Radio KBwD

We'll take a break from our grainy live videos for our KBwD feature and hook you all up with a highly-stylized, PBS membership drive quality clip of our favorite border band, Calexico, performing Love's "Alone Again Or."
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Ladies and Gentleman, Calexico...

Radio KBwD is on the air

Since we missed our weekly installment of Radio KBwD last Friday, we're making up for it with a mid-week two-fer today. That and the fact that our featured band added dates to their summer/fall tour and will be at The BellyUp Tavern in Solana Beach in September. Color us stoked.

We've featured these guys before and may have even played one of the two songs before as well but you will quickly get over it as these guys rock.

We last saw them at the El Rey Theatre up in L.A. about 3-4 years ago as part of a dinner show. Balcony seats, good food, great music and a pretty girl on our arm. It doesn't get any better.

Ladies and Gentlemen from Tucson, AZ and that wild and remote, wind-swept desert corner of your mind, it's Calexico performing El Picador (w/Mariachi Luz de Luna) and The Ride Pt. 2 in London, England.

Radio KBwD is on the air

They’ll be here at Street Scene in San Diego this weekend but we will be unable to see them or perhaps more correctly, unwilling, as the event is every much the goat rope that you would expect a music festival in the cramped quarters of downtown to be. Undaunted, though, we present them to you here.

Ladies and Gentlemen, from the dusty, southwestern back roads of your psyche, it’s Calexico performing “Crystal Frontier”

So, just how cool are you?

Chord Strike puts out their 100 greatest indie rock albums of all-time… B.A.-holding, white scene-sters erupt in protest.

We actually own 4 of the albums on the list so we’re not quite sure whether that makes us tragically hip or severely wanting for musical taste.

The Week in Review

Politics does indeed make for some strange bedfellows..... in our twisted way of thinking, at least.

The biggest culprit in this economic downturn...? (The royal) You might want to look in the mirror.

American "free speech" vs. Euro "free speech." Who ya got?

B-Daddy believes letting the Bush tax cuts to expire may literally be a matter of life and death.

Senator McCain has got a few Big Ideas of his own for government spending.

And our Radio KBwD feature of the week.

Radio KBwD is on the Air

This band is a repeat from one of our first KBwD features. Another discovered-by-accident find (or, if “by chance”… aren’t they all?). Their mix of C&W, mariachi and Ennio Morricone feeds our Border/Spaghetti Western jones. This clip was taken from right here in town at Canes down in South Mission Beach and it is a more scaled-back and subdued version of one of favorite songs from these guys.

Ladies and Gentleman, from Tucson, Arizona…. please welcome, Calexico performing “The Ride, Pt. II”

KBwD is on the Air.

This is our 2nd installment of KBwD, a (hopefully) regular Friday feature to share some music with you all.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Calexico!

We stumbled on these guys quite by accident some 5-6 years ago when we were looking for something to do on a random Thursday night. They were playing at the Casbah and the local fishwrap gave them a nod so we went with it.

We’ve been to about 7 or 8 of their shows including at the wonderfully restored art-deco El Rey Theater in L.A. and up in Seattle (we happened to be there on business so the Calexico-head moniker does not apply) and outside of an oddly flat performance there in Seattle, their shows have all been spectacular. In addition to their core group they are often accompanied by Mariachi Luz de Luna.

They are fond of mixing the same mariachi with ranchera, country and western and Ennio Marcionne Spaghetti Western themes. When they venture beyond this, they are given to darker, moodier tones. We forget where we saw it but we read one reviewer likening their music to a soundtrack for a Cormac McCarthy story. Anyone who has read “The Crossing” or “All the Pretty Horses” and has listened to Calexico will know just how brilliant that analogy is.

OK, because it’s the Christmas season and we’re in a giving mood we went with 2 songs: “El Picador” and “Alone Again, or..”. “Alone..” was done originally by 60s L.A. icons, Love (said to be Jim Morrison’s favorite band) and was later covered by the Damned.

We hope everybody enjoys the weekend. Please be safe out there as everyone knows San Diegans can’t drive in the rain!