During the 1990s, the Skeletones used to play every friggin' show from the Inland Empire to Orange County. After search the Internet, you might assume that the 10-piece ska group from Riverside still maintains a busy schedule.But look closer and you'll notice that a few newer bands have also taken the moniker since the original band's heyday. A Google search for "the Skeletones" comes up with three acts -- the Riverside band and two others from Michigan and England.

These days, the original Skeletones -- Jonas Cabrera, Paul Hampton, Mark Cummings, Chris Miles, Kip Wirtzfeld, Rick Bonin, Woody Diaz, Bob Alvarado, John Alvarado and Jared Palazzolo -- perform between 12-24 times a year, which is still a lot considering the group has been around for approximately two decades. That said, don't think frontman Jonas Cabrera has gotten too old to rock a stage because he says he will "out-skank anybody who dares to try" to beat him in a dance-off.

The Skeletones play Saturday as part of Long Beach Sound Society's fourth annual "We Are The Mods Celebration" at Madhaus. The event includes performances by Suedehead and the Savoys and features an array of DJs, food trucks and a horseshoe pit. With so much mod in one area, let's hope Cabrera has a new pair of dancing shoes cuz he's gonna need them.

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Aston Matthres (left) with

Lakewood rapper/gun-enthusiast Aston Matthews and Long Beach's new hope Joey Fatts (two-thirds of the Cutthroat Boyz) link up once again for their brand new record, "My Nina." This ain't a sentimental track with someone waxing poetic about their sweet, kind-hearted Nina; this is an acrobatic back-and-forth sound-off between two of this area's best up-and-coming rappers that delves into trap-rap, gunplay, and how they can turn your block into Bosnia.
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The story of Long Beach's most successful band rarely emphasizes its multicultural roots, its ability to seamlessly blend disparate genres or its importance in creating a globally appealing pop sound out of a mass of local musical influences. Instead, most considerations of ska-punk outfit Sublime focuses on the cruelly timed death of frontman Bradley Nowell, a herion-death cliché-of-the-times that left his image lumped in with countless others associated with the drug-addicted alternative rock mainstream of the 1990s.

This perspective of the Long Beach-bred three-piece, however, unfairly sweeps the band away from critical study, leaving its contemporaries in grunge and hip-hop to the theorists and relegating Sublime's gritty dub-rock hybrid albums to the lowly pantheon of bro music. But Sublime is more than the beach-inspired stylings of a heroin addict and its legacy far greater than the cottage industry of white-boy reggae-punk fusions that continue in its wake (Slightly Stoopid, anyone?).To understand the musical impact of Sublime, we break down five songs that exemplify the reasons this band--love them or hate them-- still matters.

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A lot of great music and great groups have come out of Long Beach, but don't discredit the other artists that come out of the city as well. Long Beach is also home to some great comic acts like LB native Jason Collings. When it comes to Jason, you get the feeling that his surroundings had a lot to do with molding him into who his is today and who he will always be. Before Jason headlines the Irvine Improv this Thursday (December 13th) and inspired by the music that came out of the city, we got the chance to take a walk down memory lane to see what comes to his mind when we shout out Five Artists That Feel Ohhh So Long Beach.

See Also:
*Aries Spears Plays a Disgusting Game of "Would You Rather"
*Comedian Francisco Ramos Picks Five Spanish Songs That Sound Really Weird in English
*Shawn and Marlon Wayans Play a Game of Musical Word Association

5. Domino

Jason Collings: Domino and I went to high school together in Long Beach. He might have been a grade under me, I'm not sure. Domino reminds me that we had talked about doing something together when I produced but then, I opened a martial arts studio and just stopped everything. I wonder where he is now. Really, where is he?

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Sarah Bennett

Brown and Blue perform at BuskerFest 2012.

