Poem for a blogger - By N.L. Belardes

Last Thursday
I stood on a mountain bolt
That struck the side of God.
It ripped through the heavens.
I wore a fancy seatbelt made of Greek dreams.
Three days later I called to see if His side still hurt.
There in the telephone line I heard the drill:
“Earthquake disaster”
“Hide under the table”
“Head in elbows, tucked.”
Tested again.
3rd grade cold war film.
Atomic bombs and cartoon radiation
in my Hostess Twinkie.
It was all in the phone.
Years later it was all in cyberspace.
Net junkies.
Stabbing like Gods in retribution.
Real life car chases.
Paranoid Lords lurking.
Making us wish for video games
and silence.
Black dog rises in a new video game.
Blast the heads off the zombie fucks.
Stab them in the side to release the maggots.

Dirty Spanglish to play Rabobank Saturday night!!!! - By N.L. Belardes

The War Days Director, Pablo Esquival, call him whatever you want. I call him my punk kid... and I'm proud of him because he's playing the Rabobank with his buddies in Dirty Spanglish, a bunch of 14-year-olds performing their anti-sports officiating hockey song, Zebras! Sound by the Filthies...

Flier made by the Condors...

Dirty Spanglish fans can get discount tickets for the game against the Vegas Wranglers...

Puck drops at 7pm. Dirty Spanglish will be performing around 8pm. That's early enough to attend and still make all the other gigs you plan on attending that night.

The unholy trinity of 3 Cent begats a new era in Bakersfield rural rock punk - By N.L. Belardes

And so there came the beginning. In that beginning there was an angry birth. And in that angry birth there was a Bakersfield punk music filled with ravenous bitter decrepit youth, angry at MTV and their parents . Some hid in the Oleander Street Collective and lost friends to bullets and fell in love with their toy drum sets; and so they rebelled and found their way into Vidals and strange punk havens in a dusty Bakersfield refuse pile called “burnin’ angry music of the anarchic 70s, 80s and early 90s". Years later they infected the Bakersfield underground, Bakersfield punks hung out with cowboys under trees smoking and angry and fighting…

And there was a darkness…

Some punks traveled the countryside in beat cars, in love, angry all the way from Carolina and back to Oildale and Oleander Streets, even to Europe with four more feet…

And there was more darkness…

Somewhere in the darkness of filthy Bakersfield rural rock punk, active ingredients and hardcore punk dreams begat 3 Cent Nickle. 3 Cent Nickle stuffed newspaper ballot boxes in angry polls and ripped their punk music into the ears of the deaf. Then 3 Cent Nickle begat its first bastard son, Flabbergasted, who shocked, shrieked and died on a hillside. But everyone heard.

3 Cent Nickle also begat another bastard son, the 28s. There are 28 lessons to learn, 28 songs to be decreed, 28 years of average age to behold, 28 punk milestones to reach in its fledgling punk dreams that will fly and shit on you with a pigeon punkness that is as raw and exotic as dishes of Filipino pancit and lumpia.

The Holy Ghost of 3 Cent Nickle met up with another ridiculous band from the darkness, and, squeezing through the holy mother Earth’s tilted uterus begat the punk baby, Box Jumper. Flabbergasted, this baby denies rural rock punk in its hardcore Los Angeles smoggy punk half, while beholding agricultural dreams of angry punk grape and almond strewn hillsides and cornfields in its ridiculous half.

There is an old remnant of 3 Cent Nickle hidden away in the mysterious corners of the Earth, tucked into the darkness in an angry Gollum of punkness as bitter and anarchic as its youth ever was. “Punk is precious!” it screams, its big eyeballs glare from the caverns and chasms of the final lasting spirit of 3 Cent Nickle. In denial of itself, it vows to never perform punk again and yet continues to curse its very own riddle, “Where is my precious??! I wants it!!” And so from the final trickle of 3 Cent Nickle IN-denial was born.

Oh what will become of such angry punk spawn begat from the Holy Trinity of the broken 3 Cent, all come to Earth in outlines of their former self, but with such freewill and determination to wreak punk havoc on the Bakersfield music scene? Let us pray each do not call out, “Holy Father why have thou forsaken me?” Amen.

The Curse of West Side Story - By N.L. Belardes

A death in the director’s family. A staff member falls backwards ten feet just before the curtain drops; and an entire gangland to educate about the ills of street violence in a hopeless effort to make a difference except in the lives of a very few. Saturday night I went to see Bakersfield Music Theatre’s completely modernized version of West Side Story with friends Matildakay, Flower in the Dale and Bambi (read Flower's gritty review)

Bambi had said, “There’s something going on down by the theatre.” Sadly there were emergency vehicles parked right outside the Harvey Auditorium just moments before the curtain dropped. We hoped the show would still go on as we made our way inside.

The musical itself was a series of magical urban street scenes filled with punker and Latino street gangs pitted against each other (Sharks versus the Jets). Director Shay Burke choreographed a major production of yesteryear’s lingo meets contemporary urban street-hating. Sure the production was huge, but then so is the problem with gangs in Bakersfield. Not sure an 'all singing all dancing' extravaganza is going to impact the hood I live in just mere blocks from the performance. I didn’t see any fliers that said, “Hey street punks, come and watch this.” You have to hand it to the director, it is a good idea in how to get the money-holding community involved. The target was people who have pocketbooks, who could mentor and help in the gang problem by presenting an over-dramatic glimpse in how the gang world does not talk or operate. I guess the idea is there is conflict in youth. In Bakersfield you wouldn't see punkers vs. Latinos.

This was a musical with lingo from 1957. Because of its unrealistic attempt at realism I had to try to wake myself up from the dead lingo and bring myself into the overall theme of conflicted youth and innocent death. Yet, the pocketbooks were hopefully swayed by the dark urban scenes, great costumes and mostly enchanting singing. Sure, there were too many dance numbers, a few flat songs, and the tweaker dancer from the punk gang was freaky, but the main actors and actresses performed with expert showmanship.

During the intermission I inquired why there were ambulances outside the theatre. I discovered that one of the staff had been sitting on a railing and fell backwards and dropped ten feet. Although that and the death in the director’s family seemed to have cursed the show, the staff member I interviewed did say, “The show must go on…” And it did.

New podcast SMALLTOWN GIRLS exclusively on nlbelardes.com - By N.L. Belardes

While you're waiting for The Puck Show to create an episode there is a whole new podcast launching tonight on nlbelardes.com


The latest podcast out of the Southern San Joaquin Valley is just for girls...


Bambi, chingpea and matildakay are the Smalltown Girls...

Get the gossip from Matildakay, Bambi and chingpea, three SMALLTOWN GIRLS discussing everything you need to know about their celebrity obsessions. (Listen Now)

In episode one:

Hear the ladies talk about their mutual Johnny Depp obsessions.

Find out why the new James Bond could have been Jane Bond

Get a glimpse of the new metrosexual Superman

Discover the smalltown girls' taste for Moulin Rouge

Listen to talk of photo shoots, underwear and motherhood

Get in the know about Matildakay's secret John Stamos near love affair

And much, much more...

Check out these images as the Smalltown Girls recorded their celebrity gossip.







*music sample for theme song from Bakersfield's Calico Sunset...

