Friends, border-lining family, of both past and present gathered at the Belly Up Tavern last Friday to celebrate the aging of Steve Poltz and the release of his newest CD, Dreamhouse. Not much tweeting going on that night since everyone was living in the moment whether that was chatting with a long time friend or watch the continuous stream of musicians taking the stage throughout the night and into the morning.

Steve wanted to celebrate with all of his friends and family in one place. He was joined on stage by Lisa Sanders, Mojo Nixon, Fred Van Vactor, Patrick Dennis and Christopher Hoffee (the Cynics), Anya Marina, Cindy Lee Berryhill, Berkley Hart, AJ Croce, Gregory Page, as well as Jeff “Stinky” Aafedt, “Dr.” Robert Driscoll and John Castro with The Rugburns.

Due to a crash on the ski slopes while in Rossland, B.C. he broke his left arm, which could have put a damper on things. Steve exclaimed that no shows will be cancelled and continued his tour and the planning of his birthday bash/CD release.

Shawn Rohlf of the 7th Day Buskers generously stepped up to the plate by learning a large number of Steve Poltz and Rugburns songs… and that was not an easy feat. Steve had previously commented that the new Dreamhouse album is very guitar heavy, with more complex chord combinations and picking patterns than he has ever done before. Shawn certainly pulled it off even working collaboratively with Steve for “You Were Meant for Me.” If you closed your eyes, you couldn’t even tell there were two people there.

Via @Wirepony: Poltz and a 25 song set list for his guest heavy show next week. Set list?!? Don’t ever believe him. Even with his broken hand.

However, the night of the show Joe Daly tweeted the following:

Via @JoeDaly_SD: Soundchecking at the BUT! @stevepoltz in top form. Just heard “Hey, do we have a set list yet?”

Steve has touched the lives of many over the fifty years he has been on this earth. And just about every one of those people were packed into the Belly Up Tavern last Friday. Included among the crowd were “Java Joe” Flammini, Frankie Lee Drennen, Kevin Hellman, Halloran, Dennis Borlek, “Happy Ron” Hill and more.

I think Rosey from SD Dialed In stated it best with this tweet:

Via @sddialedin: There is some sort of magic knowing that every single person in this sold out crowd has a @StevePoltz story or more. That’s why we love him.

This is exactly how I would like to spend my 50th birthday, when it comes along… with good friends, family and a dueling drum finale.

Via @Wirepony: A dream was realized. Stinky and I sent @stevepoltz off in a dual drumming frenzy for his birthday bash two full kits flying. Goodnight!

After an amazingly inspiring night at Bar Basic, I briskly hurried over the 15 blocks to the House of Blues San Diego to see Bob Schneider perform. Glad to see my press pass waiting for me, I rushed down the stairs, bypassing a stiff drink for a spot near the front of the stage. Sadly, I missed one or two songs of Bob’s set, as well as the opening act, Smile Smile, whose music I’m sure I would have loved based on the dancy, energetic stuff that I have listened to over the internets.
Over the years I have seen Bob’s sets diversify from the solo, sappy, ballad-singing songwriter to the drunken rebel-rouser, cursing and rocking with a full band backing. This show was another experience to add to the list. To understand the context of the contrast… recently, as in less than two months ago, Bob played a KPRI show solo at the Bernardo Winery to an all-ages crowd. Roger and I watched as he appeared to struggle finding age-appropriate songs, songs he could play solo and/or songs that were in his current playlist. If that was your first introduction to him, this HOB show must have come off as a shock. For the KPRI chill, happy family-types, you’re probably thankful he didn’t go so far as playing “Sons of Ralph” or better yet, “Ass Knockin’.”

Thanks to a few friends at FM94/9 for helping us to promote the show through the concert calendar listings on the Friday before and the locals only show on the evening of. We were also amazed that the show was even listed as alternate plans for both CityBeat and the Reader. SD Dialed In listed our show in her listings and the show was featured on The Casbah website. We thank you for the extra mentions.

The best part of the evening was all of the people who came up to me telling me how much they enjoyed the bands, including ones they had never seen before. Introducing new bands/music to people is something that both of us love to do and is one of the main reasons I started blogging. So for those of you who didn’t make it out, for whatever reason, we still love you and we hope that you keep reading to find out about all of the cool bands that played on our happy day.

