The Fresnan

Have a Fresno Venue Suitable for an Army?

Hey Fresno bands and promoters.  Why ya got to be such jerks?  What am I talking about?  The Republic Tigers are in town Saturday and they have no place to play that night.  Their original venue fell though and they've been looking for a new one.  Nobody is coming through.

They've played Letterman guys and they have catchy Postal Service beats combined with whimsical Shins like singing.  So surely there is a spot they can fill on a Saturday in Fresno. This is a band that can bring some people out.  But maybe spots are just too hard to come by in this town.  Nobody seems to want to make room. 

Stop being douchebags Fresno Musician-sphere - that's for bloggers.

Chalk Up Another Title For Fresno

Fresno County is the number one agriculture county in the country with 5.3 billion in production of...ag...stuff.  That's right.  Better recognize, other US counties.  You hear that, Iowa counties?  You too, Kansas.  Suck it, Nebraska.  You FAIL!  Fresno is the bestest.

Too bad we won't win that title next year.  We have no water for growin' stuff.

What You Missed Last Night: Circles and Circles

This is where you were not, last night.  Don't worry, we checked it out for you:

Focused On Fresno #7: Where This Be?

It's time once again for another focused on Fresno picture.  See if you can guess what Fresno County town this was taken in.  Answer after the break.

Indie Tuesday: Circles and Cakes

Is it weird for a band to have an anniversary party after only one year of existence?  Maybe.  But there has been weirder anniversary parties. Really though, given the volatile nature of keeping a band together, one year actually is a reason to stop and party.

Tonight, join Circles and Circles at Starline as they celebrate their relatively lengthy togetherness.  They invited Fresno's Aspen Hollow, Akasha and LA's Ready Aim Fire, to play and eat cake with them.  Seriously.  There will be cake.

Enjoy some show related videos after the break...

MONDAY HANGOVER: Annoying Dark Knights

This is a statement to half the people at the 7:30 p.m. showing of The Dark Knight at Broadway Faire on Saturday:  You guys are a bunch of jackasses!

Children were there.  Like, five-year old children.  At a hard PG-13 flick.  Babies too.  Fucking babies.  Hell, I think some woman gave birth.  And there was the laughing.  Laughing at all the wrong lines.  I've never been part of a dumber audience in Fresno before.  But, at one point, it was nice to see an usher make a texting teen put his phone away.  Of course the kid went right back to it the moment the usher left, but the effort was made.

Then, there was this guy having an utterly meaningless twenty-minute conversation on his cell phone.  It was before the previews, but still.  Everyone around him was forced to listen to the whole inane thing.  But you, you have a choice of listening to a couple minutes of it.

Listen to cellphone jackass.mp3

Oh, the movie, yeah.  It's already been said all weekend, but The Dark Knight is a near perfect movie.  Should be the first true comic book movie to get a Best Picture nod.  If a damn musical can get Best Picture, The Dark Knight sure as hell should.

Fresno's Bloggiest Item of the Week: HMac Churns it out

Welcome to Fresno's Bloggiest Moment for the week that was.  A new segment, to be posted every Saturday night at 1:01.  Why that time?  Look, I don't have to explain myself to you.  Alright?  Jerk.

A Fresno blogosphere record was broken on Thursday - even though it never really was a set thing...I guess.  The Fresno Beehive's Heather McLane banged out eight unrelated posts in one day.  Count'em bitches: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

We have no fact checkers here but there's no way that's been done before on the Fresnets.  Surprisingly, there wasn't a weak post among them.

Maybe HMac can teach us how to make ONE post that isn't crap.

Saturday Fresgeek: Let's Do IT Tonight

If you don't want to see the Batman tonight, choose from one of the following:

What?  Four in one day isn't enough for your horny greedy ass?  Then see what The Hive thinks.  Still want more?  Damn, you want it all the time.  Just give me five minutes here....okay, I'm ready, here ya go.  Now leave me alone, I need a nap.

[*For those of you up late on Saturday nights, we'll have a new segment starting tonight that will post at 1:01 - I should be ready for a sixth go at it by then]

I Enjoy, Drinking

I’ve always had a thing for a proper drink. I’ve also got a jones for local art. It’s for this reason that when approached to take part in Creative Fresno’s bartender challenge I immediately said yes. Of course that was back in 2007 when in the midst of a good karma streak I felt confident and ready to take on the world. Fast forward to 2008 and what you have is an entirely different bird. But that’s beside the point, so I’ll move on.

The challenge training took place on the Sunday preceding the event at Donavon’s (the lead organizers) home. Miriam (bartender extraordinarie) from The Landmark was our trainer. She really knows how to make you feel like you can handle a shaker at the end of two hours. I may have gained a false sense of security that afternoon. Donavon’s place was full of funny, smart and as the name suggests damn creative people. So of course I relaxed instantly and began to gauge what I thought things would be like in the actual setting.

But I gotta tell ya. Once I was at Palomino’s behind the bar with only Sunday’s two hours to prepare me, I was all thumbs. No sooner than I had gotten myself set up did someone roll up and ask for a Mojito. “Really…are you sure”? “Yep, strawberry please”. Just like that I had to dive right in and muddle on my very first try. Paul Palomino might just be the coolest man I know. He never once got mad at me for asking the same questions over and over and for stepping on his big toe. In fact at one point while Mike Oz was spinning (by the by, dope sets Mike and Tory) he leaned over and asked what night me and my boy (Mike) wanted to host our own night. Can you believe that? I’m making a mess all in the name of art in my neighborhood and he wants to know when I’ll come back? You gotta love it.

Fresno Bootlegs #6: Sweet and Innocent?

In our continuing series of live bootlegs of Fresno musicians, we finally bring you something sweet and innocent.  Or is it?

Judge for yourself by listening to our bootleg of Fresno's own Abigail Nolte singing and playing guitar at Tokyo Garden.

Download AbigailBeautiful.mp3

*The song may or may not be called "beautiful" - I wouldn't know because I bootlegged this yo and I'm to lame to just straight up ask.

Fresno likes Stone Foxes

If you were older than 19 you might have missed last night's show at Starline.  But those under that age didn't seem too.  There were a lot of them.  Frisco's The Stone Foxes played and I've never seen Starline so packed on a Tuesday night.  Was it because school's out or is Fresno all about Stone Foxes? 

A brief video of The Stone Foxes last night:

Drink For a Good Cause...for once

On any given night, you might go out and knock back a few with your buddies.  You start having some fun and you knock back even more.  Before you know it, somebody is calling you a cab as you hurl all over your spiffy new shoes.

Now, how does this little bit of debauchery help the city?  Or, a charity?  It doesn't.  Well, maybe you helped a local business with your booze purchases, a little.  But who else did you help?  Fucking nobody, ya drunk.

Tonight, it's time to turn your debauchery into charitable giving.

Come check out our own Devoya Mayo (hey, one post qualifies as a blogger here) as she battles DJ Heinz in a Bartender Challenge starting at 6:30 at Palomino's in the Tower District.  They make your drink, you give them a nice tip, and that tip goes to Creative Fresno's mural project.

Not getting this challenge thing?  Here's a better video explanation of what a bartender challenge is all about.