and even some alt-country.  Mixed together, Birdy Bardot – both the band and the singer – put on a fantastic show and will clearly be a mainstay of the resurgent San Diego music scene, and hopefully can find a way to break out and receive more national, and even international, attention.

Check out Birdy Bardot and her label-mates at Redwoods Music/Birdy Bardot

Birdy Bardot II

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I love coming home to find a 12″/12″/1″ package on my doorstep. This time it was especially cool since it was the new Birdy Bardot LP! This local San Diego band is definitely good enough to break out of the local market.  You can read a full review of this groovy/soulful/retro/pop record here at ListenSanDiego.  You can buy the record and check out some other great San Diego bands over on The Redwoods San Diego page.  Once you’ve listened let me know what you think in the comments.

Dirty Pennies at Ray at Night

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San Diego – Jan. 14, 2017  Dirty Pennies, a rock band from San Diego, California play their new song, “Bad Machine” at the Ray at Night street festival in North Park. This song, written only two weeks prior and performed only once before, was created as a reaction to what our whole political process has become and is perfect timing considering the controversies surrounding the incoming president. Continue reading →

wimps open for Katie Von Schleicher at the Soda Bar

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I was 21 years old when MTV started back in 1981 and it was pretty awesome back then. Before that all we got was Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert and Burt Sugarman’s Midnight Special. Those were great shows but only filled 2.5 hours per week on Friday and Saturday nights. We all know that MTV doesn’t really do music videos anymore and the format went relatively dormant for a long time. Then YouTube, Vimeo, Vevo and others came along and music videos have once again become an important part of presenting and marketing a song.
That’s a lot of words to say that this song and video by wimps, a 3-piece punk rock band out of Seattle, is pretty fucking rad! Check out the video and then go see wimps play the Soda Bar Wednesday night  when they open for Katie Von Schleicher...

The Kava Lounge Part 2 – Mittens

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San Diego – May 6, 2016  The next band up, after Retra, was Mittens.  I had heard quite a bit about Mittens and now I know what all the fuss was about.  Mittens’ blend of ’60s girl group sounds, ’90s alt-rock (think Cardigans not Smashing Pumpkins – though I have no doubt that Paul Mitten could unleash some great Billy Corgan riffs!), and modern indie pop really was just as good as I was warned it would be.  Continue reading →

Kava Lounge Part 1 – Retra

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San Diego – May 6, 2016   On a recent Friday night I was in the mood for new music and this show at The Kava Lounge looked interesting. I had heard of Mittens and The Fresh Brunettes but didn’t really know anything about them and I had no idea who Retra was. But I love checking out new bands so I headed on down to Kettner.

First up was Retra, who I soon found out is a relatively new band featuring Haven Blue on vocals, James Howard (Imagery Machine) on guitar , Chris Gorrie (Boychick, Giant Surprise) on bass, Carmen Martinez (Boychick) on drums, and Martin Sohikish (who didn’t play this night) on keys and guitar.   Continue reading →

Art Around Adams Part 5 – Mittens – June 4, 2016

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The last stop on my Art Around Adams tour was to see Mittens back at the library stage.  I had seen the band play about a month ago at The Kava Lounge so I already knew how much fun they were.  Mittens play a style of indie-pop that looks back but still has a modern feel to it.  Their band bio mentions being inspired by groups like Rilo Kiley, The Cranberries and The Cardigans – and I can certainly hear the influence of those bands in their sound – but there’s also no mistaking their love of early ’60s girl groups like The Ronettes, The Shirelles and Martha & the Vandellas.  Throw in some surf-rock licks and well-timed blistering guitar solos, to go along with their 3-part harmonies and big hooks, and you have Mittens!  Continue reading →

Art Around Adams Part 4 – Jason Hanna & the Bullfighters

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Jason Hanna 01

My father was 26 years old when the Beatles‘ Please Please Me came out.  I used to tell him that he was still young enough then to have followed the Beatles and the Stones instead of  staying on the path that lead to Andy Williams and Glen Campbell. But the die was cast by that point, and rock ‘n’ roll was not going to be my dad’s thing.  However, it turns out there was a section of his record collection that I would eventually come to fully appreciate.  For as the British Invasion was in full swing, my dad was listening to The Lonely Bull, South of the Border and Whipped Cream & Other Delights by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass.  It turned out my dad was much cooler back then than I ever gave him credit for! Continue reading →