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Listings are
in the opposite order of appearance: headliner is listed at the top,
next is the support band(s),
and the last band listed is the opener.
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Friday August 14
2026
7:30PM doors -- music at 8:30PM ••• 21 AND OVER $25 in advance / $29 at the door $30.81 in advance [25 face value +5.81 service fee] Plosivs instagram.com/plosivsband Garage Punk, Post-hardcore Tijuana Panthers instagram.com/tijuanapanthers surf rock, garage rock, and punkpunk TBA xxx Plosivs -from San Diego, CA -A punk rock band that hits hard without ignoring melody or vocal harmonies, PLOSIVS is an all - star outfit featuring members of Rocket from the Crypt, Pinback, and Against Me!. The foundation of their sound is a blend of two lean, wiry guitars, percolating basslines, and propulsive drumming, all in the service of songs that are tuneful but stripped to the framework. The band makes music that's both angular and engaging, with lyrics that are personal and urgent, an attack documented with clarity on their 2022 debut album. PLOSIVS grew out of a songwriting collaboration between John Reis, best known for his work with Rocket from the Crypt, Hot Snakes, and Drive Like Jehu, and Rob Crow, co - founder of indie rockers Pinback. The two found themselves working on ma terial in a time of what they called "distance rock," when the COVID - 19 pandemic and other crises were preventing bands from touring, rehearsing in person, and releasing records. Reis and Crow wanted to start playing their new music as a way of focusing th eir energy in a positive way. With this in mind, they invited bassist Jordan Clark (a member of the group Mrs. Magician) and drummer Atom Willard (who performed with Reis in Rocket from the Crypt, as well as keeping time for Against Me!, The Offspring, and Angels & Airwaves) to be part of their new project. They dubbed the new group PLOSIVS, a variation on "Explosives" that put the emphasis on the consonants, and once Reis and Crow had written an album's worth of songs, they gathered at San Diego's Singing Serpent Studio with Clark and Willard and began work on their debut album. After making their live premiere at Alex's Bar in Long Beach, California in November 2021, PLOSIVS released their first LP in March 2022 ON Reis' Swami Records label. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi Tijuana Panthers -from Long Beach, CA -In one form or another, Tijuana Panthers have existed most of its members’ lives. Daniel Michicoff (bass/vocals), Chad Wachtel (guitar/vocals), and Phil Shaheen (drums/vocals) became friends when they were teenagers in Long Beach, California, and started playing music together soon after, eventually becoming one of the shining stars of the twenty-first century garage-rock revival scene—a (relatively) chill surf-rock-inspired complement to the ruckus of acts like Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees. But while many of their initial contemporaries have gone through lineup changes or thrown in the towel, the Panthers are hanging tough—and, in a sense, just hitting their stride. “I feel like this was our most relaxed process yet,” says Michicoff of the band’s sixth LP, Halfway to Eighty, an album whose title serves as a sly embrace of getting older, with a little bit of the Panthers’ trademark sense of humor sprinkled in there for good measure. (On the cover, they gather around their imaginary midlife-crisis Delorean.) It’s a brotherhood that’s only gotten more instinctual over time, and lately that second-nature approach has found each member taking on a more forward role in crafting their own individual songs, which the trio then works out together before hitting the studio. On Halfway to Eighty, riff-heavy anthems like “Helping Hand” are courtesy of Wachtel, while art-rock thrashers like “Slacker” are Shaheen’s handiwork, and smirking punk numbers like “False Equivalent” are Michicoff’s. (“What good can it bring now? / We’re barely evolved” sings Michicoff on that last song, a squall of guitars swirling around his trembling tenor.) When you keep an ear out for them, you can hear each distinct personality in the songs, but taken as a whole, it’s yet another primo Panthers set of post-Cramps, post-DEVO outsider rock and roll. That’s partially through the help of regular Panthers collaborator Jonny Bell (Crystal Antlers, Chicano Batman, The Gun Club [reissue]), Hanni El Khatib, Lovely Bad Things, Rudy De Anda), who produced the set at his Jazzcats Studio in Long Beach. Bell has proved to have something of a sixth sense in working with the band, so there was no one better to capture the sound they were going after this time, either. For much of the record, the band was working with the mindset of channeling some of the production sound and attitude of local punk legends like Black Flag and Circle Jerks. “What I told Jonny when he was mixing ‘Slacker,’” remembers Shaheen, “was, like, ‘Just keep it South Bay,’ and he already knew what I was saying.” But as much as the band has matured over the years, they still know how to put together an album efficiently, without messing around. They’re professionals, after all—and there’s bills to pay, too. “We don’t have the luxury to go in the studio for days on end,” laughs Shaheen. “I don’t know how other bands do it.” Taken at full, Halfway to Eighty is an embrace of much more than just a band. It’s a statement of dedication to the calling of music—to sticking with making art as long as you want to, age be damned. “You know what would make me just go, ‘Oh, let’s just quit,’” says Wachtel, recalling a recent raucous show in Los Angeles, “is if we didn’t have that reception anymore. The fans keep me going.” “Not to get all spiritual about it,” adds Michicoff, “but when we were younger, we played really hard for nobody, and now the fans do all the work for us. They have the fun and we just kind of rock out, and it’s nice. It’s cool to sit back and play the songs and watch. They’re putting on a show for us.” TBA - - |
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