Westbury, Diary, self-serving blogger elitists and Nate Berg - By N.L. Belardes

It’s tough to get people to come to shows, especially when you want to be covered by folks in the media who you want to write a credible story about a night of your artistic expression. It’s tough to just simply get the word out that you are an artist, or in a band, or part of a great play or musical that deserves citywide recognition. Let’s face it, just short of a catastrophe where members of your band get gunned down onstage, you’re just not going to get the traditional media out to your shows. No entertainment reporters, no television crews, no radio DJs, no Bakersfield Californian, no CNN, FOX, LA Times, Radio Lobo, KERO 23, KABC, or Golden Empire whatever are going to come out to one of the many rock, theatre or artist shows put on in the Bakersfield music scene on a daily basis. OK, they might go to some hillbilly banjo gig at the Fox Theatre. But what does that say about the media getting a hick message out to the world when there is such a great and diverse music scene? (Hell even Bakotopia isn't around reporting on the scene much. They're too busy doing their own podcasts out of town with my funny voice recorded in their new intro... Just kiddin' Mateo. Check out Episode 4)

Then comes the Bakersfield bloggers: a group of completely self-serving egomaniacs who only care about themselves, shamelessly plugging their egos, their books, their favorite football teams, their hockey CDs, their bands, their punkness, their podcasts, their favorite art supplies, their political views, and even their near stalker-like fascination with movie actors. They don’t claim to be traditional media, yet they are a media, and grassroots media at that, reporting about their lives intertwined in the events they experience each day; and doing so while simply not caring about the world around, except for their egos... right?

Right, and the traditional media has no aim with their blog-gathering, their blog communities, their near paranoid watching of Paperback Writer and a host of other Bakersfield blogs and the online uprising of non-traditional views, all really meaning that the common man has a voice in Bakersfield that reaches globally. And that voice can’t be shut up by the Feds, the local yahoos, or the local media outlets who all compete to be that voice. So, some in the local media play the blog game, count their own daily ticks on the stat counter, and gather, and wait. For what? Some good intentions, some business intentions. The difference? The traditional is getting paid to blog, which stretches the name of their print media and hopefully keeps them from getting buried beneath the cyber realm where voices are much louder than edited opinions in the paper or in audio and video segments on TV and radio.

Doesn’t matter.

What mattered this week was a strategy from local rocker Greg Kalar that really marks a turn in how at least local bands perceive the local media. In an all-out attempt to get scene writers out to cover their show on a Tuesday night, they reached to as many bloggers as they could get their hands on. It was a tricky strategy that took careful planning and email writing, and though Greg didn’t dupe this old timer, his efforts brought two local scene writers out to Westbury’s performance with Diary at the pizza-a-go-go.

It wasn’t that Greg so comically wrote bloggers with fun offers of pizza and beer and wrote tricky messages like, “I think Matildakay will be coming out to the show. If'n you do decide to go, let her know. She was looking for someone to come/hang out with. Shenanigans may abound.”

Hilarious! Tell all the bloggers each other are going to the show and amid the confusion you might get a few to bumble on out! Great strategy. I agree wholeheartedly. Artists have to be creative to get the media’s attention. Why do you think I created the now defunct Enrique Fuentes? Create a stir, create some controversy, and watch the media start watching you.

Even more importantly, it was the idea that Greg perceived bloggers as an integral part of the music scene. He knew where the coverage could potentially come from and where the dead ends would be in the local media. And it's not that he had to settle with bloggers. He knows that people read the blogs from Los Angeles to Frisco, New York and overseas. Oh wait. If he reached out to the most self-serving and shameless of them all, the local bloggers, then why did Matildakay and I show up?

Simply to illuminate the local music scene.

Because it's only the morons who say we are shameless.

And now for my report:

We made a descent into the Bakersfield caverns of punk, where I once vowed I would never attend. Outside stood the Kerouac of Kmart. “Don’t you write anything bad,” he said. Me? Never… He did tell me he once talked to the local media and went public with his 'Kerouac of Kmart' title just to send me a message. And that message? Surely it was that Jerry’s Pizza is not dead, and that a few rebels and lovers of literature lurk in the Bakersfield downtown, where rock and roll makes history in an old pizza joint on a regular basis. That message is true, and I take a bow to the Kerouac of Kmart for his intense love for bringing music to the Bakersfield scene…

Just inside the doors stood Nate Berg (read the 'Rock and Roll Farm' section in my year in review for a full story on the conflict between Berg and I). This was our first meeting; maybe our only meeting. Upon stepping in we both reached for our pistols. Oh yes, this was a scene right out of the old West, straight from the old urban gunfight stand-offs you’ve seen in Charles Bronson flicks. As quick as our guns were leveled we eyeballed each other and scouted for a fast exit. I made a mental search for hidden baseball bats and he mentally searched me for a rather nasty bottle of pen and ink that he’s sure I carry around just for such occasions. Yeah, guns were drawn. Time stood still and a few tumbleweeds rolled past, right over our boots, right down Chester Avenue into the sunset. We both slowly looked at the time. It was way past high noon, so we holstered our guns, and like shifty-eyed cowboys, gave each other a greeting that meant, “I’m watching you from this here corral. Don’t y’all make no sudden moves.”

And then he said it.

I didn’t expect him to.

But he did. He said, “All those articles you wrote were the slap in the face I needed.”


Nate Berg, once dubbed on nlbelardes.com
'The baseball Bat of Poor Consciousness'


Well I’ll be a son of a bitch. I’ll be a gott-damn ruthless cowboy writer rustler! We shook hands and I went downstairs, confident that a mug of beer wasn’t going to crush my skull while snapping a photo of Westbury’s punk rock opera song moment onstage that soon had me entranced.





Greg Kalar himself was shredding a punk riff and then talking, not quite singing, but in Tommy fashion (Not Tommy Hilfiger you sluts), you know the Who, and singing right to the crowd as if it were our own operatic hearts breaking:

Think in circles, speak in circles
Save a dime, spend nine
Break your neck the old fashioned way
Break your neck bending like new
Break a heart and in the end, save two

Hey buddy
Anybody
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me screaming?
Hey buddy
Anybody
Do you believe me?
Do you believe in anything?

Wilt a flower in an hour
wilt a soul in a lifetime
Do you want a saving grace?
Do you want a change of pace?
Do you just keep wanting what you can't have?

Ah, a proud moment to report through a novelist’s eyes such a musical occurrence in the Bakersfield scene. What would I have missed had I not have shown? Everything.





Greg Kalar, a CSUB student and music major has taken a passionate means of communicating through music into an operatic genre of song that made for part of a really pleasant evening of music in Jerry’s Pizza. Never before had I been so moved in song down in the musty old pizza basement. And not a smell of cigarettes and violent punks in this intense scene of music fans who were all out to listen to some great music in the Bakersfield mix…



But don’t get me wrong. Not all of Westbury (profile on B.U.M.S.) is a blend of operatic thrashing that make you want to wail… I heard a dark echo to their sounds with rising and falling riffs that blended punk and emo at times… I look forward to seeing them again; maybe Dutch treat on the pizza and beer.





Pablo Alaniz is hands down one of the best guitarists in Bakersfield. I had never seen Diary (profile on B.U.M.S.), and I have been speechless all week thinking of what to say about them (and Westbury). Diary is straight up hard rocking, pop-sounding, an incredible rocking band, that if I were Jesse Rivera I would make up a word like Dia-fuckin’-ry… that I would just use every time referring to them. Rocks!





Frontman Pablo is quiet, funny, humble, loves my chicken and salsa, but then when he gets rocking it’s like watching damn Monty Byrom the way he tears into rocking solos and riffs with a rare confidence. He’s one of those guitarists I would go out of my way to see, because I know how talented he is. When I came into the scene Diary wasn’t gigging. I'm glad to see they’re back…



I was happy to hear Diary play “Very Ordinary”, a song on myspace I have listened to a lot over the past year (listening right now). The song is strong on the chords, but live, it rips with solos that are amazing. Check them out when you get a chance. They’re a very tight band with a guitarist sure to be a local legend.

*For more, read Matildakay's Westbury post...

THE PUCK SHOW joins forces with nlbelardes.com in historic first - BY N.L. Belardes

Just when you thought The Puck Show was no more, here comes a historic first right here on nlbelardes.com...where else has a radio show appeared as a podcast exclusively on a blogger site in America? And a show once a #1 drive time radio show at that?



Viva la podcast revolucion!!! The Puck Show will transition solely to the Web exclusively on nlbelardes.com in a new show format that's sure to shock the pants off any little old ladies listening in.

