Plumbing S.D.’s Diversity : Street Scene: Annual event taps into the catholic tastes of the city.

“What’s so ‘San Diego’ about the San Diego Street Scene?”

The question, recently posed by a transplant perusing a brochure about this weekend’s Street Scene ’92 (formerly the Michelob Street Scene), at first seemed facetious or even mean-spirited. But, if the query dredged up that sense of cultural inferiority local natives learn to suppress, it also challenged one to define a significant attribute of San Diego that is too easily taken for granted.

Musically and gastronomically speaking, the town that calls itself “America’s Finest City” has for decades suffered from what might be called “genus envy.” Although several of America’s metropolitan centers have distinct flavors--both musical and culinary--with which they are associated, San Diego seems a hodgepodge of tastes and styles with no anchoring identity.

Chicago is known for electric blues and the steak-and-potatoes fare that complements it. New Orleans has traditional jazz and Cajun music and palate-zapping dishes. New York is a mecca for urbane, straight-ahead jazz and tough, urban rock, and is equally famous for its haute cuisine and its sidewalk vendors.

San Diego is a loose network of varietal pockets. Mexican mariachi music and food, beachy reggae and Caribbean cuisine, “San Diego-style” pop-jazz and angel hair pasta with wine, country-Western and barbecue. Those and a dozen other styles contribute to the area’s checkerboard gestalt.

If the search for San Diego’s “musiculinary” character leaves one confused and discouraged, however, he’s missing the obvious. Like the city’s population, San Diego is a composite of elements from everywhere else, and that is its distinctive character. For that reason, the increasing diversity of the Street Scene music and food festival is as much a celebration of this city’s melting-pot culture as it is a tribute to other regional heritages.

San Diegans don’t have to wait for this summer festival to hear blues, rock, country, Cajun-zydeco, Tex-Mex, world beat, reggae, jazz, pop, salsa, Western beat, soul or gospel; artists who perform those and other musical styles either live and work here already or pass through town on concert tours. But, by coalescing those disparate forms into an al fresco supermarket of music, the Street Scene becomes attractive even to an inveterate concertgoer.

Add the opportunity to enjoy some of the best and some of the newest performers in several genres, while partaking of a range of edible delectables, and you have a can’t-miss affair.

The Street Scene that will commandeer a closed-off, 18-block area of the Gaslamp Quarter on Friday from 5 p.m. to midnight and Saturday from 4 p.m. to midnight promises the most diverse offering of sounds, sights and flavors in its nine-year history. Over the course of the two-night fest, more than 60 artists representing eclectic styles will be showcased on 11 simultaneously active stages.

Artists appearing for the first time at the festival include Joan Armatrading, Michael Penn, Sophie B. Hawkins, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, the Brian Auger Band (featuring repeat performer Eric Burdon), Tito Puente and His Latin All-Stars, Edgar Winter, War, Tower of Power, Toots and the Maytals, Larry Carlton, Echo and the Bunnymen, Bo Dollis and the Wild Magnolias, the Tom Tom Club and the Haitian dance-music group Boukman Eksperyans. For the first time, the Street Scene will also boast a Gospel tent and a stage (bannered “Rockin’ in the Heart of Texas”) inspired by the Austin, Tex., music scene.

Street Scene ’92 will also feature conceptual food and libation “mini-fests,” or what event producer Rob Hagey calls “festivals within the festival.” These will include a centrally located “Taste of Gaslamp,” featuring food from nearby restaurants; “Bite of New Orleans,” for which the festival is flying in chefs, seafood and seasonings from the Crescent City; “Javaland,” an outdoor coffee emporium with tables and chairs; a “Micro-Brewery Tasting Festival,” at which each of 15 different micro-breweries from up and down the West Coast will serve two of their beers, and a “Wine Tasting Vineyard,” set up in the parking lot of the Cost Plus store.

In an interview earlier this week, Hagey allowed that, over the years, the scope of the Street Scene has broadened to satisfy the catholic tastes of San Diegans.

“I think there’s a great truth to the melting-pot premise,” he said. “I’m originally from Chicago, and a lot of people I know came here from other places, and they bring their tastes with them. But I really did walk into this (Street Scene) thing years ago not knowing that much about all the musical richness to be found in San Diego. I started with the knowledge that I personally like a lot of different kinds of music, and gradually we discovered that not only is there a lot of great talent here but there’s interest in music other than the basic jazz, blues, rock and country.”

Hagey was pleased, for example, to learn that there’s a strong following here for Mexican-American hybrids such as Norteno and Tex-Mex music. The Texas Tornados, who whipped up a Tex-Mex froth at last year’s Street Scene, are returning Friday, the same night that Tejano artists and Grammy winners Little Joe y La Familia perform twice at the Radio Latina stage.

Hagey has also learned to count on the appeal of New Orleans-based music and bayou-bred forms such as Cajun, Creole and zydeco.

“We’ve had a lot of success with the music and food of Louisiana,” he said. “This year we’re expanding on that in terms of the food, but also with regard to the musical heritage. We’re throwing artists the caliber of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Bo Dollis and the Wild Magnolias in with contemporary Louisiana acts like Beausoleil, C. J. Chenier and Wayne Toups.

“And to really throw people a curve, we’re putting Edward II on that same (Lousiana Heritage) stage--a ska band from England with an accordion player,” Hagey said, laughing. He added that Edward II might be the perfect Street Scene act. “They do jigs, there’s some zydeco thrown in there, they do straight ska, calypso, reggae --it’s a mixture of sounds that they’ve been influenced by. Their CD stayed on my player for a long time.”

As before, Hagey made sure to include local talent in the mix. Several of the acts, such as A. J. Croce, the Beat Farmers, Billy Thompson and the Mighty Penguins, the Cardiff Reefers, Earl Thomas and Rockola, are familiar to many San Diegans. Others will be heard for the first time outside of their immediate communities.

“For some time, we’ve had a sense that there is a variety of good music in San Diego, but a lot of it has remained in the neighborhoods,” Hagey said. “Acts like the Beat Farmers and Mojo Nixon break out and become known to the masses thanks to the pop market or MTV or whatever, but a lot of folksy or rootsy or more ethnic forms stay in the neighborhood until we tap into it for the festival.

“For example, there are some great gospel groups in town, and one of them, Voices of Fulfillment, will be performing in our gospel tent,” Hagey said. “We don’t know how much interest there is in hearing gospel--we’ll find out this weekend--but we’re preparing for it as well as we can. We tried acoustic jazz at the Hahn Theatre last year and it was an overwhelming success, so that encourages us to experiment. It remains our job to continue to incorporate as many types of music as possible into the Street Scene, and, for us and for the listeners, that’s where the real fun comes in.”

‘Don’t Miss’ Street Scene List

Wilson Phillips vocal trio and Etta James and the Roots Band have canceled their appearances at Street Scene ’92 because of illness. The following are John D’Agostino’s “don’t miss” picks: FRIDAY

C. J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band (5:30 p.m., Bourbon Street Main Stage No. 5).

Edward II (6:30 p.m., Louisiana Heritage Stage No. 7).

Jimmie Dale Gilmore (6:35 p.m., “Rockin’ in the Heart of Texas” Stage No. 11).

Tito Puente and His Latin All-Stars (8:45 p.m., Salsa Stage No. 2).

The Holmes Brothers (10 p.m., Gospel Tent, Stage No. 4).

SATURDAY

Edward II (6:15 p.m., Pop Stage No. 3).

Bo Dollis and the Wild Magnolias (6:15 p.m., Louisiana Heritage Stage No. 7).

Outback (6:45 p.m., Jazz Stage No. 9).

Boukman Eksperyans (6:45 p.m., World Music Stage No. 11).

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers (9 p.m., Blues Stage No. 2).

Joan Armatrading (10 p.m., Bourbon Street Main Stage No. 5).

* Tickets to Street Scene ’92 are $17 in advance for one night, $30 in advance for both nights and $20 each night “at the door.” The three entrances are at 5th Avenue and Market Street (North Gate), at 6th Avenue and K Street (East Gate) and at 5th Avenue and Harbor Drive (South Gate).

Tickets can be purchased at all Southern California TicketMaster outlets (278-TIXS) and at the San Diego Street Scene Box Office, 363 5th Ave., Suite B-110 (5th Avenue and J Street) today from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. For more information, call 268-9025; for ticket information, call 557-8487.

The Street Scene organizers encourage attendees to reduce the traffic and parking congestion in and around the Gaslamp Quarter by car-pooling and by parking in outlying areas and either commuting or walking to the site. The “Park ‘N Trolley Campaign” will be in effect to ease travel to the festival. MTDB buses will operate until midnight both nights to accommodate Street Scene attendees and will sell trolley tickets at each stop.