upcoming fresno events

there's a lot of cool stuff coming up in fresno. why am i telling you? well, because i want you to share the fun with me. and, i want people to know about some events that are a little away and should be put on your calendar.

this thursday is the last week of the rademacher residency @ tokyo garden. this show will be super awesome with the sleepover disaster playing before rademacher. rademacher will have brian kenney fresno, thomas from gypsy cab, luke from sleepover, benji from fay wrays (at least i think they're all guesting this week) all playing along. it should be a sick show.



on saturday, head over to the fairgrounds and check out notown roller derby. these ladies are legit, and it's a fantastic experience.



you could also head over to the fulton mall and check out the rev fest, which promises a ton of motorcycles, a parade down the mall, and more.

speaking of the fulton mall, you can head back down to the mall the next weekend and enjoy the hye fest. tons of armenian food, music and stuff on saturday (and sunday?).

june 2nd, you can enjoy a cocktail and support creative fresno's downtown mural project over @ the bartender challenge. this one is set @ the landmark and features a competitor from the megazone contest: joey "lola la chola" fernandez.



on monday the 8th you need to be over @ starline for pecha cucha night 3, another creative fresno event. adam is slated to present.

june 13 - undercurrent anniversary show, 3rd edition. it's a little after the actual anniversary, but whatever. for $15 you get 8 great bands, and i think they're playing in this order: it's an icicle, son del valle, the fay wrays, shon j, 3 bags full, patrick contreras band, the sleepover disaster, and destructo bunny. i really dig destrecto, although i've mainly seen him dj'ing and rapping with ibid. since then, he's moved down to southern cali and has been making a bit of noise. i'm excited to see him back and will be promoting the hell outta this show.

june 20 - patrick contreras band cd release show. this really is too big for fresno to ignore. patrick has budwiser sponsoring his cd release, it's shut down a whole parking lot in the tower, they're parading in, and so on. it'll be a fun time and actually showcase the tower district as well patrick contreras.



july 2 - arthop - edward stewart showing @ milano. downtown fresno, fulton mall, 5-8pm.

undercurrent benefit show

the undercurrent show was amazing. and i came late. here's some photos (video will be added as i load it onto youtube). really, i only managed to make it to the last 4 hours of the show and had a great time. all the bands i saw rocked, and i heard the bands before had great sets. and, guayaberas were in full effect.


the crowd at the bar


adam (far right), kasey, and brian. carlos (undercurrent staff) appears to be growing out of brian's shoulder.


h-mac and the fresnan pretending not to talk about me. seriously, you two, i'm going to crush you both in the blog olympics. you will be hiding in shame.


the sleepover disaster




norma and darrin


kasey and heather


crowd shot while julia dawn plays


julia & sam rocha






patrick contreras, musician extraordinaire



(i have to fix the second video i took of patrick. it's 11 minutes, and youtube only allows up to a 10 minute video, so i've got some work to do.)


john thomas & corin from channel 30. warren armstrong saw the pic i took of them over @ the fresnan, i wonder if he'll see this one?


brian & matt, undercurrent staff


nick nocketback (undercurrent staff) and me


julia dawn

brazzaville review

so, last week, fresno famous was advertising the chance to win tickets to a concert on saturday night. brazzaville, an internationally known group, was coming to fresno and playing w/3 local acts. it was a fundraiser for 90.7, kfsr. kfsr is the local college station, and has been a source of tremendously great & diverse music in my life. my brother used to record music from there, which in turn exposed me to lots of new stuff. anyway, back to my story. basically, i'd never heard of brazzaville. but, one of the local acts (el olio wolof) is a favorite of mine, so i wanted to go to the show just to see them. so, when i saw the contest, i started entering. the contest was to create a snazzy tag line for their evening eclectic show. i bombarded them with slogans. shoot, i wouldn't be surprised if i won based on the amount of entries i had.

i had sort of forgotten about the contest, and hadn't been on the computer in two days. while i watched ucla lose in the final four (dang), i decided to check my email, blogs, fresno famous, etc. and what do i see? i won tickets for two. sadly, i couldn't give the other ticket away. it seems that people had other plans, were out of town, or not interested. and, i couldn't think of who else to invite. so, i went alone. but, i was armed with my trusty camera, a pen, and a piece of paper. i figured, hey, i'm going because of fresno famous, i might as well review the show for them as well. granted, these aren't the longest or most in depth reviews, but whatever. and, i've got videos! (speaking of which, i apologize in advance for the shaky camera work and the poor sound quality at times. it was louder than my camera wanted to accommodate.)

first up was patrick contreras. i'd never heard him, but there's been a lot of buzz going around about the rock and roll violinist. it was dang good music. i preferred the instrumentals to the songs with vocals, but maybe that's just me. this guy has spunk, and his band is fun to watch, too. patrick ended w/a led zepplin song that was really well done.
patrick contreras video

(on a side note, how do drink prices go up during a show? i don't think i arrived during a happy hour, when i came at 8:20ish. but, the price of the drink i had started @ $3.50. i think i was charged $5 the second time, a bit later and slightly after the show started. the rest of the night i think they charged my $4 for it. wha?)

next on tap was el olio wolof. as i mentioned before, i've seen them before, i really enjoy their music, and pretty much went to the show to see them and to hear brazzaville. el olio didn't disappoint. they're always great. el olio reminds me of a pentecostal tim burton carnival, whatever that means. i highly recommend that you go see them @ the undercurrent benefit show on sunday april 29th @ club fred (hey, you should subscribe to undercurrent as well. so should i.)
el olio wolof 1
el olio wolof 2
el olio wolof 3
el olio wolof 4
el olio wolof 5

third on the bill was the same shape. the same shape reminded me of early radiohead, and i mean that in a good way. i really like radiohead, so i'd take this as a compliment. i don't thing they're trying to bite their sound though. they also had some tunes that reminded me of cream. good stuff, and they played well to the crowd.
the same shape 1
the same shape 2
the same shape 3

(i should mention that the sound guys seemed very helpful to all of the bands. and, i thought that the overall sound quality of the venue was good. always nice when a venue actually has good sound.)

finally, we get to the headliner. i didn't know much about brazzaville before the show. all i had heard was that they were from spain. and that they were good. since the show, i've done a little reading up on them. anyway, they more than lived up to the simple billing that i heard. (and their name is not brazilville, like this doofus next to me kept telling people around him.) brazzaville's sound reminded me of david bowie, and a tad bit of pete yorn. mostly, it was mellow but highly entertaining. these guys were definitely professional, but they were also quite personable. they didn't have "rock star" attitudes on stage. i would recommend them to anyone that likes music.
brazzaville 1
brazzaville 2
brazzaville 3
brazzaville 4
brazzaville 5
brazzaville 6

*disclosure, i'm posting this on my blogspot blog as well as on my fresno famous blog. i hope a lot of people read my meager review, and are influenced to check out & patronize all of the musicians. oh yeah, and listen to 90.7 kfsr. heck, email them and let them know that people want more shows, and more of evening eclectic. i know, i know, people like jazz and it's good that we have a quality station playing diverse jazz. but dammit, i want more "college" radio as well.