Hi folks.

Just got back from L.A. and San Diego and checked out Gallaghers, McCabe's and the Gas Lamp area in San Diego. Gallaghers was playing recorded reggae while we were there (6 pm), and they said their live music started at 9 and was usually rock. McCabe's is a pretty good acoustic instrument store, but they also had a large area of electic guitars. They did have some unusual things that you won't find at Sam Ash, such as bowed psalteries and hammered dulcimers, and a large collection of hard-to-find music books. It was pretty quiet and pretty small, but packed with stuff.

The folk scene in L.A. doesn't exist, as far as I can tell! The music listings in "L.A. Weekly" (whatever happened to the L.A. Free Press?) were extensive, and included a few folkies outside the city, but nothing inside that I could find. There was a pub called Molly Malone's (can't remember the street) which occasionally has Celtic, but the night we were there we damaged our ears on what would have been a pretty fair rock band had we not been in PAIN from the volume! (Getting old...)

The San Diego area had lots of clubs, and we didn't get to any of them, but I'm told that the thing to get to is their annual "Street Scene" in September. That's when they have something like 20 different stages set up around the downtown Gaslamp area, with performers from all genres, like Cajun, Mexican, bluegrass, Celtic, etc.