BuskerFest
East Village Arts District (Long Beach)
8/25/12
See Also:
*Long Beach Funk Fest: Five Acts You Can't Miss
* Fingerprints Celebrates its 20th Anniversary With a Big 'Ol Record Sale
* Nick Waterhouse Comes to Los Angeles to Dance on the Street

Sorry Echo Park Rising, FYF Fest and, yes, even the now-beachside Pacific Festival--Long Beach has this end-of-summer locals-only music festival thing down. At Saturday's fourth annual BuskerFest, ten small-time Long Beach bands took turns hammering out 20-minute sets on trailer-truck bed stages in the middle of a Downtown street on Broadway and Linden Ave. in the East Village Arts District with the hopes of receiving enough wooden nickels from attendees to earn them this year's grand prize--a $7000 merch table. More »

C-Gak

See Also:
*No Use For a Name Frontman Tony Sly Dead at 41
*Exclusive Song: Hindu Pirates, 'Be My Friend'
*Nick Waterhouse Comes to Long Beach to Dance in the Street

Though Chris Tsagakis' main gig as drummer for Rx Bandits was put on ice when the band went on indefinite hiatus last year, his kit hasn't collected any dust. Lately, he has been more interested in his drum-and-synth side project under his longtime nickname, C-Gak. An evolution from the work under his previous moniker, Technology, C-Gak embraces the idea of the fusion between man and machine. His dynamic live performance gets processed through loop stations as he builds songs on the spot using random sound effects and the lo-fi caress of old-school synths. Aside from getting bolder with his compositions and finding new weapons to add to his experimental electro arsenal, he says the name change makes his final product a lot more searchable.

 "It's all one and the same approach," Tsagakis says. "But that name [Technology] was impossible to find on Google. Many fans already knew me from Rx Bandits as C-Gak, so it made much more sense; it really ties it together for them."More »

Priscella Vega

Cole Becker of Emily's Army

Emily's Army
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You may know Hal Sparks as a guy who can bring the funny as a stand-up comic, TV personality, and film actor. But few know him as the lead singer and axe man in an alternative metal band (I know! We didn't either!). This Friday (June 15th), Hal is busting out his the eye liner and shredding skills for a show at DiPiazza's in Long Beach with his band Zero 1. With a long career that has crossed over so many genres, you may think you already know Hal but when it comes to the way he rocks out, it's a whole other story.

OC Weekly (Ali Lerman): I think we all know you from TV and stand-up but when did you get into playing music?

Hal Sparks: I started acting, stand-up, and music almost at the same time when I was about 15 or 16 years old. I was in a band in high school. I didn't play an instrument well enough to be in a band, but I was the only guy who knew the words to all of the songs they wanted to cover. So I became the singer by default. And I was a shit singer, I mean terrible. But over time, I started improving as a singer and I found my voice.

What made you change of your band from the ever-so-creative name "The Hal Sparks Band" to Zero 1?

[Laughs.] Well, originally they were just songs that I had written and I had friends playing back-up so I booked gigs as Hal Sparks. But then people would be like, why is Hal Sparks doing stand-up at the Viper Room? They didn't get it. So I tacked on "the" and "band" on either side of my name and hoped that clarified it, and it did for a while. I think that a band deserves a name though, if it's a real band. Especially now with this line-up. Everybody has a personality and everyone is an important member of the band so I think the name is better that way.

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Sarah Bennett

Yesterday marked 20 years since the acquittal of four LAPD officers in the videotaped beating of Rodney King incited several days of violence and looting in South Central Los Angeles. But it's also been 20 years since a similarly motivated uprising erupted in nearby Long Beach, resulting in numerous arrests and causing extensive damage throughout the central and northern parts of town. This rarely gets mentioned in reports of the infamous L.A. Riots.

Chuck D of Public Enemy once famously said that rap music is the black CNN, but in the case of this civil unrest in oft-forgotten Long Beach, it was local ska/punk/reggae/hip-hop/everything band Sublime's song "April 29, 1992 (Miami)" that became the city's own news network.

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​Michael Cavanaugh with the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra
Long Beach Arena
March 24, 2012

I'm somewhat of a fixture at the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra POPS! concerts, but until Saturday I never felt like I got the entire experience because I'm always stone sober. This unfortunate occurrence has to do with the fact that I review many -- if not most -- of these shows and, because I am a professional, I don't drink when I'm on the clock. God knows I should and Satan knows I want to, but I don't.

However, this weekend was different. Instead of taking mental notes and observing with a critic's eye, I decided to do what seemingly everyone else does at these shows, which is to say I showed up early, drank wine at my table and was feeling pretty darn good by the time conductor Steven Reineke hit the stage.

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