Switchfoot’s Jon Foreman says there’s much more to the San Diego music scene than Blink-182

"We have bands that have broken out, but a lot of the finer moments in San Diego musical history are coming from bands no one’s heard of."

That time Pete Yorn told me about getting into Warren Zevon and recording his “Splendid Isolation”

I did my first interview with Pete Yorn back in January of 2007, when he was touring behind his third studio album, Nightcrawler.

"I’m a musician...not a politician. I think if you’re gonna make those comments, you need to pick up the torch and fully run with it."

I was surfing YouTube last night and discovered a concert video from 1978 of Ronnie Montrose when he was touring behind his album Open Fire.

You don't hear much about Matt Costa these days without hearing a bit about his good buddy Jack Johnson as well.

"That was my initial approach to rock music, my dad sitting me in the car and listening to Jethro Tull, early Led Zeppelin, things like that."

When MxPx's Mike Herrera went looking for a recent album to hold up as a model for his group's latest CD he set his sights pretty high.

"We're probably a little more on the rock side of [the jam-band] spectrum, but we have a touch of bluegrass in there somewhere."

For a crash course in how heavily the Atomic Bitchwax is indebted to the superstars of the '70s, check out Track 5 from the trio's new CD, 3.

"I used to listen to metal as a teenager, and I felt like revisiting it, in particular Slayer. That first Slayer record is really good."

When I call Adam Renshaw up the drummer for the Forty-Fives is cruising through Sacramento in his band's van, enjoying a game of Scrabble.

Die-hard instro-rock fans—the type who worship at the altars of Duane Eddy and the Ventures—have it pretty rough these days.

I interviewed Johnette Napolitano for the first time back in 1990, when Concrete Blonde was touring behind its third album, Bloodletting.