"We were talking about a podcast, and now we're going to have a dandy of a time," Puck said in a recent blood brother bonding of podcastamonious harmony as Puck and I shook hands and promised not to cheat at the next card game. Preston wasn't available for comment.

No, you can't go anywhere else to find the latest audio downloads of Puck and Preston at their finest...

Keep listening in. Episode One is right around the corner.

Pressure from above cancels The Puck Show - By N.L. Belardes

I spoke on the phone with Puck from The Puck Show. Needless to say he didn't sound very happy about his great local show being cancelled in order to be replaced by The Don and Mike Show.





"What's the deelio," I said.

"Pressure..." Puck said, but very little more. I spoke with another source who said that the entire issue revolved around pressure from above regarding the Don and Mike Show being moved to the evening time slot after an 11-2 show was added. According to my source, Puck was offered a one-hour version of The Puck Show from 6-7, which was declined by Puck.

Well thank goodness there's the Buck City Podcast! Come on the show Puck and talk all about it...

All the best to Puck and Preston. I hope another station picks up their show or that they turn it into a kick ass Podcast!

Julie Jordan Scott directs the Five Dresses of Queen Kong - By N.L. Belardes

Leaving the Bakersfield Community theatre I started thinking about the chick flick style play I had just seen, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, directed by Julie Jordan Scott at Bakersfield Community Theatre. In my stereotypical male-oriented brain, my thoughts wandered to a recent argument I had with Matildakay when I felt a sudden rush of happiness knowing she had given in to the notion that King Kong was indeed a chick flick. Oh yes, I had told her before I watched the ape king with chingpea that it was just monkey love after all. She didn’t believe me. “It’s an action movie,” she said. “It’s Peter Jackson. There are monsters, blah blah blah blah…”


Director Julie Jordan Scott

No, it’s beastly love that mankind has for one another in a jungle of dreadful affairs, both natural and man-made…

That, I had insisted upon.

She relented. But only after she got all teary-eyed over King Kong getting all teary-eyed himself over the finger puppet damsel he’d been playing with like a ragdoll; all while trapsing through his neighborhood of old loves. And oh yes, his past was so ripe with love disasters that we saw into his prehistoric closet as he combated the seedy past in the very fabric of the jungle love all around him; once again, all while pulling the strings of his rosy-cheeked puppet; that is, until those old flames literally tried to rip his arms off and steal his near-broken puppetress.

But would Matildakay buy in to my next argument, one that places me more in the realm of an Enrique-style dysfunctional theatre review? After all, I was the voice of now defunct Queen of the Downtown Fur (I don’t need Enrique to make fun of stories of toilet bowl cleaning fiddlers from the Ozarks. I can do that myself).

I started talking about the big ape while heading down a darkened Chester Avenue. “Do we know if King Kong is really male other than the fact that he has the word ‘King’ in his name?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, King Kong could be female, right? I never saw any bananas hanging from those hairy trees. And Naomi Watts, her character could have been bisexual.” And girls want to be king too, right? Or queen. Hey, I saw Working Girl.

“Why are you suddenly talking about King Kong? We just saw a play that has nothing to do with that movie. King Kong was male. It was a love story.”

Oh was she?

Yes, a love story, But au contraire! Matildakay forgot she was talking to me, an over-analytical novelist who when sitting at the play made a ‘bet over nothing’ with her about which character would show herself in the obligatory boob-flashing chick flick play scene. “Meredith,” I said just after the play began. “She is the central figure.” It was subtle, but that was my guess.


Jen Barber plays Tricia

“Frances,” Matildakay suggested. “Or Georgeanne.”

When it got time for the revealing moment, the zealous character of Frances stood in a bathrobe. “It’s going to be her,” Matildakay said. But then she noticed Georgeanne’s dress was undone. “Or…”


Some of the cast from Five Women Wearing the Same Dress

Nice choice for Frances. She needed to grow from her bible-thumping dialogue. But then her character would not because she wasn’t the transforming character of the story. She was the type of character who made excuses, who really had inward contrary thoughts which hid behind a veil of religious theory that in the end got caked with make-up and glossed over by a silent bout with a stairstepper: she wanted to look good for some monkey man. Still, the play was about Meredith. She had a secret she was hiding. She wasn’t being as revealing as the other characters, and moreso than the other characters, she had the ability to truly lash out in the jungle of dysfunctional and tangled life of splattered love that seemed all too real at times to this dysfunctional theatre-goer. Hell, the play was about girls all hiding out from a wedding, nervously smoking cigarettes and dope, and all crying about their current and past relationships while lashing out at men before each calmly realizing that the love of men was what they were really after: monkey love. More cowbell, more monkey love, more…

And then Meredith flashed her tits.


Meredith is played by Jennifer Sorkin
(there are two casts for this play)

That’s Queen Kong flashing and lashing: constantly crying about love (without words of course) on skull-fucked island that she crushes with big hairy feet and arms, bashing and splatting all in a jungle of life that has way too many bugs to step on, that is, until calmly realizing she just wanted acceptance from fellow man through the cutesy-pie conduit of a Barbie finger puppet. Kind of like one of those cutesy Bennetton sweater commercials: just love our pastel turtlenecks and all will be OK. After all, didn’t she just love that hairy sweater the monkey wore? Oh, but Queen Kong was more: a movie about bisexual love with a hairy monkey female really more in love with itself, and being Queen of the jungle of love and getting acceptance as that hairy Queen, and in the meantime lashing out at the very jungle itself, squishing violent male reptilian symbols at every chance in a sort of blame game for the violent life of tangled love where life throws you ugly sacrifices, where monkey love could be Queen (Makes you wonder if Queen Kong picking up the ugly native damsels was like getting drunk before going to the bar to pick up one of those dumb jock types for a night of monkey in-the-sack hedonism). Probably took Queen Kong running halfway across the island with the rag doll Watts-Barbie before sobering up and realizing, “I can’t just eat her. She’s good lookin’ and accepts me for not having a cock on the big screen.”


Frances is played delightfully by Maryallysan Blake

Oh come on. All five women had the common bond of matrimony linked by the feminine symbol of dresses they wore. Might as well all have worn monkey suits, because through the play they learned to have a strong love for each other, almost on the verge of lesbian love at one subtle moment. Yes, there was a token lesbian in the play, but monkey love was all around like glitter and whiskey.

And don’t tell me King Kong was male. There was a lot of cock envy from that bad chimp. Strip away the hair and angry chest-pounding and you will find an over-sized scarred-up unisex Ken doll with a smooth crotch, kind of like the old 1970s G.I. Joes I played with on rocky Santa Claran hillsides: tough-looking, but still Ken dolls with grimaces. And don’t tell me women can’t behave like King Kong. There’s always that tough girl lesbian ‘malecentric’ masculine one in the gay relationship who can beat her chest and beat some ass in monkey-stomping fashion, lash out at others, break the chains of love and crush men like a giant monkey squishing taxi cabs in New York. And in a male bashing play you don’t need the token lesbian to start the fisticuffs.



But just where was that monkey wronged on that skull-fucked island that he became so bitter? Or she? Was Queen Kong just angry at the male symbol of mankind, and all accepting of the acting of a pretty woman because of a bad relationship from a prehistoric monkey past?

Just what, you ask, was Meredith angry over? Oh you'll find out...


King Kong meets Queen Kong?



Now you’re probably wondering if I liked Five Women Wearing the Same Dress. I did. I found it hard to digest at times from my male perspective. But then in Queen Kong I found the monkey’s chest-pounding overdone as well. I enjoy the in-your-face dialogue between women and the men/love they crave better than women all sitting around male bashing. So when the male bashing got thick, I squirmed and said, “Ay!” The audience? They just laughed. It was funny after all. Unless you actually felt the blade go deep where the nerve endings are non-existent.

The comedic aspect was fun and subtle; while the story was well directed in showing the isolated nature of depressed and tragically repressed even within the same room. The acting was certainly engaging and performed with a sense of comfort between the actresses. It was if all the actresses really sat around and smoked out, telling true tales of their own lost love, and doing some good old fashioned male bashing while practicing at some actresses apartment late at night adorned with romantic photos of kissing beneath the Eiffel Tower and on dark streets.

