THE FRESNAN

Monday Morning Hangover: Wet Electric Appears To Have Been The Sausagefest That Everyone Knew It Would Be

Yeah there were a few ladies at the Island thingy. Don't worry, the dude with the camera and huge-ass telephoto lens caught them.

[Video cred: Robb Deep]

Monday Morning Hangover: Strange Vine and Goldilocks

Stellar event last Saturday night with the Members Only Party at Storyland with Agent Ribbons, The Stone Foxes and Strange Vine. Hanging out in Storyland at night with top notch live music filling the air was very much nice.

The morning after, we're a little uncomfortable thinking of what exactly happened in one of the storybook displays as couples were seen walking off into the darkness many times Saturday night. Let's just say if Storyland still had its 'cherry' before Saturday, consider it popped. The Three Bears house will never be the same.

Side note: With all the appropriate praise folks bestow on Strange Vine's drummer Ian Blesse for doing three things at once while playing, we can forget what a good singer and guitarist ,Toby Cordova, is.

Proof of Toby's nice guitar work with our video clip from Saturday night:

Last Weekend: Fresno Gets Fierce For Locals

Nice job Fresno. Friday night, you sold out a large venue for a (mostly) local show. All together, 562 people went through Fulton 55's doors during the Fierce Creatures/Strange Vine/Achievement House/Silent Comedy show. Causing Fulton 55 to be "at capacity" several times during the night.

The most notable difference in the crowd was seeing a lot of people that don't go to local shows. Fresnans that were there because it was THE happening that night. That could be looked at as a good or bad thing. But really, if a showcase of local music talent regularly becomes THE thing to do on a Friday night, we're all for it.

Fulton 55 wasn't the only interesting happening Friday night. As Religious Appeal tells us, Christopher Mintz-Plasse a.k.a. McLovin, was at Kuppajoe's. So, yeah, that's pretty cool. Speaking of Religious Appeal, John got some good on-stage video of Fierce Creatures set Friday. Check out more here and one here:

Fulton 55 - Where Have You Been All Our Lives?

Things managed just fine, even with the booze hiccup, at Fulton 55's grand opening weekend. Both nights were packed regardless. Must have been the never-before-seen-in-Fresno angles that got people out:

Sound was great. Vibe was nice. Atmosphere good. Parking was easy. If you have to find something wrong (it's part of the blogger code to find something wrong), when you're upstairs and not near the rail, you pretty much can't see the stage - even then it can be obstructed. But a cool-as-hell upstairs with obstructed views is way better than no upstairs.

Speaking of upstairs, that is where we got this video of the hard rocking Patrick Contreras:

The second night, Fresnans discovered that King Sugar is pretty damn good...

Soooo Glad We Could Show Reno A Good Time

You may be a winner, Nevada Wolfpack Fan. But you're a dirty dirty Reno-an. Above is what the Reno section at Bulldog Stadium looked like after their one point win over our Bulldogs. So glad you had fun, Reno. Jerks.

At least we got to watch a streaker get clocked in the endzone:

Most Metal Thing That Happened This Weekend: Trumpet Solo At The Two Cities Marathon

Not sure who thought this up or how long they've been doing this at the Two Cities Marathon, but having bands like Trumpet Solo fucking pumping runners up as they go by? Genius.

Monday Morning Hangover: Bad Karma? 'Rumble In The Park' Fails To Impress At The Chuck

According to Channel 47 news, Rick Mirigian's "Rumble In The Park" (the Chukchansi Park version) didn't go over so well this weekend; offensive comedians and (worse yet) unfulfilled promises to ticket buyers as the event came nowhere near the amount of fights that were advertised. Plus, attendance wasn't so hot.

Since we all should want things happening downtown and at Chukchansi to be a success, this sucks. But it takes the sting away knowing who promoted it and what he's all about.

>Channel 30 coverage.
>Channel 26 coverage.

Monday Morning Hangover: Frank Has Fresno's Answer

It's going to take some time to build the audience and tweak the space, but the reborn Frank's Place looks to be just kind of venue Fresno needs to run with big cities like SF, LA and... Visalia. (Photos by Kara Lee, like this one of Primer Skyline):

Good shows Friday, Saturday and Sunday, look forward to more in the future:

Music Monday: High Quality Fresno Metal?: HateFX

Saturday night at the big D4D metal show at Starline, HateFX reminded us why they are probably Fresno's best metal band. Very accessible songs, crisp but heavy sound. They're just... good.