Kicking off their West Coast tour, Tan Sister Radio finally made it to The Casbah stage for their first time ever. These young ones at 19 years of age each, from Encinitas, rock harder and tighter than most bands that have been around twice as long. I feel lucky to know these guys and to have been able to watch them grow through the years (here is an earlier post about them). They are true to their art, sticking with each other and their music even after they graduated high school. Their gritty, grunge-rock style music harks back to early Kurt Cobain but with pure innocence and honesty. Just good kids who really know how to play.

Sadly, they forgot their merch, purchase “…and The Mystery Punk” through iTunes or Napster or contact them directly through their Twitter, Facebook or MySpace profiles. Yeah, they are cool like that.

For the past two years we have talked to The Silent Comedy about playing our anniversary show, but this year the stars aligned and they were able to commit. Changing it up from their usual jumping, dancing, sing-a-long vibe, in honor of our wedding anniversary and Valentine’s Day, they decided to bring the energy down by playing mostly ballads and slow jams. However, even their slow songs have a beating pulse that makes you want to move.

The change up frightened The Silent Comedy groupies, and fearful that that they wouldn’t hear their favorite song (for the um-teenth hundred time), they proceeded to yell out during every song break, “Gasoline! Play, Gasoline!” Had they been sober or smart or both, they would have noticed that Gasoline was clearly written down on the set list. Roger and I are slightly fearful that the song may disappear due to fans like these.. ala Radiohead’s Creep or Nada Surf’s Popular. All I have to say is, don’t do it… as much as it pains you, embrace the song and the people’s love for it.

And the headliner of the evening was Listening to Rocks… who? That would be Roger’s band with Dave Rizzuto on the Daisy Rock guitar, Jon Kanis on bass and Brad Smith on drums. In 2008, Roger formed Listening to Rocks as a one-off band to play at our first anniversary at The Casbah with Bunky and Get Back Loretta. The band, only a couple rehearsals in, asked, “Can we keep this going?” Since everyone was having fun, they kept it going.

As for the name of the band, when looking up online to see if certain band names existed, Roger came across this guy from China’s MySpace page stating that he “enjoyed listening to rocks…” as in rock music. It had a good ring to it, so he kept it. Funny though, he never actually looked up that name to see if anyone already had a band by that name.

Sweet, wholesome and so damn cute. Ok, I couldn’t resist. Langhorne Slim swung back into San Diego last Monday for an in-store at M-Theory Records and a show at The Casbah to promote his new album, Be Set Free.

Roger and I can’t resist a chance to take Thomas to live music shows. And this was no exception. I actually skipped the first part of derby practice to head over to M-Theory Records for this family outing opportunity. Their late arrival due to The Casbah sound check allowed us to pick up a couple CDs that we’ve been missing including: Contra from Vampire Weekend, The Crow from Steve Martin and Phrazes for the Young from Julian Casablancas.

Langhorne Slim takes your senses to Appalachian Mountains with the song-writing style that you can only imagine stems from backcountry love and appreciation. Many define his style as simply folk music, but hearing the tinge of banjo and passion of the words, you can easily see that it is much more. He invites participants to engage in his gospel-like performances, uplifting both spirits and “spirits” of the drinking variety alike.

The acoustic set started with “Back to the Wild” and “Cinderella,” then prompted the crowd for requests. My brain was thrown for a loop since these were my two favorite songs off his newest album and I never thought they would actually play “Cinderella” in this setting. Luckily, someone else jumped in with a request from an earlier album. For this intimate session Langhorne hid coyly beneath his fedora cradling his well-worn baby guitar with a golden glittered pick guard, appearing as an artist internalizing his craft.

Returning from practice to The Casbah for an additional dose of Langhorne, I missed the opening act April Smith and the Great Picture Show. From what I have heard of them, I truely missed a good show of the old-timey variety.

The Casbah performance varied greatly from the deeply personal insight that caught a glimpse of earlier. More than toe-tapping, you could say it could be best compared to complete revelry. With the same uplift of the heart and soul, Langhorne delivered some of my favorites from his self-titled album,  “Diamonds and Gold,” “Worries” and “Hello Sunshine” along with newer cuts  “I Love You, But Goodbye” and “Say Yes.”

Satisfying my palatte for good, honest music, Langhorne definitely made my day.