THE FRESNAN

Indie Tuesday: Heathens To Rock Fresnans

Don't let the "indie" tag we place on these Tuesday posts fool you into thinking it's always just indie-rock at Starline on Tuesdays. Indie can also just mean independent style bands that just plain-ass rock or hip-hop, folk, metal and yes, indie-rock.

Such is the case tonight with indie-alt band Heavy Young Heathens, a band that has two brothers from Fresno - at least that's what we're told. Joining the show are rock/hip-hop fusionists Malbec [LA] and Australian dudes St Leonards. 

*Awesome looking flier that explains needed info:

*There's another interesting show in the Tower tonight going at Babylon:

Fresno: We Eat Corndogs And Jump Off Shit

Yep. That's our new brand. Found it. "Fresno: We eat corndogs and jump off shit!" Take that, Portland! Hell of a lot better than "The Rose City", we say.

We didn't come up with it though. Greg Wayne, frontman for Something To Burn, a band that just opened for Stone Temple Pilots at the Fresno Fair, thought up that gem. We think he was having a little fun on us, but that's alright since he gave us such a kickass slogan.

Check the 3:15 mark of the video for that, and check 1:05 to see what a crappy greenroom the Paul Paul has:

Will Fashawn Become The First Fresnan To 'Make It'?

 

A couple big moments are happening this week for Fresno rapper Fashawn (besides turning 21). His new album "Boy Meets World" is released Tuesday (to places like Best Buy and Amazon) and his big Tower Theatre show is Saturday. The Tower show should be packed and will likely be his last in Fresno for a while as he continues his tour with Ghostface Killah of Wu-Tang Clan after Saturday.

So, is it happening? Is a Fresno music artist finally about to "make it"? Everything points to yes at the moment (knock on wood).

While we have a debate in our head whether Fashawn "making it" is the same as a Fresno band "making it", we wish best of luck to Fash' and hope he stays the nice dude that everyone in town says he is - no mater how big he gets. 

Side Note: Mike Oz did a great story on Fashawn in Sunday's paper, check it out!

Side Note 2: How awesome is it that Eva Scow plays on several tracks of "Boy Meets World"? Very.

Saturday info:

Bloggiest Moment Of The Week: The Biggish Fresno Fair

 

It was a full week of local blog postings about the Fresno Fair so rather than picking one, lets look at them all:

• Edward Stewart got a hetero-woody over Corin Hoggard day at the fair.
• Famous Whitewater likes his bacon with his chocolate.
• Marcel Nunis says his neighbor's Halloween display is more of a Fall marker than the fair.
• Nick Gennock has some pretty awesome pics of Stone Temple Pilot's appearance at the Paul Paul.
• We thought STP could have given Fresno a little more.
• Mike Oz stops for Hammer Time at the Paul Paul.

HONORABLE FRESNO BLOGGY MENTIONS
While not Fresno Fair related, they're still Fresno noteable: 

• Travis Sheridan proposes Fresno begins a graphic design association in Fresno - everybody seems to be down with that.
• Gustav's Groupie gets involved with a large discussion about the Fresno version of the 40 Days For Life campaign.
• Mike Oz (and a hot artist) try to convince the Contra Costa Times that we're not dumb.
• ArcHop Park is coming along nicely and it now has trees.
• Bryan Harley has an update on his Bring the Google Trike to Fresno campaign.

[Picture taken in the Ag Building at the Fresno Fair, which we think is always cool and underrated.]

Fresgeek: Parties For CDs and Houses

Well, hanging out at the Fair and the Stone Temple Pilots show last night set us back a bit, so this week's Fresgeek post is a little less researched. But hey, there is still some stuff out there to check, so lets get FrezGeeking:

FRIDAY

AUDIE'S OLYMPIC: Cool stuff, it's a CD release party for the Fusion Porn with special guests, Strange Vine and Shiver Fox. [Time: 9 Cost: 5]

BABYLON: Rock with The Disconnectors, Dear Devil, Fail To Breathe, Kenny and Illusion Of Choice. [Time: 8 Cost: 5]

MADERA: House shows are always cool, even in Madtown, at least when they have cool bands like Synerza and Buffalo Guns:

SATURDAY

A Festival for a good cause that Mike Oz has the story on:

Six Ounce Gloves is opening for Puddle Of Mudd at the Fair and Starline has:

And Audie's Olympic has:

So that's what we found. If you've got something else or just wanna add to what we got, please leave a comment. Enjoy the final fried moments of the Fair and the rest of Fresno this weekend!

What You Missed Last Night: STP Mailing It In

Yeah, this may not be the most popular opinion, because a lot of people out there felt differently, but... we think Stone Temple Pilots went through the motions at the Paul Paul. Yeah we said it.

Set list was awesome. The band sounded great. But, there wasn't much feeling, at least not till the end. It took a jackass running across the stage for the band to wake up a bit. Maybe we're being too critical because we still remember a Selland Arena show STP played where they blew the Red Hot Chili Peppers off the damn stage.

So, a good show that could have used less through-the-motions.

[Photo stolen from DencaLR's feed]

Fresno Tonight: Stone Temple Pilots, Quick & Easy Boys and Dirty Sanchezes

Besides STP returning to the Paul Paul Theater tonight (should be awesome, see ya out there), Audie's Olympic has Fresno's own Love Pollution and Portland's The Quick & Easy Boys. A band that proves Portland is more than indie rock/folk/indie/indie. Find out all you need to know by watching this:

Also in the Tower, over at Babylon, The Dirty Sanchez, Hot Shade, Switchblade 327 and Asiago. [Time: 8 Cost: 5]

Fun With Local Indian Tribe Names: Regis Tries To Tackle "Chukchansi"

Host of many TV things, Regis Philbin will be making an apperance at Chukchansi Casino on October 24th. He'll be calling bingo or some shit, not sure. Anyway, he also has Ivanka Trump's Wedding to get to right after and he'll be chartering a jet in Fresno to help him get to the wedding on time (maybe he could ask Ivanka if she is still interested in Running Horse).

Regis explains the trip to the Live With Regis and Kelly crowd and throws out the greatest pronunciation of Chukchansi ever: "Chugchangy"

Sorry we can't edit down the clip to the part we want, just look for the 4:45 mark to the 9:50 mark for the Fresno/"Chukchangy" stuff:

Hopefully the Chukchansi Indians are cool with their name getting jacked-up on national television.

FresVideo: Bursting Fresno's Creative Bubble

Since the power was out most of last night (Screw you, Portland weather!), there wasn't enough time (or talent) to pull together something original to post here (waaaa), so we're going to steal another local blogger's stuff.

Mother Of Confusion recently did a quick interview with Famous Whitewater about a subject close to every creative Fresnan's heart: How do we reach the Fresnans that don't know about all the cool things that are happening here?

Our creative community is strong and supportive, but when you get outside of that small creative bubble, 9 out of 10 Fresnans don't know what you're talking about when you list the five things that Joshua "Famous Whitewater" Tehee mentions in this interview:

*The Great Divide post mentioned in the interview can be found here.

Indie Tuesday: The Wooden Birds, Picture Atlantic, Greener By Color

All kinds of nice acoustic-y music (Is there such a thing as mean acoustic-y music? That would be awesome) will be happening tonight at Starline with The Wooden Birds [Austin, Texas], Picture Atlantic [San Jose] and Greener By Color [Fresnans].

We would descibe The Wooden Birds as... um...*sigh* You know what? Check Love The Captive's blog for a much better description than we were about to attempt. Flying Kitty in three, two, one:

Focused On Fresno: Operation Clean Up edition

It's Operation Clean Up time around many Fresno homes. The time of year when we can dump all our crap and mulberry tree clippings, out on the street, to let somebody else deal with it.

Great huh?! (Suck it, County Islands!)

Yeah, except for a couple of real annoying draw backs:

1. Neighbors that ignore the no-trash-placed-before-seven-days-of-your-date rule and put their junk out weeks before.
2. Assholes that dump their own garbage in your pile. Hate those guys. (We don't want our neighbors thinking we would ever own an entertainment center that looks like that.)

Side note: The amount of scavengers (God bless them and stuff) searching around the piles has gazzoopled - insane amount this year.

Have fun with that old broken-ass vacuum cleaner, guys. 

Has Kevin Federline Lost His Inner Fresnan?

With all the talk last week of our city being not so smart, ya might have missed (lucky you) the report that Fresno native Kevin Federline trashed his rental and irked his landlord's ire. So much so, his now ex-landlord says K-Fed owes over 100,000 in back rent and repair costs from the damage he did to the home.

Thankfully (or regretfully) TMZ or some site, obtained the list of damages K-Freznan inflicted on his rental home. After reading through the list, we couldn't help but wonder "Where did Kevin learn to be such a dipshit? Was it from his Fresno upbringings or has Hollywood and Brittney caused him to be such a douche?"

So we decided to make the list into a bloggy type game. Lets break down each offense from his rental and see which was a bigger influence on Kevin's trashy ways: Fresno or Hollywood?

A broken beer dispenser on the barbecue island.
DECISION: Fresno. Of course a Fresno native is going to have a barbecue and it's only a matter of time before you get too plastered to operate a beer tap and break it.

Gutters full of cigarette butts and empty beer bottles.
DECISION: Neither. The beer bottle thing could have come from any American city but we have no idea where throwing butts in gutters comes from (Don't they have a street sweeper in Tarzana?).

Permanent spit marks on the outside of the house.
DECISION: Hollywood. We've never witnessed a person here, spiting on any walls (interior or exterior), so this must have come from K-Fed's "crew" giving him such a feeling of self-importance that he would go so far as to spit on walls.

Broken light covers, bent light posts, broken dishwasher and broken tiles.
DECISION: Fresno. Because we've had to pay for exactly those things on several of our apartment rentals around town. Sorry Reflections, Arbors, North Creek and several friend's apartment complexes.

A room that was turned into a studio (without the owners’ permission).
DECISION: Hollywood. He simply would not have had the money to do such a thing without meeting Brit in Hollywood - Ohhh the magic that must have been recorded in that studio.

Dead trees and plants due to failure to water.
DECISION: Fresno. We're sure Kevin was just trying to save water for our Westside growers.

Drawings all over the walls.
DECISION: Hollywood. We just hope the drawings are from his various children (Hollywood spawned kids). If they're from Kevin himself, then we say it's his Fresno graffiti tagger influence.

Front driveway oil-leak damage.
DECISION: Fresno/Clovis. The Fresno area has the highest amount of dudes working on their cars in the driveway, per-capita, than any other city.

Master Bathroom windows tinted without owners' permission.
DECISION: Fresno. Growing up in the valley teaches you two things: Tint all windows to block out the hotass sun and to be ashamed of your body.

That's the list and if you do the math, we have Fresno "winning" over Hollywood as the worst influence on Kevin.

Dammit.

[Photo GQ]

Bloggiest Moment OTW: Fresno Is As Dumb As Conan

Some worthless study came out this week, telling the country that Fresno is the dumbest city in America. Of course Mike Oz at the Beehive noticed it and ran with it, sparking a solid comment thread. Then Mike wrote a stellar column on Friday, showing how dumb these studies are.

In a kinda related post (you'll see why), Travis Sheridan sent a bloggy warning to Conan O'Brien to watch what he says about Fresno because he shares many traits with us here.

Yeah well, that was before Thursday night's Tonight Show. The following clip is from Conan's monologue on Thursday night:

Really? That was the best "dumb joke" Tonight Show writers could come up with?

Fresgeek Weekend: Fig Garden Metal and Pud Pulling

Yep, the big ol Fresno Fair is in full swing, Fresno Filmworks has a funnyass movie showing tonight and Monster hockey is happening at Selland Arena Friday and Saturday (awesome). And yeah, you may still have a re:fuse hangover, but what better way to cure a hangover than a some hair of the local music dog that bit ya.

Now, Fresno music lovers, let's FrezGeek!:

FRIDAY

AUDIE'S OLYMPIC: Being billed as a Lybra Birthday Bash, this one is saying "Screw bands!" and going all DJ with ones like Mykal Powell, F-Plus and more. [Starts: 9 Cost: Free]

STARLINE: Surely something must be happening. It's a major Fresno club and it's the weekend. But, as this post is being written, we don't know what the hell is going on over there - we know what was happening last month, just not tonight. [Doors: Maybe never. Cost: It could be video game tokens for all we know.]

KUPPAJOES: A lot of all ages music tonight with Sing The Body, Coolfield, The Radiance Effect, Troubled By Insects and Amanda Hammitt. [Doors: 7 Cost: 7]

SEQUOIA BREW: The Tower District brewhouse will be hosting a HR7 CD release party - let the Motto Brew flow! [Time 8:30 Cost: Free?]

BELANA: What's goin on with this Belana place anyway!? It's in Fig Garden Village and it's got all these rock and metal shows going on there; just seems like a weird crowd mix is all. Tonight, Fresno rock vets, Six Ounce Gloves will mix it up with the Village folks. Subdue will be there too, along with re:FUSE Fest breakout hit: Down Word. [Doors: 9 Cost: 8]

SATURDAY

We heard that Buffalo Guns will be at Tokyo Garden - pretty sweet. Tesla's Dave Rude will be at Starline. And downtown at the Crest... we think the flier says it all:

So that's what we found, but if you've got something else or just wanna talk about what's happening, leave a comment. Enjoy Fresno this weekend!

Fresno Filmworks Presents: "In The Loop"

Tonight at the Tower Theatre, Fresno Filmworks is in the loop:

Showings are Friday night at 5:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. - tickets $10 ($8 for students). Check out the trailer, it's difficult difficult lemon difficult: