THE FRESNAN

Bandgeek: It's Way More Fresno Music Than A Dude From Tacoma Could Ever Handle

Are you going to Visalia this weekend? Seriously? Hey, totally get it with the cool stuff going on down there. But there is plenty going on Fresdork to keep you right here. Thankfully, way more than last week. That was scary. This week there is so much going on it may even impress Tacoma people. In fact, if Tacoma has more music happening than Fresno this weekend, we'll actually buy a case of Rainier beer and give it some underprivileged hipster. Hell, we just might do that anyway.

Enough. Let's Bandgeek:

FRIDAY

NEIGHBORHOOD CAFE: The Love The Captive kids are taking over the cafe for the weekend. What we really like about tonight's show is the flier (right) has the actual start times of the bands. Super awesome - good luck sticking to it - but still awesome. Bands, The Autumn Bomb, JosHorror, Midnight Howlers and All Nite Pilots, will be there. [8:00 $3 All Ages]

KUPPAJOES: The ever popular, A Current Affair with One Hot Minute, Lions! Tigers! Bears! and Sounds & Sciences:

AUDIE'S OLYMPIC: The brutally beautiful, 12 Gauge Serenade with Sparkle Jet, Gypsy Cab and Michael Miller:

 

STARLINE: Quickly coming up and making noise in the local rock scene is Dislodic. The have a new CD done and they'd like to perform it for ya, if you don't mind:

CYC:

SATURDAY

20 Seconds With A Fresnan: Art Silva

Local promoter, Art Silva, keeps his promoting hand strong. If you haven't been to an Art Silva show then you probably don't get out much. Art just got done with Thrash n Burn on Monday and has several things coming up, this weekend in fact. And we'll find out about that and more after listening to Art play our little dorky podcast inspired game called "20 Seconds With A Fresnan".

Download: 20secondswithArtSilva.mp3

You can also use the player if you're not iPhon-ing:

It's the longest "20 Seconds" ever but it's cool because we get to learn a little bit about Art's history, how busy his day is, talk local venues and bands. And it just may all tie into this:

CYC Tonight: A Final Summation

Sacramento punk band, Final Summation, is about to go on a huge European tour, but not before they play Fresno. FS video:

Fresno: Catch Up On Your Sleep

For some reason it's always entertaining hearing what somebody traveling through Fresno thinks of Fresno.

Tacoma Rainiers radio announcer, Mike Curto, recently posted on his blog about how he uses the Fresno trips to catch up on his sleep. According to Mike...

"...there is nothing to do in Fresno, except go to the park and work. It’s too hot and smoggy to walk anywhere, and there really isn’t anywhere to walk to anyway. There is no nearby post-game bar scene to get caught up in. This is, in a word, a great trip for sleeping."

Man. Next time Tacoma comes though town, one of us has to take this guy around and show him all of Fresno. Apparently he thinks the area between his hotel and The Chuck is all there is.

Here, Mike talks about what we assume was the days when the Grizzlies played at Beiden:

"It was always 100 degrees and smoggy. The ballpark was worse than a Class-A stadium, with no broadcast booth and no air conditioning anywhere. The hotel was 20 minutes away, in a completely decrepit downtown area. The whole thing made me miserable – not to mention sweaty, stinky & gross."

Well, at least we're improving in Mike's eyes:

"First of all, after years of starts and stops, they finally opened their new downtown ballpark - and it’s a great facility, one of the top six or seven in the league. The hotel is strong, and you can walk to the park. We’re still in downtown Fresno, and it’s still kind of decrepit – but not as decrepit as it was 12 years ago."

That last line has given us the best tagline for downtown ever...

Downtown Fresno: Not As Decrepit As 12 Years Ago.

[Source: Archop's Twitter feed]

Dumb Drum Beards Stand Someplace In Fresno Again

In case you're freaking awesome and only get your local blog content from The Fresnan, you may have missed another humorous edition of the Dumb Drum webseries: Cross Streets. Here they are standing at...

Frank's Place Tonight: Memoryhouse and Baths

Love The Captive brings yet another Pitchfork approved act to Fresno: Memoryhouse. This one is from Canada and... awww, what a cute little couple. They seem to be big on visuals during their performances so it'll be interesting to see what they do at Frank's. If you'd like to have some free Memoryhouse to listen to right now, download this: TheYearsEP.zip

Baths will be there too and we say "good for them" and they're from Chatsworth, which is in California (who knew!?). Let's enjoy a Memoryhouse video (of sorts), shall we?:

CYC Tonight: Fresno Punks Meet Southeast Punks

[updated] SPECIAL SCREENINGS: SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD

IN THEATERS AUGUST 13TH

UPDATE: The pass giveaway is now over. The winners shall receive an email over the next day. Thanks everybody for playing and being awesome and not douchey.

There's an awesomely geeky new movie coming out called SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD. Looks pretty damn entertaining. Check out the trailer below, the movie's website, the mixes here, go like it, read the comic it came from, and just plain get geeked to see it. Because, we're giving you a shot to win a pass (good for two) to an early screening in Fresno.