Let me say this: right away I knew I was going to enjoy the play. On one level it was a story about doomed wedding and poor fashion taste in peach/pastel/green nasty colors. I think that was my own doomed wedding colors back in the late 1980s. If not, then should have been. And then of course there was actress Jen Barber who played one of the secondary characters (I forget the name). She talked a lot to the lesbian, Mindy. The parallel to my own life with Jen Barber, an attitude-filled *%#*^$ named Mindy and a doomed marriage was hilarious! Sorry, you’ll have to ask Jen about that one. She can air my dirty laundry all she wants…

Click here for details on when you can see Five Women Wearing the Same Dress or Queen Kong…

Star Wars never dies, it educates - By N.L. Belardes

Get an organic Star Wars education with Store Wars. Chewbroccoli is hilarious...

We already know I'm a geek. I confessed months ago... and hung out at the Bakersfield Star Wars Episode 3 premiere where I talked about the evolution of the Star Wars crowd...

More cowbell at the Condor games please - By N.L. Belardes

Not only more cowbell, but some more ibuprofen, pretty please...

I've got hockey fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell...

Historic night for Bakersfield underground hip-hop as "Hat Trick" is performed in the Rabobank Arena - By N.L. Belardes

The exciting part about putting a CD together is trying to get bands into the Rabobank Arena. Performers just want to perform, to get the message outabout their own brand of music; that means the bigger the crowd, the better. When King Mark, Caleb Kelly and St. Patrick performed at the Rabobank last Saturday night I was just excited as I could ever get about being a part of a music-driven project like Growing Up Fighting: Bakersfield Hockey Vol 1.



It was another victory for band nights and the Bakersfield Condors. With only one loss on band nights and more than 30,000 fans exposed to Bakersfield bands over a series of Saturday nights, I was just as proud as the rappers as I was the Condors for kicking some serious ass over the fish-flopping smelly Victoria Salmon Kings. Of course the hip-hop/trip hop Bakersfield scene has been officially exposed, so I’m expecting good things to happen: some hip-hop burning in the underground passages of the Pizza-a-go-go with the Kerouac of K-Mart overseeing all the jams. Only if he can make a few dollars I'm sure. After all, big Jon Coley is a business man. Slip me some pizza, Jonny K!





It was a great night for music. The rappers jumped into their song, threw hats into the crowd, and got everyone pumped for hockey and hip-hop! I wanted to fly over the boards and score a hat trick on those punk Salmon heads... Oh yes, there were 6,330 fans in the house...

Fans flocked in the halls after the performance of the song "Hat Trick" to get a glimpse of just who these three rappers were. The hippest of the family were around too; all the sweetest folks and hugs were all around.







All the rappers signed a few autographs and hung out in the halls for some great camraderie. I was sad to see the band and its fans left the game early. But then so did I to finally go check out Monty Byrom, so I was guilty as well.





Give it up for hip-hop hockey song, "Hat Trick". It’s sure to be a long-lasting hit in the Rabobank Arena…

Next up: FEBRUARY 4th is The War Day's director in his band, Dirty Spanglish performing their anti-hockey official anthem, "Zebras". Who knows, maybe Pablo Esquival will show up with a copy of Lords: Part One... oh yeah, plug it, baby, plug the arrrrt.... do you hear me?

Howard continues the conversation - By N.L. Belardes

Howard continues here from my recent blog about our lunch and socio-political blogs...

N.L. Belardes spends a few paragraphs writing about local blogging. With the pending launch of Bakosphere and our discovery of several more local blogs that many of us did not know about previously, Bakersfield blogging is getting a lot bigger.

N.L. writes about our lunch. It was a good lunch. N.L. is an interesting, intelligent cat, but he's been mighty hard on the Californian, so I'm not quite sure what his agenda is in wanting to talk with me. I'm glad his post on our lunch was pretty much fair and accurate.

Two points I want to address -- Bakosphere isn't just me and Logan. It's Davin McHenry, too. The other is, when I say blogging is a conversation, I'm not talking just about writing style. Traditional journalism, or more accurately, journalism after the WW II, has been pretty much a top-down, "I'll tell you what the news is" practice. Journalists have had a tendency toward a mindset that says, "I'm the princely class who decides what is news and how to present it and you're the audience, so just sit back and take it." That isn't universal, but it was prevalent. That's all changing. With the explosion of blogging, the audience started talking back, and even doing a little original reporting along the way. And journalists started listening (some of them, at least). And there are all kinds of experiments around the country of journalists jumping into the stream of the conversation. But one big tenet of blogging from the beginning was bloggers talking with each other. Just like I'm responding to N.L. in Bakosphere, other bloggers from the beginning have used their own blogs to respond to and critique the writings of other bloggers. How the conversation is written doesn't really matter -- the dialogue is important. Honest dialogue makes us all smarter and better informed.

Also, N.L., thanks for the pointer to a local blog we hadn't found yet. And it looks like a good one.

I add a comment on his Bakosphere blog entry explaining about why I might be perceived as harsh in any article referring to Californian. Some might call me bitter. I say I stand up for the little people, for good art, and hold true to the virtue of myself and others who deserve to be reported upon with the same veracity I report on the scene and the Californian itself...

Thanks Howie. I agree, it was a good meeting, which was simply based upon the fact that you were kind enough to stop me in the street and tell me you read my blog. I mean, who knows what your intention was in doing that? Doesn't matter. There was a genuine sincerity you displayed that day which comes across in your blog writing... And thanks for elaborating on the topic of 'blog conversation'. It deserved further discussion. And yes, I come across hard on the Californian, but then from my perspective, and a lot of other folks, the entertainment writer snubbed a good literary work. But that frustration comes from a lot of snubbing and frustration I hear in the music, theatre and fine arts scene that I cover in a 'one man' show on top of a full-time job.

Ask yourself why you are reading my work? Why has anyone at the Californian read my work? It's just a work of fiction, yet it and my website have created an impact in the local music, theatre, art, literary and media scene. If the Californian pays so much attention, why not an article about my podcast, or my blog, or my literary prowess in Lords: Part One? From my perspective the Californian, since so many employee individuals pay attention to me, you would think someone would write an article to help me promote my work, especially since other, less important works have recently been promoted in the Californian. So yes, I will come across harsh from time to time as I am reminded out in the scene by other folks who feel the same way about their own artistic endeavors being snubbed. As a blogger and conversationalist, I can and should talk about what is being talked about... Heck, I even criticize myself...

And keep in mind, if I truly treated the Californian the same way I am treated by their print media division, I would never refer to them, ignoring that they even exist.

Enough of that... I might go to Jerry's Pizza tomorrow. How scary is that? The pizza-a-go-go...

Nothing but the full Monty. Country-blues star Monty Byrom still owes me five bucks - By N.L. Belardes

When talking small bills, like five bucks or less, your friends are not allowed to pay your debts. No way. That’s why I threw the five bucks given to me right at Monty Byrom while he stood onstage ripping through a guitar solo Saturday night…

I left the Condors game early—something I never do—but I had to keep a promise to hang out and listen to Monty Byrom at Fishlips restaurant. I entered around 9pm, snuck over to the wall by the pool tables and nestled myself in for a musical evening. Matildakay was in the house. She brought over the first of three margaritas for a relaxing evening; we were joined byFlower in the Dale as the night wore on.

Monty said “hello” before the show, thanking me for making it to the gig. “I wasn’t going to flake on you twice,” I said. I had been promoting the KooKooNauts on the last Saturday hockey band night during home games for the Bakersfield Condors and missed a Byrom gig. I stayed to watch the whole game that night. Not this time. Besides, the Condors were whooping those hapless fish-flop Victoria Salmon Queens 2-0.



