City’s commercial music program prepares students for the highly technical profession of studio sound engineering, but it is also made unique by Espar who puts particular attention on the collaborative and community-oriented aspect of music making.

“Fanny: The Right to Rock” is a documentary about the first all-women rock band ever to release an LP with a major record label. They started with two Filipina-American sisters and their teenage girlfriends in the 60's.

On the debut episode of the Spring 2022 semester, we hear from familiar voices Jakob McWhinney and Skylar Epplar on their respective shows “The Listening Machine” and “San Diego Local Spotlight.”

The world’s pretty heavy right now. I’m not going to qualify that, or try to make some clever joke, it’s just the truth. But you’re not here to listen to me wax poetic about geopolitics, or theorize about the rising cost of everything, or complain about the sandwich I accidentally left on the bus today. You’re here for some local music.

Even if your holiday plans perished due to the pandemic (as mine did) City Times Media is here to keep your love for local music alive and well. From the washed-out, nighttime pop of Headworm to the acid jazz of Ebaugh to the hazy sweet soul of Thee Sacred Souls, we’ve put together a batch of songs to keep you company during your next 10- … or 5-day (?) isolation.

“You have to find a way of managing time between your job and your passion, and maybe that means doing a job that pays less so you have more freetime,” Fritz Fayman, guitarist in The Reckless, said.

Each semester, the students of professor Michael Espar’s jazz history class are assigned to review a jazz release. We’ve gathered some of the best of this semester’s reviews together. They range from classic jazz singers such as Ella Fitzgerald to the new sound of contemporary jazz of Orin Evans.

Surviving music venues in San Diego deal with reopening amid a precarious economy and uncertainties imposed by COVID-19.

Supporting and organizing reggae concerts since 1980, Cheatom has produced 39 annual music festivals, although as we all know with COVID-19 came the closing of music venues and cultural centers and with that WBCC closed from March, 2020 until its recent reopening in September.

As Matt Lamkin thinks about his new album “Dirty Job,” the former frontman for The Soft Pack finds humor in the fact that it may be his weirdest. At times infectious, and at others perplexing, “Dirty Job” channels all of the wild, uncertain nature of pandemic life. 

Musician Katie Howard Carrion joined the conversation with her bandmate and husband Oscar Carrion and host Skylar Eppler on the third episode of the San Diego Local Spotlight.

In an effort to shine some light on San Diego’s incredible musical offerings, we at City Times Media decided to create a monthly playlist that highlights local musicians.