Sunday Blues Jam Sessions to Draw Top Local Players

New this month at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach: The Sunday Afternoon Blues Party, hosted by the Joint Chiefs, a.k.a. guitarist Dave Gonzalez and bassist Thomas Yearsley of the Paladins.

The three-hour jam sessions, which start around 4 p.m., aren’t your typical musical free-for-alls, however. Participants are invited and include some of the hottest and most respected blues players in Southern California.

“Each week Dave and Tom invite a couple of people down from Los Angeles,” said Kevin Morrow, organizer and Paladins manager. “It depends on whoever’s free that day; they come down just to play with the Paladins, and they’re not getting paid for it, so we generally don’t know who’s coming down until a few days in advance.

“But over the initial three-month period, you can expect to see the likes of Dave Alvin, James Harman, and probably Cesar Rojas, Smokey Wilson, Al Blake and many others of that caliber.”

Morrow said he came up with the idea for the Sunday Afternoon Blues Party as a way to give Gonzalez and Yearsley something to do when they are in town.

“We just needed to have an outlet for Dave and those guys to play more locally because the Paladins only play here about once a month or so,” Morrow explained. “Plus, Dave and Tom wanted to have the chance to play something besides just straight-ahead Paladins music.”

The Joint Chiefs will be hosting the weekly jams until the end of March. That’s when the Paladins take off for a three-week tour of Australia.

“By then, hopefully, we’ll have it going and have found another band to take their spot as hosts,” Morrow said.

Admission to the Sunday Afternoon Blues Party, by the way, is free.

Frank Acampora, Franko to his friends, has been actively promoting San Diego bands for more than a year, chiefly through his monthly “Local Talent” showcases at the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa.

This month and the next, with the Bacchanal temporarily out of business, he’s focusing on getting local bands to step up their recording activity. He’s offering them free recording time at his studio, Franko’s Sounds West, in Miramar.

“We’re trying to get the recording scene going,” Acampora said. “A lot of talented local bands are going other places, like garages and so on, and recording demos on little four-track machines, because it’s the cheapest way out.

“And all they’re doing is hurting themselves, because if you want to send something to major labels, they want to hear a decent, professionally recorded demo, not something on four- track.”

And what is Acampora hoping to get in return? He said he’s essentially investing in the future, hoping that bands that take advantage of his free offer will eventually come back, when they’ve got the money, and buy time.

“It’s a really slow time for my studio right now, so it’s not really costing me that much,” Acampora said. “And I figure if I have the chance to do something for these bands, I might as well do it. And if they return the favor, great. We’re all in this together, you know.”

The number to call: 698-0331.

Paul Simon’s Sunday night concert at the San Diego Sports Arena is all but sold out. And as one might expect, local ticket “brokers” are capitalizing on this.

Here’s a sample of what they are charging for good seats: Atlas Tickets, second and third rows, to the side, $130, and 17th row center, $85; Trip Tickets, third row side, $159, and seventh row side, $99; and Buck’s Tickets, 11th row center, $110.

It’s hardly the worst example of price-gouging for choice tickets to a Sports Arena concert, however.

“I can only go by hearsay, but it seems to me I heard that at one of the Neil Diamond concerts here in April of 1989, tickets in the first four or five rows were selling for as much as $400 or $500 apiece,” said Phil Quinn, the arena’s executive vice president and general manager.

“It’s not good for the industry, and it’s not good for the public, but unfortunately, it exists.”

LINER NOTES: The folks at Off The Record next month will be bringing back, to their Hillcrest store, an exhibition of serigraphs by the late John Lennon. “The Art of John Lennon,” which premiered there in February 1990, has since traveled to Toronto, Detroit and Newport Beach. The show’s monthlong San Diego return opens Feb. 9 with a public reception, 7 to 11 p.m. “And once again, we’ll be introducing some works that have never been publicly exhibited before,” said Off The Record co-owner Rich Horowitz, “as well as some of the original ‘Bag One’ lithographs hand-signed by Lennon. . . .”

The Five Blind Boys From Alabama will perform at Monday night’s Martin Luther King Day celebration at the Belly Up Tavern. . . .

Queen Ida and the Bon Temps Zydeco Band will be appearing Feb. 9 at the UC San Diego Price Center Ballroom. Tickets are a modest $10 for UC San Diego students, $14 for the public. . . .

Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. for Iron Maiden’s Feb. 19 concert at the Sports Arena. Opening the show will be Anthrax. . . .

The January Trixter concert at Iguanas in Tijuana has been canceled. . . .

Best concert bets for the coming week: Blues Deluxe, featuring Southside Johnny with Doug Hamblin, Marc Jordan, Rick Slosser, and Dave Hayes, tonight at Winston’s in Ocean Beach; the Jacks with Alarm lead-singer Dave Sharp and Sonic BBQ, Thursday at the Belly Up Tavern; El Vez with the Bed Breakers, Friday at the Casbah in Middletown; Paul Simon, Sunday at the Sports Arena; and the Replacements with the Posies, Sunday at the UC San Diego Price Center Ballroom.