It wasn’t long before Monty took the stage. His brother was at drums; there was a guest guitarist from LA who had written a few Garth Brooks songs. He also shared some raging guitar solos during the night. I can’t remember the bass player’s name. I think he and the drummer were both in the popular country band, Big House. Forgive me. I don’t write notes and just go from memory. Later they were joined by fellow guitar picker, Billy Russell. “Only a few people in the world can play like Billy Russell,” Monty boasted. He’s such the showman. “I first saw him when he was a kid, so I called him Billy the Kid. And he could play just like he does now. But he never liked to be called that…”

During their two sets Monty played Big House tunes that I’m still learning all the names; he played Jimmy Hendrix “Little Wing”; he played the Beatles “Dear Prudence”; he played classic 80s songs that I don’t even want to think I know the names of, and he even played Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally” in a tribute to the recently deceased singer. “I met Wilson Pickett and he was one of the nicest gentlemen I have ever met,” Monty said after talking some history about seeing Pickett smoke a big fat roach backstage where Rita Coolidge was, who I think he was related to at one time. I told Monty after the show, “You taught me about cover songs tonight.”

Sure, Monty may have been performing songs like “Mustang Sally” for more than 25 years. Sure, he has perfected sets that he can change on a dime. There’s got to be something new in there, right? Like Mento Buru, Monty is a performer, with songs practiced to perfection. Sure, the night was great, but I’m waiting for a new CD he mentioned recently. I want the full Monty…



After his first song of the night, “Little Wing” I sat amazed. I’m from the generation that heard Sting’s rendition, thinking the ex-Police frontman’s version was a great jazzy song built off a foundation of Hendrix’ original version. Then I heard Monty Byrom’s guitar-rippin’ blues-rock version full on with guitar solos that tugged my heartstrings like some finger-pickin’ Stevie Ray-Hendrix hybrid angel that pulled me right to Monty’s heavenly riffs.

Oh yes, there are guitarists in Bakersfield, and then there are kings of guitar: Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Stereotactic’s Cam, Joel from Gramercy Riff, Billy Russell, Pablo Alaniz (Norfolk/Diary), and some others I’m forgetting to name (a lot of metal guys who can shred). And then there’s Monty Byrom, another one of the kings, and perhaps one of the best guitarists ever out of Bakersfield. Remember, Monty Byrom holds a triple crown of success in the music industry with Billy Satellite, Eddie Money and Big House. He’s written countless songs for countless musicians and rips at the guitar in a blues-rooted fast-picking style that lends to sometimes 3 and 4 guitar solos per song. “The Guitar Center gave me the wrong strings. It was too easy. I’m used to playing with strings that are like telephone poles,” Monty laughed after the show. “That would be like you writing a novel that was just too easy to write.”

Didn’t matter. What I saw last night was nothing short of a legend in rock playing a guitar like I haven’t seen in quite a while.

His bass player walked over after their first set. “Aren’t you tired from all that work?” I said.

“I’m going to die doing this. I might as well stay up there,” he smiled.

After a handful of Monty’s own hits, he tore into Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally”. Now I normally hate cover bands. They bore me to no end. If you can’t be original, then why spend so much creative energy learning someone else’s songs? I might as well just re-type someone’s novel instead of writing my own. But this was a crowd of mostly folks who were teenagers during the 1970s. They love the old hits. Purple Rain came on during a break and some guy I swear was re-living his Prince past and was going to have a drunken orgasm right there at the next table. Geez, get a room with a Prince song why don’t you? Monty’s publicist mentioned it was a young crowd. Not by my standards. I was hanging out at the Lostocean show the other night. Not a grey hair in the house other than mine. Monty’s crowd was a mature audience, a Geritol crowd mixed with only a few young folk in their early to mid-twenties, including the guys from Seed.



Anyway, Monty re-formed my thinking about cover songs. He didn’t take covers and try to redo the original sounds of popular old tunes. He literally takes songs, like the Beatles “Dear Prudence” and makes them into magical blues-driven, solo-ripping guitar-heavy songs that captivate a dancing happy crowd. Wow!

During “Mustang Sally” a stranger came up to me. I think he had dark hair mixed with grey and wore a black shirt. He pushed five bucks in my face and said, “Here, now you and Monty are even.”

“No way. Even?”

“Sure. Take it. Monty owes you five bucks. Consider him paid up.”

“I can’t take your money,” I said, trying to hand the five-dollar bill back to the man.

He wouldn’t take it.

“No. Monty’s not paid up.” I said as he threw the money onto the table next to where I sat. “He can pay his own debts.” I grabbed the five bucks but he hurried back into the crowd. Well I wasn’t going to take that. The way I saw it, Monty owed me the money for that coffee, not some stranger. So I took the five dollars, wadded it up, headed over to the stage and tossed it at Monty while he stood onstage ripping through a guitar solo. It was a lucky shot. The wadded up five-dollar bill bounced right at his feet. He instantly turned and smiled—his guitar ripping through a solo. When the song ended he picked up the money, opened the cash so as to check to see if it were counterfeit, then said, “I want to thank Nick Belardes for the five bucks,” and shoved it in his pocket.

Now I was wondering if Monty had put this stranger up to presenting me with the cash. A nice trick. If he did, I wasn’t accepting and Monty would still owe me five. If Monty didn’t know anything about the near transaction then he would owe me 10 bucks, cause I just gave him another five. I liked that idea.

I went to speak with Monty after the final set and he stood close and suddenly shoved his hand into my pocket, nearly playing pocket pool with the family heirlooms, but more importantly, bestowing me again with the five dollars that was never his to stuff into strange pockets to begin with…

What was this? I was now five bucks richer as Monty said, “My friends watch out for me.”

“No way. Your friends can’t pay your debts. You still owe me five, Monty.”

He laughed. “I thought that was a mouse running over my foot.”

No, just me causing problems during an amazing set of music by one of the best guitarists I have ever met. As for the five bucks. We’ll keep arguing over that one for a while. Like I said, I want the full monty…

Socio-political blogs and lunch with Howard Owens - By N.L. Belardes

Dusty would probably say I had lunch with the enemy. Fraternizing you might call it. Our own government does it all the time. Remember in its attempt to stabilize the Middle East, the US did not allow Iran to become the grand Middle Eastern poobah in the 1980s after the hostage crisis? America fraternized with Iraq to prevent that. Somewhere around then Iraq dusted Kurds with chemical agents bought from who knows where. OK, apples and oranges, right Howard? Joking. Howard and I recently went to the pizza-a-go-go, near the stairwell to the dark cavern of rock and roll to break some blogger bread.

I could tell he was tiptoeing a bit; only give away sound bytes of information. But I wasn’t there to pry. On his guard with a great poker face he kept the minimalist approach. We did cover a lot of topics, including big media, Bakersfield history, Chinese tunnels, Bakersfield music, San Diego punk, LA punk like the Groovy Rednecks, some minor Bakersfield Bob thoughts (we tread lightly there and I didn’t press at all. Can you believe it?) and we spoke blogs. Howard mentioned, “Blogs are really just conversations” as we discussed journalists having to change thinking patterns to understand blogger writing tactics. Not sure I agreed totally. World News tonight is a conversation as well come to think of it. A bond between news and the public as told through talking heads. Newspaper columns are conversations in those regards too: I always feel cozy when Robert Price is writing a great column exposing the ills of Bakersfield society. He does it in great conversational fashion.

A good blog does both: provides a witty narrative, some interesting bits of information, and a dose of conversational element. Perhaps the journalist world being as huge as it is simply wants to draw a box around the strangely growing world of blogs and blogger writing styles, lumping them all together as mere conversations. But then, newspapers write blogs themselves in a wide range of categories to trap traffic, which then in turn potentially captures more readers. Not a bad strategy at all, conversational in tone or not. All in all it was a good lunch that really pointed out my intention: to let Howard know his and Logan Molan’s Bakosphere blog is entertaining. Doesn’t matter if I agree with Bakosphere or not. I like how Howard and Logan data mine for Bakersfield-related topics that are both mainstream, underground and often trivial (yet entertaining. I write trivial bits all the time).

On the political spectrum, thanks to Howard Owens of the Bakersfield Californian and a recent blogger who got in touch with me, I have to say thebuzzblogs.com are going to have to get a whole new category, maybe called, ‘The political spectrum’. Why? Because there are local Bakersfield blogs by folks who have opinions that matter. Sure, you will find conservative and liberal bloggers, but then, that’s OK. We’re in a democracy, right? And in this new age of blogging, ala a modern era of pamphleteering, this Thomas Paine ‘Common Sense’ approach from both the right and the left can only breed more opinions, more blogs, and more fun at looking at perspectives. In newspapers you’re only supposed to get the middle ground, though we know newspapers are as politically diversified as America itself.

Well what do we have around Bakersfield on a citizen journalist level in socio-political opinions of local news? Take a look at Baketown’s conservative slant on local news, then mix in some straight-up Black Dog with his strong verbage against societal ills, Bako Carpetbagger takes a self-declared anti-whiny Bakersfield Conservative stance that is sure to ruffle a few feathers. It’s my right to be left of the center is a Bakersfield blog by a local activist who spends quality time taking on the powers that be. She even called Bakosphere “Bako-breath”. If that isn’t enough, take a look at the sometimes socio-political slants of the very potty-mouthed Heath Dobbler, who in his Conservative punk nature just wants the right to shoot guns in mountains and to say Merry Christmas. No harm no foul in that is there?

*Amendment to this blog on January 24th. Bake Town herself commented on this blog that her blog is not conservative-minded or political, but humorous, poking fun at all...

The Bakersfield music scene is alive and well - By N.L. Belardes

Oh yes, the Bakersfield music scene is alive and well thanks to area bloggers out on the scene documenting the happenings and music news in 2006. JR documents last night’s debut of Stitch with a few photos on his site. I was hoping to make the debut, but because of prior commitment to see King Mark and St. Patrick at the Rabobank with Caleb Kelly, and Monty Byrom at Fishlips, I just wasn’t going to be able to make the 10PM debut at Vinny’s Bar. JR also documents New California Rock and their performance at Vinny's in a post that just went online moments ago. Vinny's is quickly becoming a popular hang-out by us music scene writers...

Mike Generic, punk boy supreme and scene writer of the very happening Bakersfield music scene has been tearing it up with his write-ups. He wrote a great piece about his adventures to see Conspiracy Theory and My October over at Le Corruse Rouge lounge with Hammer from KRAB radio. It’s a great piece about what it’s like to be a college student/writer/musician in the Bakersfield music scene. My October even writes a nice little piece thanking Mike… In other recent posts, Mike writes about punk guru Heath Dobbler making some punk tunes and reflects on a Pennywise show that left his punkboy head ringing…

Lone female music scene, writer, Matildakay wrote a fun piece about Norfolk and my hoarding of their CD that’s a revealing read.... I took the photo for her new site layout. Do you like it?

I have been out in the music scene in the past week and have yet to do write-ups, share pictures and edit podcasts related to Mento Buru at Vinny’s, Order 66 and Lostocean at the Boiler Room, Jessie Deluxe at Riley’s Tavern, the Empty Space Broken Heart Show, King Mark with Caleb Kelly and St. Patrick at the Rabobank Arena, and Monty Byrom at Fishlips… Am I forgetting anyone?

On a side note, let us all pray that steely-eyed Heath Dobbler gets through today without a nervous breakdown.

Is Bakersfield Bob coming back to the fold? - By N.L. Belardes

A little birdie told me that Bakersfield Bob might be coming back through town on her second World Tour. Although I saw her at the movies not long ago stomping her way to the majestic Pacific Theatres, this is my official, "Welcome home" just in case the rumors are true. And why such a hearty welcome from yours truly? The music scene has missed her wit and presence and those great one-liners, like, "I'm a one woman show..." or "Email me, I'll write ya back!"

Yes, that's every bit as good as the Iraqi Information Minister politely grumbling, "We boiled the Americans in their tanks!"

Click here for more great one-liners.

Say a hearty "hello" to her if she does re-enter the scene. And if she doesn't smile back or answer your emails, that's OK, just honk twice when you see this car. It just might be Bakersfield Bob inside!



Ahh, good times and happy days may be smiling on us all again...

maybe.

N.L. in the Central Valley Podcast Revolution - By N.L. Belardes

Since starting the first podcast out of Bakersfield, also one of the first podcasts out of California’s entire Great Central Valley, I have spent some time networking among an interesting group of trendsetters.

I got a mention last year in Corey Costello’s Stockcarzone podcast. But that quickly saw those two podcasts moving in different directions. Should NASCAR have ever tried to marry music? I write a hockey blog, so why not? Moving on… In August of last year my own Buck City Podcast got mentioned on Fresnofamous.com’s Flowing With Famous Podcast. That’s big for me as Fresno Famous was written up in the Los Angeles Times not long after about the Fresno Brain Drain...

Recently was a mention on another Fresno podcast, this by hosts Mike and Bells on their punk-style online show, Dorktown. Their homage to Bakersfield in episode 18 begins with a Korn song and has a few brief discussions about me as well as their usual explicit hilarious bantering. I made a few phone calls about a Fresno-Bakersfield hockey game at the Rabobank Arena that make it onto the episode. I even made some prank calls as ‘Pete the Truck guy’, a disgruntled Conservative who once had dirt clods thrown at his truck from a fig orchard by the hosts of Dorktown. I sound kind of stupid, but it’s all in good fun.

Most recently is an interview with ska-king Matt Munoz on the brand new Bakotunes Radio podcast. Interesting that Munoz calls me an “entertainment writer”. Hmmm. In Episode 3 you can listen to Matt ask:

Is Bakersfield my hometown?

Why do I think it’s so hip to be in Bakersfield?

How I was involved in the music scene in the 1990s?

Was ‘the Strand’ a lame name? (yes)

Just what is it I feel I lend to the Bakersfield music and art scene?

How do I define the voice of a writer?

Why did I get involved in the music scene again?

Win Korn tickets from nlbelardes.com - By N.L. Belardes

February 24
Lower level
Section 111 row A.

Go to the Rabobank site and view the exact angle where you will see Korn bust out their new world tour... click on seating charts, then half house, then section 111. Oh yeah...



Find out soon how you can win tickets from N.L.

Read the blog and listen to upcoming episodes of the Buck City Podcast for more details... (episode 25 and after)

Wanna go?

Hip hop and trip hop sounds from LSN Studio - By N.L. Belardes

Bakersfield, California hip hop and trip hop fresh off the press:

Go to songs 2,3, and 4. Song #1 doesn't work.

LSN Studios

See, it's not all about Fresno and 40 Watt Hype. Although I would love to see a get together of the Central Valley scene right here in Bakersfield... bring it together.

Expose the hip hop and trip hop. Bring it out of the urban underground... all starts at the Rabobank this Saturday night.

And don't forget a little Mento Buru in there...

-n.l.

The underground Bakersfield hip-hop scene comes alive Saturday night with the Condors - By N.L. Belardes

King Mark and St. Patrick, both rappers from the Bakersfield hip-hop underground spoke with me a few days ago with studio guru, Caleb, all about their genre of music and how it’s making an upsurge in the local music scene. I wanted to know where rap was hiding out, what Bakersfield had to offer to the urban hip-hop community, and whether these guys were the only ones performing their blend of rap from the hood. So they offered to meet me downtown and give me the low down.



I discovered King Mark at a Halloween party pimped out and having a great time. I was trying to sell a few copies of my book, but the party-goers on hand were more interested in dirty dancing than they were in dirty books of a seedy Bakersfield past. King Mark and I struck up a conversation about music. The rest is hockey hip-hop history.

Within a few weeks King Mark and St. Patrick recorded the song, “Hat Trick” at LSN Studios for Growing Up Fighting: Bakersfield Hockey Volume 1. A Bakersfield native, King Mark has been putting together an album under the umbrella of Hood 2 Hood Records and Alldatime Productions, a grassroots style underground label by Devon ‘Tall Ben’ Johnson whose dream, I hear, is to put together three compilations of music from kids representing common themes and positive messages between rival gangs, underground hip-hop, soul, rhythm and blues, Gospel, and more.



I hung out with King Mark, St. Patrick and their studio recorder, Caleb Kelly of LGN Studios in the alley near the entrance of Maxwell’s Restaurant in downtown Bakersfield. That’s where we took the controversial “Getting arrested” photo that pokes fun at the local BPD’s locking up of the underground brotherhood here in Bakersfield. The compilations from Hood 2 Hood are The Outbreak, which you can find right now on CDBaby by typing in ‘Valley Fever’, and the forthcoming albums: The Symptoms, The Antidote, and The Cure.

The Outbreak features a range of music from Northern, Southern and Central California, as well as a connection to Georgia. The first two songs are killer West Coast sounding with a Dr. Dre and Tupac feel. You can listen to love songs, angry rapping songs, Bakersfield anti-cop songs, booty calliscious love tunes, and more. Oh yeah.

I was to find out some other important names and titles too, like Johnny Combat and Native’s Fill my Pockets and ‘G’ the Breathtaker and his album WLIN. King Mark said he was coming out with King Mark Small Businessman, an album sure to rock more than the local hip-hop scene as his music hopes to reach laterally between African-American communities, rival gangs, and more…



I spoke a bit to Caleb as well who says he has about fifteen clients in his studio recording at his respectable rates. He said he’s also done some drumming for Action Folk Singer. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of hidden talent in the urban underground. Will we be seeing more of it?

You know it. And it all starts this weekend at the Rabobank Arena when King Mark and St. Patrick get together to sing an extended track of “Hat Trick”, which is sure to be a historic night for culture, music, and hockey to collide… (Get tickets)

I’ll be there. Will you support?

A Poem of Oceana's Embrace - By N.L. Belardes

Thank you for not dying yesterday. You know who you are.

A poem for you:

Near the waters of Oceana’s glowing waves lies paradise,
broken dreams, and sunken pirate ships tucked in old havens.
She sits near cities of lost languages
in the hope of angels and merciful longings.
There is a dinner among the laughter of friends.
The angels swarm to her light;
and then a moment to stop breathing,
to feel the mist of paradise,
a fog not so different than the seashore;
waves against rocks in a swirling rainstorm.
Eyes closing, losing the consciousness of life,
hearing now tunes to a ghostly pitch,
familiar conversations muddied and lost.
The storm is braved. Sea vessels capsize,
tossing life into a foggy sea.
Her moment of life lost and she knows it,
feels the weight of the breathless,
Then drifts into a dream of eternal embrace.
She is there for but a moment.
She lets go and comes back;
a distant love on the seashores,
Oceana’s embrace,
a stormy Earth of water and lust.
The angels still swarm,
one pauses in the light,
reaches down and opens her eyes.

N.L. holds coveted Norfolk CD hostage - By N.L. Belardes

You’d think that after writing about my niece being on every television in America on ABC’s World News Tonight, I wouldn’t get all trivial in a blog. You cool cat readers probably think I’d perhaps change my ways from talking about Hollywood’s Backyard music of Bakersfield to tackle world events, religious topics by the handfuls, new freaky bugs in strange California crystal caves, or take jabs at the Iranian president who thinks Imam is right around the corner wearing custom Versace robes. Oh no, it’s all about the trivial. But not trivial music. This is the coveted Norfolk music we’re talking about.

Let’s catch you up to speed on the trivial that began New Year’s Eve where a few folks sat around, kickin’ it to some Norfolk tunes, actual members of Norfolk nowhere in sight. Of course I was all mean about Matildakay and Bambi wanting a Norfolk CD, so wrote the drunken Norfolk CD blog. Why? Just to be a punk.

Then there was the actual bet that James would burn Bambi and Matildakay a CD of coveted alt country piano ballads and rockin’ guitar-driven songs with James’ smooth vocals. Oh, it was a real bet. And that bet all comes down to today at noon.

Or should I say, 12:01pm?

Oh yes, if Bambi and/or Matildakay don’t get their little Norfolk CD specially made by Mr. Ratliff, by noon then I win the big prize:

one soda.

Now some of you might call me a cheater, but before you go there just keep in mind that I am merely influencing the fragile tides of our predestined paths with a little sleight of hand. No harm no foul, right?

So here’s the kicker to this trivial tale: James stopped yesterday evening and we talked music and art, and well, I’m sorry Matildakay and Bambi, but James gave me the coveted CD to give to you both.

Tragic, I know. But I don’t think I can hand over that CD until 12:01pm.

That soda, my dears, is mine.

Frazier Mountain High Schoolers to take Ping Pong instead - By N.L. Belardes

Why not ping pong? Might be fun. It's sort of like a debate back and forth until one side gets smashed or until the ball just plain rolls off the table...

Anyway...

How strange. I can’t get the Californian to write about me, or Howard Owens to have a friendly lunch at a local blogger dive, and here is my niece, tucked away on the often snowy banks of Frazier Park Mountain and suddenly appearing on World News Tonight on ABC and beamed into every house in America. How come I can’t get such press??

All in the now ended saga of a Philosophy of Design course… (read my special report)

Frazier Mountain High school wimped out and the opposing side cried victory today, not because the Frazier Mountain nemesis won a court battle, but because the accusers had deeper pockets. Who knows who would have won the court battle had Frazier Mountain been tough enough to tackle a court case, or what threats were laid upon Frazier Mountain High School so they would give in and promise never teach a class of the sort ever again. Sounds like when I used to catch my kids' hands in the cookie jar. “I’m sorry. I will never do it again,” they would say and beg forgiveness, cookies still like stars in their eyes. Whatever. C’mon Frazier Mountain, you should have showed some more backbone while the world’s eyes were on you.

Too late for that.

So, was the Philosophy of Design course a loosely disguised veil of Christian fundamentalism creeping into philosophy? Maybe. So what? The debate should go on in the classroom with kids wanting to debate. Heck, the Old Testament as literature used to be taught at Bakersfield area high schools and at the local college. I don’t think the state of Bakersfield is worse off for it. If evolution is so scientific and without holes in logic, why do evolutionists so worry about intelligent design and creationism in a philosophy course? Are they worried that the ability to ponder thoughts of an intelligent higher power would somehow bring science to its knees?

In the words of one of my favorite episodes of Dilbert: “That’s crazy talk!”

At least my family learned from this senseless debacle of big money vs. little school.

Because that’s what it’s really about: the threat of big money versus a peaceful small town not wanting to go bankrupt over the integrity of deciding which classes they should teach.

more: makes you wonder what the real story is...
more and more...

A.S. Ashley brings heartless show to the Empty Space - By N.L. Belardes

Saturday I walked into the land of broken hearts. You know such dismal landscapes? It’s where the depressed reside to mend their dreams of fairy tales gone haywire. Ahh, lost love… Make such a theme for artists and you’re going to find nothing more than the macabre. You’ll enter a gallery filled with strange art and even stranger stories behind such painfully dripped acrylic and broken charcoal scratches.

When Empty Space curator A.S. Ashley approached me about doing a broken heart project I quickly thought up 3-4 interesting ideas that ranged from poetic paintings on enormous canvas to videos of people with broken hearts puking their guts out from being so dismally sad, to grandiose posters with images of headstones where real lovers were buried after 50 years of marriage—lovers til death crushed their hearts.


Two unique artists: Andy Gonzales and A.S. Ashley
photo by artist Deb Coffey

The follow-thru was the difficult part. I came up empty handed though I did show up at the Gallery open house. I first met musician/artist Andy Gonzales, whose haunting sketches are reminiscent of dark comic book images and evil anime plots of twisted dungeon love. If there would have been more architecture in the drawings I would have thoroughly pondered Piranesi and his macabre etchings of lost souls amid gothic cathedrals. Maybe Gonzales will begin to explore the depths of broken souls in the expanse of mystical man-made structures as his next artistic voyage? How very macabre to even ponder.


photo by N.L


photo by N.L.

A.S. Ashley himself had a grand piece of artwork displayed: a bloodied card game with a larger than life Queen of Hearts as the slaughtering image of decayed love within a tangle of random gambled relationships. In such a dark-side-of-Wonderland game, symbolic stakes could only be set as “Til death do us part” in the culmination of an imaginary lovestruck shootout. Ahh, love is but a gamble and a shootout. Off with their heads! Throw down a full house and cheat and a gun might be shoved in your face for not playing fair in the Queen’s jealous and fragile house of cards.


photo by N.L.

I heard that A.S. spoke on KRAB radio about the need for a town art critic and entertainment reporter and there was talk as if some gunslingin’ blogger had run one out of town. Pure hogwash I’m sure. You can never trust Ashley, Meathead, Desi and Rocky all in the same room. There’d be some cheatin’ in that card game for sure.

I then met up with a few CSUB artists who all had their own broken heart imagery displayed in the gallery in the form of photos, paintings and slabs of meat. CSUB art club vice president, Shyanne Weston talked photos with me. She had several displayed that were perfectly framed near the front entrance as well as several loose photos in bins for sale. Shying from digital photography she keeps true to her traditional dark room style.


photo by N.L.

Speaking of dark rooms, this was the Broken Heart show, a mockery of the upcoming sappy slappy blah blah of Valentine’s Day. Such twisted love held firm in the form of a tri-painting between two artists, Nyoka and T. Saunders who both in their own twisted paths of seeking love in the creeptown underground that Bakersfield can be, happened upon the most unlikely of circumstances: an art class with each other after both having dated the same lucky/unlucky traveler of the streets of Bakersfield loveless: some kid whose name I don’t remember, but whose image was captured in a photo by artist, Deb Coffey.


photo by N.L.


photo by N.L.


photo by Deb Coffey

Now I don’t know about you, but these two artist vixens of the college scene, both adorned like princesses of the nighttime prowl, appeared to really have poured their hearts into their respective pieces. Yes, the pun works because each image displays the graphic nature of love, an emotion unseen but worn bloodily and literally heart-wrenched in their paintings, while the painting in between displayed the slit wrist manifestation of a self-abused lover, as uncaring as any suicidal and self-loathing lover with no self-respect could be.


photo by N.L.

Worth a look? Definitely. You can even meet these lovely artists and more at the second show this Saturday, January 21st from Noon to 7pm… Bring some cash. Buy a painting or two as these future artists’ works are certain to go up in price. Invest in art. It’s fun and profitable…

The shadows of Ty Elam - By N.L. Belardes

Out of the mysterious shadows of dark novels and even darker music comes Ty Elam in an interview I conducted earlier today. At first I was nervous to call him. Here’s the old lead man from Videodrone who toured the world with Korn, who had albums sold in every major record store in America and just may not have been interested in a cold call from N.L. (A cold call is when you call someone who isn’t expecting to be called). I knew Ty had been tucked away in the Bakersfield underground after a brief stint with local band Arrival of Fawn. I saw them perform last year, Ty screaming his dark lyrics at Riley’s tavern and at Montgomery World Plaza while Dax ripped at the guitar and helped scream lyrics to the crowd.

Just what has Ty been up to? Fans have been inquiring about his creative energy, his music and his whereabouts.

For sure, raising kids in Bakersfield where he works during the day running a business. Ty has five kids, including new baby, Tyler Ivy, named after the hope and spritely joy that faeries often bring in fairy tales. “I’m a family guy,” Ty said, proudly telling me about the joy of his family’s latest edition. “I’ve always loved sprites and fairies in mythology.”

A joyous baby in a creative life filled with the darkness of a past filled with rock and roll, dark lyrical ponderings and drugs. I asked Ty what he’d been writing. Definitely music, but nothing finished. “I have some projects I’m working on,” he said with an air of mystery. In the area of literature I knew he had been working on a book about post-modern vampires in a strange ethereal realm: a world gone mad with gothic darkness. I didn’t ask him details. Those will come soon enough. I did ask if he was finished with writing the novel. “I have a book deal but do need to finish a novel that’s been ten years in the making. I have a few more chapters to go and some more character development. And then there’s a really dark collection of rants and raves I want to write of my dark past that was filled with drug usage. I’m not promoting drugs but want to describe a dark life based on the many journals I’ve written over the years.”

Would I love to sift through those journals? You know it. He has more than ten of them. Did he write them on the road to rock and roll stardom with Videodrone? When did he begin to document his dark past? Has his dark past been escaped? Do you ever escape your past when you’re creative and you write and/or sing about such distant darkness?

Those are questions I plan to ask.

We changed subjects and spoke about the Buck City Podcast and he being a guest. Don’t think Ty didn’t have ideas there as well. “I would love to come on and talk. Maybe I could even do an episode as a regular show about tattoo art. I think tattoos are a world of artistry that is untouched..."

Stay tuned. There’s going to be more from Ty on Paperback Writer…

interesting links:

Videodrone music and video
old interview
artist direct
old yahoo groups

Korn starts tour in hometown Bakersfield - By N.L. Belardes

Maybe Bakersfield Bob has been hanging out with Korn in the studio pimpin' her back-up vocals she's been using for the Soulsteppers. Could that be why she's been missing? I don't know but there's supposed to be a write-up in our local used-to-not-be-Korn-friendly paper. Either way, this just in from the The Bakersfield Californian:

Posted: Tuesday January 17th, 2006, 12:48 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday January 17th, 2006, 12:48 PM

Bakersfield band Korn announced last week that it will kick off its new 26-city tour back where it all began — in Bakersfield — on Feb. 24.


Tickets for the Bakersfield show go on sale to the general public on Saturday, but will be available to Korn BSC Online Fan Club members from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. today at www.ticketmaster.com. Tickets will also be presold on the internet at www.ticketmaster.com from 10 a.m. Thursday to 10 p.m. Friday. Starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, tickets to the Bakersfield show will also be available over the phone from Ticketmaster at 322-2525 and at the Rabobank Arena box office.
Fans will get a chance to see for the first time what life is like for Korn without lead guitarist Brian Welch at Rabobank Arena, the first stop on their tour. Tickets for the Feb. 24 7:30 p.m. Friday night Bakersfield show range from $25.50 to $35.50.

For a list of Korn tour dates and an interview with Korn about life after Brian Welch, don’t miss Thursday’s Eye on Entertainment section. (Bakersfield Bob, where are you??)

Heath Dobbler and the candy heart kid - By N.L. Belardes

Being a punk rocker like Heath Dobbler of old 3 Cent isn’t just about sweating to the tunes and thumbing his nose at society. OK, sure, there are moments when punks like Heath just want to sit back and be a part of the great American hinterland where fine sturdy folk dwell peacefully and lovingly. Now, we all know Bakotopia is a wonderful website. You get to hear Bakersfield bands, a great ska-king podcast, and, with Valentine’s Day coming up, I should add that right on Bakotopia, you too can fall in love.

Heath, in his quiet non-rebellious way of accepting society and all it has for him has found an incredible love story right on the very pages of Bakotopia. He shares with us his own translation of a true American love story that echoes of candy hearts and red ribbons. Read on. But do strap on your seatbelt just in case…

No more arrested development for King Mark, St. Patrick and the Hip-hop Bakersfield urban underground - By N.L. Belardes

Try arresting the urban hip-hop underground of Bakersfield, California.

It won't happen.

Get ready for an exposing article from yours truly; and don't forget this Saturday night King Mark and St. Patrick at the Rabobank Arena to sing their track, "Hat Trick" off Growing Up Fighting: Bakersfield Hockey Vol. 1. This is the performance you don't want to miss with an extended track not on the CD...

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