“When I was 19, I was going to take a van to Texas and go skateboarding,” says Dan Perkins of the fabulous power-poppy local trio Lo-Fi Champion. “But the van couldn't make it all the way, and I had to come home. I've been wanting to go to Texas ever since.” Unless Perkins and band mates Roberto Escobar and Mike Vallejo are still stuck in the metal-detector line, they are in the Lone Star State now. Lo-Fi Champion was hand-picked by the Weekly (a sponsoring publication) to play a set at this year's South By Southwest (SXSW) music fest/industry clusterfuck in Austin, Texas. (If you're reading this on March 15 and happen to be in Austin near a room called the Hickory Street Bar N Grille around midnight—get inside! They're on!). Despite the cheeky blurb on the band's SXSW link (“We are coming to SXSW to rock and secure the standard rich and famous contract”), Escobar says they really don't have any expectations—they just want to go and have fun. They're shacking up with about 999 other bands from around the world, including the rest of the OC/Long Beach contingent: Anyone, Avenged Sevenfold, Pinwheel, Stavesacre and Your Enemies Friends. Bring us back some BBQ and Shiner Bock, boys. (Rich Kane)
STRUM UND DRANG
Saving the world isn't merely up to Bono, right? Zoltan Teglas of OC band Ignite does his part of rocking and righting the world's wrongs in a new episode of public-access cable show Orange County Acoustics (available to about 140,000 homes in northwest and central OC). First, he plays warm, unplugged songs with his side project, Long Way Home. And then he does double-duty as an environmental Don Quixote. Teglas says the Long Way Home tunes that made the OCA broadcast—”Haunting,” “Hold Me,” “Running Out” and “Vampire”—are all the emo-esque material he felt wasn't right for the higher-decibel Ignite. He accents this by bringing in a violinist and a cello player. Then there's a teach-in of sorts, as Teglas discusses the plight of the endangered California brown pelican—cut to tape of Teglas working in Dana Point with Pacific Wildlife Project volunteers, removing fishing hooks and other junk that mortally wound the birds. During the segment, a pelican has the nerve to bite Teglas' hand, drawing a little blood—ouch! More proof that no good deed goes unpunished, we guess. (Andrew Asch) The Teglas/Long Way Home episode of Orange County Acoustics screens at Detroit Bar, 843 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa, (949) 642-0600. Tues., 8 p.m. $5. 21+. SNOT IS RUNNING DOWN HIS NOSE
Pop and rock acts have never meshed well with the Orange County Performing Arts Center. At all, really. Though there was a glimmer of promise when it booked genre-bending k.d. lang into its main hall several years ago, that's about as adventurous as the pop bookings have gotten—unless you count such wild, controversial, artistically challenged geniuses as Kenny G and Chicago. But come May 31, the center hosts a band that, to the walnut-faced Newport Beach bluehairs who make up the donation board, might as well be the poop-smearing, skin-slicing GG Allin—those winners of the 1988 Grammy for Best Heavy Metal Band: Jethro Tull. At $35-$65 per ticket, the Tull booking is obviously an attempt to tap into the perceived riches of the boomer generation; after all, they simply can't keep booking Steve N Edie forever—their fans are dying off. Still, this is the first bona fide rock act to play the center in its 15-year history. If it sells well, expect to see other high-end/low-quality dinosaur bands stinking up the center and selling their nostalgia—Styx, Journey, the Doobie Brothers and Bad Company frighteningly come to mind. We expect the Offspring around about 2025. (RK)