Fierce Creatures = Fresno's Hottest Band

Last night Fresno indie rock band, Fierce Creatures, impressed a surprisingly nice sized Sunday crowd at Audie's Olympic:

Fierce is currently working on an EP and will be on "Great Day" or "The Kopi Show!" this Friday.

They weren't the only good thing going at Audie's last night though. Rising San Francisco band, Social Studies, were good too:

But we can't forget about Rademacher cause their latest lineup is sounding nice and full and ready to make another run:

Monday Morning Hangover: Swede Fest 5 Dominated

Wow. What a complete success Swede Fest 5 was Saturday at Starline. Every entry had some Swede style genius in it. The boys over at Dumb Drum have skillfully taken a storyline from a movie and turned it into its own beautiful, hip, nerdy, Fresno only thing. Wonder what other movie plots could be turned into a sweet film festival...

The only problem now is do they need to move it to a bigger venue? Hmmm... seems like some other successful and creative event has that same Starline-is-a-little-too-small issue.

While all the entries were enjoyable, it was the one with Back To The Future we found to be the most swede-iest

Monday Morning Hangover: Fresno: It's Like, Awesome

Fresno sure kicked a lot of ass this weekend. Friday in particular, what with the packed Grizzlies game at the Chuck downtown and a packed Tower Theatre for the opening of the Fresno Film Festival.

Then there was Vintage Days with Motel Drive winning the Battle Of The Bands, sweet tours of Downtown Fresno buildings, NOtown Roller Girls overcoming the Monster Truck Rally at the Fresno Fairgrounds to bury the SD girls (exciting Fresno's Twittersphere to no end).

Good to know that Fresno can support multiple roller derby teams as the place was full to see NOtown Saturday:

But, you know, it wasn't a perfect weekend in the No.

There were badgers loose in the Tower District (no shit there was a BADGER confrontation).

Plus, the Grizzlies' concession stands were not ready to handle a full Chuck. Fresno Bee columnist, Matt James, explains. We all can confirm what James has pointed out. And really if Chukchansi is half full you have to accept you're giving up two maybe three innings if you want to get something to eat.

But to end on a positive note, at the Fresno Film Festival we walked right up and bought a Stella in 20 to 30 seconds and even got the lady to say "Stelllllaaa!" (ala Brando from A Street Car Named Desire) as she poured it in our cup. Go Fresno!

Monday Morning Hangover: Your Brother's Band Rocks

We totally missed seeing Azazel Saturday night at Tokyo Garden. Once we arrived (late) and were told how awesome they were, we realized just how much we missed. We were told things like "Best fucking band in Fresno!"  and "[Azazel] are metal as fuck shit!" and "It's as if Jesus has came back as like a metal dude, only there are five of these Metal Jesuses and they're all in the same band and they all TOTALLY SHRED!" (well, two of those are actual quotes)

At least we didn't miss Trumpet Solo and It'll Grow Back.

Trumpet Solo. They're like your older brother's garage band, but awesome. No, wait, more like... You know when you were a kid, in your bedroom rocking out, playing air guitar, imagining you were in a band? Trumpet Solo is that, only they're really playing instruments:

It'll Grow Back. These guys are what punk bands are supposed to sound like. When other punk bands start losing focus and forgetting where they came from, all they need to do is listen to It'll Grow Back and they'll remember why they are playing punk rock in the first place:

Yes, we regularly talk about these bands, maybe too much, who cares, other people do too. We cover what we think is cool, it's all we know how to do, bless it.

Friday Felt Like A Monday At Audie's Olympic

Look at the pretty Wheels Of Fortune merch folks missed out on buying Friday night. Missed because there wasn't exactly a lot of people at Audie's, not for a Friday. Don't really understand it. Fresno's top club to see live music, a default place, if you will, where you just show up only half caring what bands are playing. Yet attendance was light.

Sure the bill had just one Fresno band then two touring bands new to Fresno, but come on! This was Friday night! Audies! The best place in Fresno to see a band. Shit. Did Meatball Magic's 5th Anniversary Party really crossover enough to hurt Audie attendance?

Eh, maybe. Or maybe folks didn't look at Audie's awesome board:

Monday Morning Hangover: Hardcore Fresno Band Intensity

Besides just plain liking their music, we're big Fay Wrays fans because nobody gets more lost in their music during a live performance. If you watch the entire clip from Saturday night's "Audiepalooza" you'll see what we're talking about. At about the 3:06 mark, things start gettin' serious. Also check 5:06 [insanity] and 6:23 when frontman Benji has problems catching his breath - awesommme:

Also at Audie's Saturday was hardcore metal band, Moses. Badass dudes if you're okay with the style of music (and we are). Good fan following too: