Of Diddley and Deftones

Now, we could go into some detail about Bo Diddley’s recent Sunday-evening show at the PowerHouse Pub in Folsom. A shorter Mr. or Ms. Scene might have moved right up front, but the big-galoot version of Scene, ever so sensitive to the concerns of less-vertically-endowed audience members, watched from the back of the room, right next to where the cocktails were being served, careful to avoid blocking anyone’s view.

Now, this Mr. Scene is a regular Brigham Young when it comes to libations, so it was with bemused detachment that he observed those around him getting progressively more hammered. While a seated Mr. Diddley launched into long, loping jams, backed by Steve Mears and his band Probable Cause, the folks at the bar continued to get a good heat on. You know things are slightly askew when some hepcat behind you is loudly and pedantically describing the only Bo he knows—as a pitchman, with Bo Jackson, in a series of Nike commercials in the 1980s—to his companions. Yeah, those were some great ads, but c’mon, pal: There was a lot more to the guy onstage with the rectangular-body guitar than a side career as a shoe pitchman.

Anyway, that was last Sunday. This Sunday evening, January 11, Sacramento’s own contribution to rock ’n’ roll’s pantheon, Deftones, will appear as co-hosts on KWOD 106.5 FM’s local-music show, Sounds of Sacramento, along with regular host Marco Collins, partly to promote the band’s upcoming Memorial Auditorium “homecoming” show on Wednesday, January 21.

The long-running Sounds of Sacramento has been moved up an hour from its former time slot; it now airs at 9 p.m. The show dates back to the days when KWOD was owned by Sacramento-based Royce Broadcasting and was broadcast from the grungy studios at top of the Darth Vader-like Renaissance Tower downtown. (The station is now owned by suburban Philadelphia-based Entercom, and it has joined Entercom’s other local broadcast properties—“Smooth Jazz” KSSJ 94.7 FM, “The Eagle” KSEG 96.9 FM, “98 Rock” KRXQ 98.5 FM, “The End” KDND 107.9 FM and “Music of Your Life” KCTC 1320 AM—at the firm’s Madison Avenue complex in Foothill Farms.)

Though such local-music shows tend to focus more on the kinds of acts that major labels might be interested in signing—typically, modern-rock bands that emulate Deftones’ mix of metal and anthemic rock with elements appropriated from hip-hop, or nu-metal bands—at least they’re giving local acts a chance to get heard on radio. A critic might say that there’s a lot more to the local scene than the stuff Fred Durst might be interested in, but that’s really nitpicking. And in an age in which corporate decisions from afar all but rule out any local content making it into the programming mix, any local music on the radio is a good thing.

Oh, and happy birthday to the King of Rock ’n’ Roll. He would have turned 69 on Thursday, January 8. Rock a-hula, baby.