My friend and reknowned illustrator, Jay Allen Sanford, was doodling to avoid deadlines and came up with Barzilla’s older meaner brother. Pretty cool huh?

So the Speakeasy show on Saturday featuring The Burning of Rome lived up to its name and got shut down by the police. But it moved to a hidden location deep in the bowels of the venue, where the band played their guts out.

The Speakeasy Studios is an Oceanside truck-repair shop by day and a rehearsal studio and performance venue at night. Both are co-owned by The Burning of Rome drummer Lee Williams and his father.

On the east side of the repair shop is a large parking lot, where they had a DJ setup, a bar, a small spoken-word stage and, behind and to the right of it, the main stage. When you enter the building (the truck-repair garage), the halls become an art-gallery maze leading you through and around the innards of the garage and into what I would call your standard “rock and roll loitering room”—with comfy couches, a bar, a fridge, a beer tap and rock posters hanging on the walls. On the back side of the room is a door that leads into a rehearsal room, a large, air-conditioned studio decorated with art, skulls, old gramma lamps on old gramma nightstands, Old Glory, various musical instruments and a giant, shiny bronze Buddha on a perch overlooking the entire space as if to give it his blessing and ward off the fuzz.

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See, the thing is – and here comes my inner nerd spilling all over the place – I’m a bit starstruck over these guys. Their tunes are so powerful and mesmerizing, their performances so electric, I became an instant fan upon seeing them two years ago, at the SoCo Music Experience, downtown San Diego. I have seen them several times since and I just keep liking them better and better. The Burning of Rome is my NFB (New Favorite Band) and to be permitted to sit in their rehearsal studio for a semi-private jam session was, well, if I were a total, unabashed gushing rock-nerd, would say it was, “A dream come true.”

Instead I will maintain my journalistic composure and report that the  performance was a visually and aurally pleasing experience: aurally speaking, it was unlike most concerts, where the band faces the crowd and blasts their music at you. Instead, the performers were all around us, saturating us with music rather than bludgeoning.

And visually, well, to be so close – to be able to watch every nuance of every performer; to observe the muscles on their necks loosen and tighten, the beads of sweat form and drop, the complex relationship between finger and keyboard, finger and fret, and mostly, to watch the smiles that span their faces as they do the thing they love to do best, then watch those smiles turn to tight-lipped grimaces when the music became dark, and foreboding, as TBoR’s music often does – there is no substitute for this type of musical experience. Read the rest of this entry »

I took my nephew Noah, and honorary nephew Kelton, to the Comic-Con today. What a blast! I know I wouldn’t have had nearly as good of a time if it were not having two youngsters with me just freaking out as we turned every corner.

engage!

It started off with a bang. The minute we walked in we saw the Star Trek Captain’s chair and a group of Halo fighters walking around. Then some little girl walked by with a light saber and it was all over. Noah and Kelton went nuts.

Must.

Have.

Light.

Saber.

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