Discovery Project
San Diego's music scene has flourished from DIY values, artist support and diversity
San Diego is considered a cultural melting pot renowned for its global food landscape and breathtaking views and landscapes, in addition to an enriching art scene. Music plays a large role in stitching these aspects of culture together, with concerts and local events happening nearly every night in the city. Community members often frequent established and iconic venues to discover up-and-coming bands and follow promoters’ social media or other event platforms closely to stay up to date on nearing events. The local San Diego music scene is incredibly diverse in genres and venues, thrives on a DIY ethos and has a collaborative support system for promoting events.
San Diego’s local music scene has a thriving history dating back to the early 60s with native bands Iron Butterfly and Rose and the Originals releasing nationwide hits. Most recently, Stone Temple Pilots hailed from San Diego, influencing decades of rock on a global scale and inspiring local musicians to follow suit.
In recent days, the San Diego music scene is highlighted by big-production festivals like Waterfront Festival or La Jolla Art & Wine Festival, and on a smaller scale has seen an influx of college students getting involved, through hosting DIY house shows and even booking bands at the Che Cafe on UCSD’s campus.
The San Diego music scene is incredibly diverse
Online conversations surrounding the San Diego music scene, specifically prompted in the search on Instagram’s “Explore” page, almost immediately directs audiences to the various genres of music present within the current scene.
One of the first posts that caught my attention was from the user @biteinto_sd. This account serves as a guide for all of San Diego’s best food, drinks and entertainment events. This particular post was about Lou Lou’s Jazz Club, an underground jazz bar adjacent to the infamous Lafayette Hotel. This video currently has roughly 303k views with users in the comments inquiring about where the venue is so they can attend, and praising its aesthetic and seemingly “fun vibe.”
On another post made by the user @3earedrabbit, the user posted an image of San Diego’s iconic music venue, the Casbah, with an educational caption informing readers about its rich history in being a “launchpad for numerous well-known bands,” listing Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and Rocket from the Crypt, to name a few.
These two posts are just some of the many various posts that contribute to San Diego’s ever evolving and increasingly diverse music scene.
San Diego’s music scene thrives on DIY culture
To inquire about the best spots to start playing in San Diego, local musicians or out of town artists have taken to Reddit for answers and recommendations.
This thread is one of many that depicts the necessity of the do-it-yourself ethos keeping the music scene alive. Users shout out venues like SOMA or the Che Cafe, one user @dm_your_password, even stating that, “I feel like the DIY music scene here is thriving, from all genres.” This post shows what a typical week at the Che Cafe looks like, highlighting all of the shows and events they hosted. Their general Instagram page has more information on ways to get involved in the local music scene and volunteer at the Che Cafe, ranging from joining subcollectives that teach you to run live sound to how to book shows.
ListenSD, a local San Diego media outlet and artist public relations firm, echoes the sentiment that the Che Cafe is “an awesome venue for small bands in the region,” in an article detailing the history of the Che Cafe, with tips and tricks on how to get involved. The Che Cafe is a do-it-yourself and vegan, live event space run by students and volunteers that host all shows independently as a non-profit organization, solely for the love of the local scene. The Che Cafe has been the starting point for many great artists who have since returned to play the iconic venue, like Turnstile, Smashing Pumpkins and Green Day. Today, the Che Cafe remains a community-oriented space, hosting study hours during the fall and spring semesters, open-mic nights and local shows whenever possible on a “pay what you can” basis. Upholding the do-it-yourself ethos that has helped keep the music scene strong, the Che Cafe holds general meetings on Monday nights that are open to all who would like to get involved.
The local scene is by artists for artists
Online conversation surrounding finding events or concerts to attend in San Diego is populated largely on Instagram. When searching “San Diego music events” into the Instagram “Explore” page section, a lot of local magazines, booking agents, clubs and bars etc. have posted flyers with links and further resources for getting involved and where to find the next event. Firstly, the user @amplifiedsd with their “October Events At Amplified” post stood out. Secondly, I noticed the user's @majestyinmotion “October Events” post promoted local concerts and music related bootcamps to attend, tagging the relevant artists and promoters.
There are even entire user accounts dedicated to the promotion and sharing of live events through reposting other artists' concert and event flyers. In my research on Instagram the users are: @sdliveshows and @sdshowz.
Conclusion
In conclusion, discussion about the San Diego music scene tends to occur on social media platforms like Instagram, but also on websites and chat forums like Reddit. Because of the rich history of the local music scene, there are many news articles and features written on notable participants within the scene, including their venues and bands, available immediately upon searching Google. In the San Diego community, residents, those just visiting and those directly involved as artists or musicians, are welcomed with an incredibly diverse and supportive scene, uplifted by participants or viewers across different social media platforms.