Alright, so it's IN THEATERS AUGUST 13TH for the regular folk, but we have some passes for Fresnan readers to a screening on Tuesday August 10th at 7:30 at Edwards Theater. All you have to do is make a comment on this blog post and leave your email in the appropriate box. Bam. That's it. We're not real creative with this one, we'll let you handle that with your comment. We'll close the comments down and email the randomly chosen winners (ini mini miny moe) when the time is right.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS.THE WORLD has been rated PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned - Some Material May Be Inappropriate for Children Under 13) for stylized violence, sexual content, language and drug references.

There are some (kinda) rules:

Tuesday In Fresno: Comadre, Murder By Design, Zebra Kills Lion... basically a whole lotta music for a Tuesday

Za Germans are invading China...town tonight: Glasses, Finisterre. Also, Redwood City hardcore punks Comadre and Santa Cruz folk-punk from Intergalactic Smugglers.

Audie's Olympic: Portland's Holliepollock can enjoy the new bike lane in front of Audie's with Murder By Design and Madera's All Nite Pilots:

Starline: Rock locally, progressively and alternatively with Valley Of Ashes, The Capital Is Burning, Zebra Kills Lion and Lezayr:

Fresno Paints More Little Bike Lane Guys. Portland Reacts

If you've been driving around Fresnerd lately, you may have noticed a number of lanes being given away to bikers. Hey, Wishon and Van Ness didn't need so many damn lanes anyways.

So, Fresno's getting all hardcore with the bike lanes. Sweet, gotta like it - closing the bike-friendly gap between us and Portland. Well, maybe the old Land Of Ports is hearing our footsteps 'cause now Portland's upping their bike-lane-game. Their going all, freaky mega-lane:

On the Right Track from Mayor Sam Adams on Vimeo.

Monday In Fresno: Two Tours, Many Tour Buses

At the Tower Theatre, the School Of Rock tour bus makes its stop. The School Of Rock is just what you think it is, musicians teaching folks how to play rock. They take their best and go out on the road, paying tribute to Live Aid with their sets. It starts at 7:30. Check 'em out:

Also, over at the Crest Theater, don't be afraid, it's only music (and it starts at two): 

Bloggiest Moment OTW: Famous Gets A Famous Comment

Yeah, we said this segment was taking a break but this one's too damn cool not to post. Fresno Famous blogger, Famous Whitewater (aka Joshua Tehee), did a guest post over at Dumb Drum, reviewing the movie, "The Runaways". You know, the sorta bio-pic about the all girl band, The Runaways. The band that had Lita Ford, Joan Jett and Cherie Currie.

Famous' review was quite good and expansive. It was so good that Cherie Currie herself felt the need to comment about it. Pretty sweet. So, either Cherie is a regular reader of Dumb Drum or she's really good at searching for reviews of The Runaways on the Internet.

Either way, it's the Bloggiest Moment Of The Week.

Bandgeek!: Is This it!? Seriously? At least There's Strange Vine

Geez. Things are super, super, thin this weekend. Unless people are keeping things from us. Are you keeping secrets from us? Not cool. Really it seems that Kuppajoe's, Club Retro, Neighborhood Cafe and CYC are all dark for Friday and Saturday. Unprecedented.

So it's a not-so-exciting weekend for the underage crowd. But for those with some sorta identification, it looks like we'll be hanging at Audie's all weekend. Which is not a bad thing by any means.

AUDIE'S OLYMPIC: Better get practicing on your couch lounging techniques, you'll need them:

 

Actually it's a benefit for the folks you see in the flier. They were in a car wreck and are lucky to still be around. Helping out with the show are folks like The Argyle Pimps, G.O.A.T, The Gyrators, The Giddy Ups, DJ Ms Soulflower and General Populus.

SATURDAY

AUDIE'S OLYMPIC: Finally, those popular boys from Strange Vine have a CD out ("Ghosts"). They're partying on its behalf at Audie's, it shall be great. Mike Oz has a full blown interview with them about it, check it out. Jessica Taylor and Vice City's very good The Whisky and the Devil's Chaplin will be partying too (never mind the Fling on the flier):

 

NEIGHBORHOOD CAFE: This one seemingly popped up out of nowhere:

You know, there has to be more going on but... If you know of something else or want to talk about what's listed, maybe leave a review after coming home, be awesome and leave a comment. To make sure your band is listed next time, always email: mike@thefresnan.com

Enjoy Fresno this weekend!

Fresno Tonight: Birthday Parties and Tweets By A Pool

Shhh! Don't tell Brian Kenney Fresno, but there's a "surprise" birthday party happening for him tonight. Hope he knows he's playing. Rademacher is too. So is something called MoeTar. Should be something awesomely Fresno to do, once you're done tweeting your ass off by the pool at The Chuck:

Fay Wrays Need Fresno's Help To Play A Festival In L.A.

Look how happy Fresno's post-punk dudes the Fay Wrays are. You don't want to make them sad do you? Good. Then all you have to is go here and look to the left of the page and vote for Fay Wrays. That's it. Your good Fresnan deed is done for the day.

The Fay Wrays are hoping your vote will help them win a slot on the Free For All Festival down in So Cal. Voting ends on Sunday at 5:00 so hit it up now. This is what they could be a part of: