Dig This Jive: Christine Pasalo's blog

When it comes to singer-songwriter Josh Rouse, I am admittedly late to the game. Very late.

I stumbled upon the down-to-earth quality of the Nebraska native’s acoustic music via his “Summertime Noisetrade Sampler” about a year ago. His sound is warm. Friendly. The kind I imagine would play out of a transistor radio as I lay on the grass under a Poplar tree on an 82-degree afternoon.

I’ve often craved to see him play a set live. But as he currently doesn’t tour much outside of Europe (he currently lives in Spain), I’ve settled for listening to his recordings. Thankfully, the Universe picked up on my wish and the web-savvy team behind Rouse has found a way to bridge the geographical gap.

Rouse has partnered with Stageit.com to put on his first online show on Sunday, May 20. According to Rouse’s website, it is hoped that the show, which will air from the Valencia apartment of band member Cayo Bellveser, will be the first of a series of shows Rouse is calling “Late Night Conversations.”

The online performance will start at 10:00 p.m. Valencia time, which is 1:00 p.m. San Diego time. To see what this means for the start time in your neck of the States, click here.

You’ll have to buy a ticket to catch the show. If you’re new to Stageit.com like I am, this means that you’ll first need to sign up for an account with Stageit.com, buy some Stageit Notes, and then pay what you can/want for access to Rouse’s show. (”Notes” are Stageit’s form of currency; $1 equals 10 Notes.) Buy enough Stageit Notes and you can also tip Rouse during the performance which is said to include a few new songs, some Rouse oldies but goodies, and live requests.

For more info on the show, including how to get your hands on a handwritten lyric sheet of one of Rouse’s new songs, check out the Stageit.com page for the event.

To quote my favorite song off of Rouse’s latest album, Josh Rouse and The Long Vacations, “Oh, look what the sun did. It made the sky turn blue.”

On Wednesday, May 16, The San Diego Council on Literacy will host a culinary-meets-reading event at NTC Promenade at Liberty Station. Billed as “Eat Drink Read,” this event taking place in Point Loma will feature dishes from a dozen San Diego chefs, all of whom drew inspiration from a favorite book.

Two of the chefs participating are Craig Jimenez of Craft & Commerce in Little Italy and Matt Gordon of Urban Solace in North Park and Solace & the Moonlight Lounge in Encinitas.

“You’re able to run away on this adventure to find sunken treasure,” says Jimenez of Todd Strasser’s Beyond the Reef, the book he’s chosen to interpret for the event.

In homage to the Key West setting of Strasser’s tale, Jimenez will prepare Conch Fritteratti with Lime Mustard: a tender sea snail breaded in panko crumbs, fried, and served with lime mustard and a salad of seaweed and charred peppers.

“I read Beyond the Reef for English class when I was in middle school,” says the 30-something Jimenez. “We had to write a certain amount of book reports per month and this one stuck with me.”

Since Craft & Commerce is known as much for incorporating books and book quotes into its decor as much as for its food and cocktails, it’s fitting that the Little Italy restaurant would also contribute something from the bar. Bartenders Eric Johnson and Christian Siglin will pair the Conch Fritteratti with a cocktail they’re calling the Bahama Brahma: a mix of Jamaican rum, coffee liqueur, coconut syrup, fresh pineapple and fresh lemon juice served over crushed ice.

Chef Matt Gordon of Urban Solace turned to Ernest Hemingway’s Paris memoirs, A Moveable Feast, for enlightenment.

“Having grown up in the Southwest where everything is so new, I am always moved by the sense of history of cities like Paris,” Gordon shares. For the event, he will serve miniature Croque-Monsieur with a creamy brown butter Mornay sauce. “It’s just something I love to eat and such a defining Parisian dish.”

It’s also a dish the Solace & Moonlight Lounge owner says he would make for Hemingway if he was alive today, even though, as Gordon puts it, “[Hemingway] talks about a bit ‘finer’ eating in the book.”

Complementing the eats with refreshments are Stone Brewing Co., Honest Tea, Solar Rain, 12 Signs Wine, and SOL Markets. Also, Hillcrest favorite Bread & Cie Bakery and Cafe will put together gift bags inspired by Dr. Seuss’ Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

Admission to the event, which takes place from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., is $60 and benefits The San Diego Council of Literacy’s efforts to provide free literacy assistance to adults, families and children in San Diego County. Click here to purchase your tickets. (NOTE: Payment is via PayPal. If you don’t have a PayPal account, don’t worry; simply pay as a guest.)

(Image from the website of The San Diego Council on Literacy.)

Record Store Day. Earth Day. You can celebrate both in San Diego this weekend with treks to Mission Hills and Coronado. Plus, you can get full on fine dining in Hillcrest and unplugged music on Adams Avenue. Garnish with a sunny-without-too-much-burn weather forecast and serve.

Saturday, April 21: Happy Record Store Day!

• 10:00 a.m. Celebrate Record Store Day at M-Theory! Exclusive releases, including Common’s latest, a Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. EP featuring two new songs, and a Regina Spektor 45 featuring two unreleased tracks she recorded in Russian are just a few of the wiles M-Theory is pulling out to lure you to their event. There will also be a sidewalk sale featuring 50 cent LPs and $1.00 CDs, free swag and skateboards from Sector 9, free pizza from Lefty’s Chicago Pizzaria, and a live and free 5:00 p.m. performance by The Donkeys.
• 12:00 p.m. Get full in Hillcrest. The 11th annual Taste of Hillcrest takes place until 4:00 p.m. Approach the event with a strategy and you’ll get a quality sample of the over 50 restaurants participating this year. Thankfully, though the event is another year older, the ticket price is the same as it was in 2010: $30 in advance, $35 day of. To buy tickets online and to get a PDF of this year’s event map, visit Fabulous Hillcrest’s event webpage. For an idea of how the tickets for this event work, check out my post on last year’s Taste.
• 4:50 p.m. Watch tUnE-yArDs perform live at Coachella from the comfort of your couch. I had the honor of seeing Merrill Garbus, aka tUnE-yArDs, perform live at San Diego’s House of Blues this past Wednesday. Her creativity humbles me. If you’ve never seen her perform live, I’d hate for you to miss the opportunity. Seize your chance by tuning in on Channel 2 of Coachella’s live webcast. Garbus will amaze you with her ability to layer sounds and beats on the spot. She will take you in with the sweet ferocity of her voice. She will dumbfound you with the way she sings back-up for herself. LIVE. I dare you not to be struck in awe.*

Sunday, April 22: Happy Earth Day!

• 12:00 p.m. Celebrate Spring at the Coronado Flower Show. Though Spring likes to swell up my sinuses the way a brown noser pumps up a manager’s ego, I’ll willingly suppress its effect with a dose of Chlor-Trimetron and spend the day under the tents of the Coronado Flower Show, the largest tented flower show in the nation. General admission is only $5; children under 12 are free.
• 3:00 p.m. An Adams Avenue music festival by any other name DOES smell as sweet. Previously known as the Adams Avenue Roots Festival, the FREE event now known as Adams Avenue Unplugged takes place until 7:00 p.m. on this final day of the weekend. Up to 170 live musical performances ranging from folk, traditional roots music, Appalachian folk songs, bluegrass, Americana, cowboy, Cajun, and rockabilly are scheduled to appear at various venues on the two-mile stretch of Adams between Texas Street in Normal Heights and Kensington. For a list of who’s performing and where they’ll be performing, check out the Adams Avenue Unplugged website.

(Photo caption, from left to right: Record Store Day logo from RecordStoreDay.com; Taste of Hillcrest logo from FabulousHillcrest.com; press photo of Merrill Garbus photographed by Anna Campbell for 4AD; photo of the Coronado Flower Show entrance from Beach Local’s Flickr photostream; Adams Avenue Unplugged poster from NormalHeights.org.)

*CORRECTION: Coachella Weekend 2 will NOT be live streamed per a Pitchfork article posted on April 13. You can, however, see video of tUnE-yArDs performing “Bizness” and “Powa” on Coachella’s YouTube channel. Apologies for the misinformation!

There are bands and musicians whose albums I sample only to find my mind wander. Their tracks are like the outfits of so many cartoon characters: unchanging from scene to scene, episode to episode. What should be their musical mark quickly diminishes into something regrettably mundane.

And then there is Merrill Garbus, aka tUnE-yArDs. Her music is inescapable. For a taste, check out “Bizness,” “Gangsta,” and “My Country” from her latest album, w h o k i l l.

