Is it Monday already? Say it ain’t so. Here are a few musical tidbits, but I’m rolling over and hibernating under the blankets. Wake me up when it’s Friday again.
• The Burning of Rome is back. The San Diego favorites drop their latest, Year of the Ox, on May 20 via Surfdog Records in Encinitas. It features guests Dale Crover (the Melvins) and Josh Freese (Vandals, Devo, NIN, etc.), and was produced by the Butthole Surfer’s Paul Leary. The band will play two record release shows in support of the new album – May 23 at the Casbah for the of-agers and June 14 at Che Cafe for everyone else. And while 2014 is actually the Year of the Horse, we’re not complaining. We don’t want to wait until 2021 to hear this record.
• Ready to get your accordion on? The 13th annual Gator by the Bay music and food festival once again takes over Spanish Landing Park May 8-11. Featuring Tab Benoit, Chubby Carrier, Javina Magness and enough other acts to fill a few blocks of a Mardi Gras parade, the Cajun-centric 4-day party will also have 10,000 pounds of live crawfish on hand. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
• Vermin be gone! Frontman Stephen Pearcy of longtime San Diego rockers Ratt has (again) called it quits. He seems pretty serious this time, but you never know. His memoir, Sex, Drugs, Ratt & Roll, came out last year, so maybe he’s working on a film adaptation.
• Fresh from their trek to SxSW, Carlsbad’s indie folksters Trouble in the Wind are playing a headlining show at the Belly Up on May 15. Also on the bill: San Diego singer/songwriter Tolan Shaw and Yellow Red Sparks from L.A. TITW have a new album out, Slide Rock, and the guys will be making an appearance at Solana Beach’s Fiesta Del Sol later this summer. There’s nothing really newsy here, we just like these dudes so we’re letting you know where they’ll be.
• New albums this week from: Brody Dalle, Broken Twin, Chad VanGaalen, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Damon Albarn, Fu Manchu, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Nels Cline Singers, Old 97s, Pink Mountaintops, Pixies, Ray LaMontagne, Rodrigo y Gabriela, The String Cheese Incident and Wye Oak.
Show of the week: Pantha Du Prince (aka Hendrik Weber) at the Casbah on Thursday. The German electronic musician and producer will kick things off in San Diego during a rare, small run of only seven U.S. dates. The show will feature all new music that is played in the recently announced “Triad” lineup – Weber, NY guitarist Scott Mou and Norwegian drummer Bendik Hovik Kjeldsberg.
Blogger Scott McDonald covers music in San Diego for a few different publications and is the editor of Eight24.com