I listen and become bewitched by her voice. It soars between rip-your-shirt-off fury and leotard-and-leggings lyricism, never riding on top of the orchestration but weaving and playing among the other instruments. At times her songs evoke thoughts of a drum circle, of walking along a cobblestone street lost in thought until happening on a festival in a plaza, of listening to old records in a basement, of a contemporary dance show, of a downward spiral, of a break in the clouds, of a quiet day journaling on a patio. Her beats charm me into movement. I jump, thump, rock, sway. I’m all over the place and I don’t care. I am awake.

No doubt, then, that I’m excited that she is performing at San Diego’s House of Blues this Wednesday, April 18. Tickets for the show, which includes sets by fellow 4AD artist St. Vincent and Keep Shelly in Athens, run $28.50 each after service charge.

Afterwards, she heads back out to Indio for Weekend 2 of Coachella before hitting San Francisco and Oakland. For a full list of her upcoming performances, check out her artist page on 4AD.

She’s so friggin’ glorious. I’m counting the hours.

(Press photo of Merrill Garbus photographed by Anna Campbell for 4AD.)

During this first weekend of February 2012 in San Diego, get out of your comfort zone before settling in for the gluttony that is Super Bowl. Consider catching a music showcase put on by the San Diego Youth Symphony. Check out an art show and dance performance in North Park. Visit a San Diego Museum for half-off what you normally have to pay. I promise: These three ideas offer a pleasant respite before the storm of Budweiser and Coors commercials.

Saturday, February 4, 2012:

• 2:00 p.m. Take in orchestral music played by teens and not-yet-teens. The kids that make up the San Diego Youth Symphony (and any youth symphony) are inspiring not only for their talent but for the hard work they put towards obtaining, maintaining, and improving that talent. This Showcase Concert takes place at Copley Symphony Hall in Downtown. Tickets run the range of $10-$35. To get your tickets, call The Copley Box Office at 619-235-0804. If you can’t make this performance, then consider the 7:00 p.m. Ovation Concert at Copley (tickets run the same range for the later show).
• 8:00 p.m. Celebrate the lives of six courageous women. North Park’s Art Produce Gallery collaborates with Eveoke Dance Theatre in its latest exhibit, Reflections. The combination visual and dance show is a portrait of six women you might not have already ever heard of but will be glad that you finally did. General admission tickets are $24; for seniors and students, $18.

Sunday, February 5, 2012:

• 12:00 p.m. Check out a San Diego Museum at half-off admission! February is Museum Month in San Diego. In terms of your wallet, that means if you pick up a FREE Museum Month Pass from any Macy’s in San Diego, you can use it to enjoy half-off admission at participating San Diego museums until February 29. (As with last year, I’d recommend hitting a Macy’s customer service center or Visitor’s center.) If you don’t know which museums to hit, the San Diego Museum Council lends their two cents to help you make an informed decision. For my part, I’d recommend checking out the San Diego’s Craft Revolution exhibit at the Mingei in Balboa Park, the Phenomenal: California Light, Space, and Surface exhibit at MCASD Downtown, the TRASH exhibit at the New Children’s Museum in Downtown, and the Natural History Museum’s exhibit of Titanic artifacts (which opens on February 10).
• 3:30 p.m. Watch Madonna jump the shark. Super Bowl XLVI. For those of us who don’t remember our Roman numeral lessons of yore, that’s “46.” This repeat of 2007’s match-up takes place in Indianapolis. Elder Manning hosts younger brother and Tom Brady. Yada, yada, yada. I’m more curious about halftime. Hip-Hop choreo icon Tabitha D’umo of Nappytabs headed up the choreography for the performance. And, you read right: Madonna has signed on as the main act of a triple-M music offense (pun unintended) that also stars Minaj (as in Nicki Minaj) and M.I.A. (I’ve honestly lost track of her since “Paper Planes,” which makes her stage name ironically relevant). I’m sure jokes abound that speculate a Madonna wardrobe malfunction, one that would trump Janet Jackson’s 2004 gaffaw; just not here. Too easy.

(Photo caption, from left-to-right: Photo of young musicians from the San Diego Youth Symphony’s website; flyer image from Art Produce Gallery’s website; image from Macy’s Museum Month website; photo of Madonna from the NFL’s Super Bowl web page.)