While it relies on electronic looping for accentuation, Ghostbird’s debut album is a  worthy listen. The first track, “Toy Soldier,” is not the most attention-grabbing, but the  second song, “Night Kills Day,” is more what an opener ought to be. The instrumentation here — and overall — is well-composed, blending light synths with  rhythm guitar and steady drums that are featured in surprising solos.

The vocals can be tepid, verging on bubblegum production at times. Whatever  distortion  effect has been used to obscure the voice is unnecessary and distracting. At their best, Hancock and Cooper are alternately ethereal and driving; at their worst, droning.

The lyrics, too, are bumpy. “Used to be so bright, now it’s cold as morning light” is one example from “We’re OK,” a track on which the words are more distinguishable. The song, which is dark and haunting, is well put together, but the mediocre rhyme doesn’t do it justice.

The songs have similar arrangements and tend to blend one into the other. But there is a standout — the peppy “Caroline,” which is up-tempo jazz-pop, complete with an impressive piano solo. The song showcases the singer’s voice at its best and serves as a departure from the rest of the album’s electronically accented Postal Service affect. Though the track seems out of place, it is pleasantly so.

Ghostbird are obviously reaching for that “indie-pop” sound; whether or not they get there is up to the listener.

Album: Ghostbird (2009)
Artist: Ghostbird
Label: self-released
Where available/price: iTunes, $6.93; ghostbird.com, $8
Songs: 1) Toy Soldier 2) Night Kills Day 3) Sing 4) Caroline 5) We’re OK 6) The Drug 7) Toy Soldier (video version)
Band: Trent Hancock (vocals), Mike Cooper (drums)
Website: myspace.com/ghostbirdmusic

 I’ve never met Nate before, but I know it’s him (a) because I’ve seen his picture and (b)  due to the handgun that sits on a holster against his hip. I’m about to get up from where  I’m sitting and introduce myself when someone else beats me to the punch. A scraggly-  looking beachgoer, a man of indeterminable age because he is so weather-beaten,  approaches.

“What’s that for, bro?” he asks, pointing in the direction of Nate’s gun, a Taurus Tracker .44 Magnum revolver.

Before Nate can answer, the man continues.

“There are surfers at the beach looking to party, and you show up with that? That’s not right. Love life! Be mellow!”

This is when I walk up and introduce myself. The beachgoer looks at me for a moment with wild blue eyes, then looks back at Nate, as Nate is beginning to explain what he will have to reiterate time and time again to concerned and/or interested parties: he is open carrying.

The term “open carrying” refers to one who is in possession of a holstered, unloaded firearm on his or her person, displayed in plain view. Nate begins to explain the legalities of this to the beachgoer when Sean approaches, video camera in tow. In shades, a green shirt with double-breast pockets, green cargo pants, and a Sig Sauer P229 holstered on his hip, Sean looks not unlike a police officer.

The beachgoer does a double take.

“Another one!” he exclaims, as Sean greets us warmly.

The beachgoer, incredulous, excuses himself — with one final stare — to go “get baked.”

Soon we are joined by a third open carrier, Sam, who is Nate’s older brother. He’s a tall fellow in jeans and a T-shirt, and his gun, a Glock 17C 9mm semiautomatic pistol, sits squarely in a black holster, handle well visible against the blue of his shirt.

And now it’s my turn.

As the others deal with the beachgoer, who has returned, Nate and I take off to his car, where he removes from the depths of his trunk a silver handgun with a wooden handle. This is a Ruger Single Six .22 revolver, he tells me, as he slides it into the borrowed holster I have fixed to my belt. The gun is surprisingly heavy, nestled just below my waistline.

Back at the boardwalk, it seems that Sam and Sean are getting nowhere with the beachgoer, so we prepare to head out.

First, I am given instructions on what to do if approached by the police. I brace myself as Nate explains.

“What’s going to happen is, they’re going to want to do a 12031(e) unloaded check,” he begins. “They’ll say they want to check your weapon. You say, ‘Are you requesting or demanding?’ If they say, ‘Demanding,’ you say, ‘I don’t consent to any warrantless searches. But I’m not going to resist.’ And then you stick your hands out, they check your weapon, and it’s done.”

Sounds easy enough, I figure. I’ve got my tape recorder ready, as open carriers are urged, via websites like OpenCarry.org, to keep recording devices on them while carrying to capture any interactions with police (and civilians) they might have in case their rights are infringed upon.

“You don’t have to answer any other questions. You don’t have to give them your ID,” Sam instructs. “It’s technically an illegal search under the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment says you have protection against unreasonable search and seizure. If there’s a woman pushing a baby stroller down the boardwalk, that does not give the police the right to check if the kid is kidnapped. So if you’re in full compliance with the law, minding your own business, they technically don’t have the right to stop you to check if your weapon is unloaded or loaded.”

Open carrying, Nate explains, is legal in San Diego and the rest of California.

“[The law says] you can’t carry a loaded gun in an incorporated area,” he says. “This is an incorporated area.”

“Because San Diego is a corporation,” Sam chimes in.

“So then, [the law] says, ‘Firearms carried openly in belt holsters are not concealed within the meaning of this section,’ ” Nate continues, referencing California Penal Code Section 12025(f), which outlines the illegality of concealed carrying and what is and is not considered a concealed firearm.

“So there you have that,” Nate continues. “And then case law says that ammo next to the gun is not considered loaded. So, basically, you start out with a great idea and it gets detracted down to what we have now.”

The nuances of gun laws in California, I find, are difficult. For example, concealed carrying is not legal in San Diego (and all of California) without a permit — that much is abundantly clear — and neither is carrying a loaded gun. Having ammunition situated next to a firearm, however, does not amount to “loaded,” meaning that Nate, Sean, and Sam can carry full magazines on their belts.

The legalities involving open carry are dizzying, the restrictions numerous. One cannot open carry 1000 feet from a school, for instance, or in the “sterile area” of an airport or in a post office or a national park (though it is legal in a national forest).

And then there’s the somewhat sticky issue of the Second Amendment.

“Instead of [the Bill of Rights] being automatic, they did amendment-by-amendment incorporation,” Sam explains. “So now practically all the amendments have been incorporated against the states except the Third, because nobody’s tried to quarter soldiers in [anyone’s] house, and the Second, because it hasn’t happened yet.” By “incorporated against the states,” Sam means that the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled that the amendment applies to the states.

So if it’s such a hassle, why open carry?

As we walk, the trio explains.

For Sam, 39, who works from home studying “history and behavioral economics independently and try[ing] to figure out what’s going to happen next before everyone else,” it’s mostly about constitutional freedom, a cause he says he’s felt strongly about since childhood. He’s been open carrying for about seven months and heard about it through Nate and Calguns.net, a popular online meeting place for California gun owners and enthusiasts.

“I really believe, and I think that most thinking people believe, that we are slowly losing our freedoms in this country,” he says. “Everything’s become more and more restricted, and nobody seems to know what to do about it. If we would just get back to following the Constitution, America would again be the place it was intended to be, the place where everybody wanted to come. This whole open-carry movement, for me, is really about more than just guns; it’s about liberty and what it means to be a free man.”

Nate, a 22-year-old human biology student, voices another issue: the lack of CCW (concealed-carry weapon) permit issuance. A concealed-weapon license allows one to have a concealed weapon on his or her person. In California, Nate says, concealed-weapon licenses are most commonly issued to lawyers, jewelers, and traveling doctors.

“I knew I wasn’t going to get a CCW permit. I’m not important enough — I don’t make enough money, I don’t have a good enough ‘cause,’ according to California — so I said, ‘Well, I guess I’ll just start open carrying,’ ” he says. “Another reason I started doing it is that it’s a political statement. I’m not important enough for my right to self-defense, so what we do is we just take it out in the open. This is what we have to do.”

Nate has been open carrying for about a year and heard about it on Calguns.net.

“I just started doing it,” he says. “Read[ing] up, whatever I could do.”

Sean, a 32-year-old senior systems engineer, chimes in.

“I’ve always been somewhat of a gun-rights activist,” he says. “I’m really in it more for the activism more than anything else. I’ve noticed that a lot of the guys are younger, and the police seem to react differently to folks who are in their 30s than to folks that are in their 20s. So I feel it’s a good idea to keep the reactions moderated a little bit.”

Sean has been open carrying for about a year, he says, and is also an active member of Calguns.net.

Most of the response the trio has gotten while open carrying has been positive.

“On the 28th, I’d say about two-thirds of the contact we had was ‘Hey, that’s legal to do?’ ” Sean says, referencing an open-carry event held in San Diego in February. “Not accusatory or anti — either positive or just requesting information.”

He pauses.

“The people who were blue-collar guys or office workers or whatever, they’re more curious about stuff like this than people who are just out there on the beach all day because they don’t have an obligation to go be somewhere else. I think that’s probably the reason that there’s sort of a skew in the types of contact we’ve had today.”

As we walk and talk, a man in a red shirt passes us, his eyes obstructed by wraparound shades. He turns around to face us.

“You walking around with live ammo in those?” he asks, walking backward.

“Not with live ammo in them,” Sean replies amicably.

“Do you have a permit for that?” the man asks.

“You don’t need one,” says Sean.

“I’ll find out down here for you, ’kay?” the man asks, somewhat rhetorically, as he hightails it down the boardwalk.

“It’s not Mexico, guys, you can’t pull that shit off,” he shouts, over his shoulder.

“Do you really think that guy is going to go to the cops?” I ask, once I’m sure he’s out of earshot.

“Probably,” says Sam. “And the cops will say, ‘It’s legal. You don’t have to like it, but it’s legal.’ ”

Turning back, walking into the sun, we decide it’s time for food and continue — undisturbed — to Mission Boulevard, where there’s a small Mexican restaurant with outdoor seating.

San Diego open carriers, I discover, have had a few open-carry events here in town, coordinated mostly via sites such as Calguns.net, OpenCarry.org, and CaliforniaOpenCarry.org, where there are local forums in which members discuss issues of gun ownership, gun rights, gun laws, and more.

The last meet, at the time of this writing, was in February and took place on the very boardwalk Nate, Sean, Sam, and I just traversed. The police were well informed, and things went smoothly as an estimated 40 to 50 people, open carriers and supporters alike, congregated beachside.

At the Mexican restaurant, lunch proceeds normally, save for a few stares, until I notice a large white-and-black SUV pull up in front of us. “Uh-oh,” I think. “Here we go.”

A male cop emerges, a tall man with a salt-and-pepper crew cut. He smiles at us.

“Howdy, folks. How’re you all doing today?” he asks.

“Fine,” everybody responds.

“I’m going to have to do a 12031(e) inspection on you and get out of your hair,” the cop says.

“Are you requesting or demanding?” Nate asks.

“I’m sorry?” asks the cop.

“Are you requesting or demanding?” Nate repeats.

The cop looks at him.

“Well, I’ll start with a request, but then I’ll demand,” he replies.

“As long as you’re demanding,” says Nate.

The cop starts with Sean.

He has him face the opposite direction and goes around behind him, removing Sean’s gun. He checks for ammunition and, finding none, places the gun back in its holster.

The cop makes his way around the table. Each of the trio stands and, when asked to be checked, pipes up with “Requesting or demanding?”

When the cop gets to me, I gulp, even though I know my line.

“You, ma’am, are carrying as well?” he asks.

I nod, then jump right in.

“Requesting or demanding?” I ask.

“Requesting and then I’ll be demanding,” comes the reply.

I stand, watching as he removes the gun from my hip. I can hear the revolver’s wheel turning as he checks the chamber for bullets. Then he hands it back to me — the first time I’ve handled a real handgun — and I slide it, if somewhat amateurishly, into the holster.

“Okay,” the cop says. “I appreciate your cooperation.”

Before he leaves, Sean asks if someone sent him over.

“Actually, we had a radio call. I guess you were out on the boardwalk,” the cop replies.

“I think I know the guy…” Sean says wryly.

“I talked to one person that had called. He said you were headed south,” the cop says. “So we were looking for you. We appreciate your cooperation. Have a good day.”

I glance around me and notice several cruisers are parked along the edge of the Mexican restaurant’s lot, plus the SUV.

Nate turns to me.

“You have just experienced the hassle of the open-carry movement,” he says.

“That guy was actually very good, very straightforward,” Sean comments, as the SUV and its entourage drive away. “He was not out to abuse rights, he was not out to try and make anything up. He was just doing his job.”

This makes one cop stop for Sean, two for Sam, and three for Nate.

And, of course, one for me.

“It’s all very complicated,” I tell them, speaking of the various gun laws, regulations, and restrictions, from state to federal, as we collect our trash from lunch.

Sam nods.

“And if we just followed the Second Amendment the way it was written, none of this would be necessary,” he says.

Shortly after our encounter with the cops, we part ways, agreeing to meet up at a later time that night. Nate, Sean, and Sam are taking me to a local firing range, and come evening, I will have fired my first gun.

The range is located in a squat brown building with an American flag in the window and a big neon sign bearing the word “GUNS” in all capitals. Inside is a small series of booths separated by dividers. It’s busy, and people in groups wait their turns, snapping pictures, flashes going off in time to the sound of the guns. The ground is littered with glittering brass shell casings, and I can feel them through the soles of my shoes as I walk to my appointed booth.

Sean is my teacher for the evening, and he patiently goes over how to handle the first guns I will shoot, a .22-caliber CZ Kadet and his .40-caliber Sig Sauer P229. I try to remember, listening to his instructions over the loud pops and bangs from neighboring rangegoers. I take a deep breath. Eject the magazine. Click the slide back to make sure it’s not loaded. The CZ is heavy in my hands and heavier still as I slide a full magazine inside and give it a firm tap with my hand. I position my hands, making sure my grip is not too weak and my thumbs are not too low. My finger slides over the trigger, pulls back.

Pow!

An explosion erupts, and the gun jerks back in my hands, shell ejecting onto the floor; it drops and I don’t see it. I’m transfixed. I try again, trying not to close my eyes. The smell of gunpowder tickles my nose.

I finish the clip, watching the holes that have appeared in the paper target I was aiming at. They’re nowhere near where they should be, but it’s not bad.

Sean reels the target in and points to a cluster of holes around the bottom of one of the bull’s-eyes. It’s a clover pattern, he says; it’s good.

“You should be proud of that,” he says, over the din. I smile.

At the end of the night, I have shot eight guns — three handguns, one carbine, and four rifles. The list is a litter of letters and numbers to me. There are the CZ Kadet, Sig Sauer, and CZ 97B for handguns. The carbine is an FN PS90. For rifles, I handle the Ruger Mini-14, the Kel-Tec SU-16CA .223, the not-so-fearsome AR-15 .223 — a gun that might be soon made illegal — that weighs so much I can barely hold it to my shoulder, and the Ruger 10/22, a lightweight rifle without much recoil (kickback) that turns out to be my favorite. (Though the range generally does not allow certain types of rifles to be used, for the purpose of this article, we were permitted to shoot the Kel-Tec SU-16CA and the AR-15.)

The evening after my shooting adventure, I’m due to meet another open carrier, Tom, at a coffee shop in Mission Valley.

Tom is a neatly bearded gentleman with wire-rimmed glasses. Fresh from work, it appears, he wears a dress shirt and black slacks along with his Springfield Armory 1911 .45 that is barely visible on his belt. His wife sits across from him, reading.

Tom smiles as he introduces himself, assures me that I’m not too terribly late, and offers me a coffee before we settle down to talk.

While not new to gun ownership — in fact, he’s an avid collector — Tom has only been open carrying for a few months. He is a member of several of the online forums previously mentioned, where he reads and responds to various topics and discussions.

Unlike Nate, Sam, and Sean, with whom he is acquainted, Tom has not been stopped by many people, curious or otherwise. He speculates that, because of his dress, most may take him for a plainclothes police officer.

“They must think you’ve got a badge somewhere,” I joke.

“Could be,” he agrees. “That’s the first thought. But people need to be aware that a citizen living in a free country is allowed to have liberty and to do these things. And most people assume it’s against the law.”

Tom began carrying mostly out of political reasons.

“I got alarmed at how radically guns and gun owners are being vilified across California and across the country,” he says. “The laws are being passed willy-nilly, some that don’t even make sense, and it’s time to start pushing back against unfair, unjust laws.”

He, like the others, agrees that the Second Amendment needs to apply to the states as well as at a federal level. He elaborates on a California case recently heard by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court that tackles this issue, Nordyke v. King, in which Alameda County attempted (and succeeded) in banning guns from its fairground in order to stop a gun show.

“They started a legal action against the city. Another lawyer picked [it] up and has been pursuing it for almost ten years on his own dime, [with] no financial support. And what we’re hoping it will do [is] incorporate the Second Amendment to California.”

Tom, 56, also open carries for other reasons than political activism, recognizing that it could be useful in an unsafe situation. “I look at it like we’ve never had a fire in our house, but we have two fire extinguishers,” he says, and cites something he read in the news as one example. In February of this year, in Los Angeles, he says, two men walked into a café and shot seven people, then walked out.

“Now, if they’d come up to that café and looked in the window and seen two or three guys with a gun on their hip, wouldn’t they have turned around and gone someplace else?” Tom wonders aloud. “Or would they have gone in anyway? The first responding officers heard the shots, but they weren’t able to get there in time to catch the guys. So the only one who’s in a position to do anything about it would be the people who are right there getting shot at. And I’d like to ask those people sitting in the café if they wished they’d had a gun when they saw those guys walk in the door.”

He makes the point that, in areas with stricter gun-control laws, crime is higher.

“[In] places where the laws allow the citizens to take their security into their own hands, violent crime goes down significantly,” he says. “Look at Chicago and Washington, D.C., where the citizens are essentially forbidden to own handguns, and the incidents of violent crimes are enormous.” (In June 2008, the Supreme Court struck down Washington D.C.’s ban on handguns.)

Later, he sends me a link to the FBI crime statistics from 2007 (the latest information available). They report some grim facts. In Vermont, which allows the concealed carrying of weapons without a permit, the violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants is 124.3, while in the District of Columbia, it’s 1413.3. Alaska, like Vermont, allows concealed carrying without a permit, and their number is 661.2. In California, it’s 522.6.

Though he knows the laws regarding guns aren’t always in the favor of gun owners, Tom speculates that they can only get so rigid.

“To completely eliminate all access to guns is going to be kind of tough because we live in a country where the founders have determined that it’s a good thing for the citizens to be armed,” he says. “And we agree.”

Tom doesn’t open carry everywhere. He can’t at work, where he is a technical writer, and doesn’t feel comfortable doing so at church.

“I consider it inappropriate to wear it exposed because it’s a big distraction,” he says. “And we’re there to worship, not there to be distracted by someone’s outlandish clothes or political activism.”

He will also take it off, if on private property, when asked, such as when he was stopped — and the only time he’s been approached negatively — in a supermarket.

“The whole point is to try and make people aware and comfortable that law-abiding citizens can carry guns without the world coming to an end,” he says simply, “without having to provoke a SWAT incident. We’re very meticulous in obeying the law. We’re very careful about what the law says, what we’re allowed to do [and] what we’re not allowed to do. And the police have endorsed that, verified that.”

Though Tom may be in a minority, there is a growing open-carry movement in San Diego. Tom estimates that there are between 75 and 100 active open carriers locally.

“We had between 75 and 100 people who said they were going to come [to the February 28 event],” he says. “So there are at least 75 to 100. There have been other meets where we’ve all gotten together for lunch down at El Indio, and there were 20 to 25 people at each one of those. And there’s some overlap, and some people came to the first and not the second, so I’d be surprised if there were less than 100 active people in the San Diego area.”

He attended the El Indio lunch and reports that everyone in the restaurant was respectful and supportive.

“A couple of girls came in and had lunch and asked about it,” he says. “They said, ‘Why are you guys all wearing guns?’ ”

He pauses, laughing at the story.

“And we explained the program to them, and they said, ‘You know, I bet this is the safest place in San Diego right now!’ ”

You’ve got an interesting, wistful sound at work on this track. What instruments and  effects are you using?

The equipment was simple: a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar, a Shure SM-57  mike, and a TASCAM DP-01FX digital recorder. There are two guitar tracks: the first is the basic acoustic guitar track that was simply miked. The second track was the same acoustic guitar direct to the TASCAM using one of the effects built right into the recording device. My original intent was to create an acoustic-based song with no effects, but after toying around with the various effects, I found one I liked. This resulted in the additional wistful, fiddle-like guitar track.

From what I gather, the theme of the song is about trying to make it as a musician. What made you pick this topic?

“mikelewismusic” is about my lifelong musical journey. The song isn’t really about trying to make it as a musician; rather, it’s more about how my journey led me to where I am now. Until recently, I had been a supporting player in various bands, but songwriting has always been my main interest. There were many people and bands — called out by name in the song — that I was fortunate enough to have shared many valuable experiences with over the years. These experiences led me to the place I really wanted to be, and that was performing my own original songs. The last line sums it up: “Now I’m standing here alone/ I find myself here on my own/ look around this empty stage/ now’s the time to turn the page.”

“mikelewismusic” has a definite country/folk tinge to it. What and who have been your influences?

I have a wide assortment of influences — as a kid my father would play country music nonstop: Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Faron Young, all the old classic country tunes. As I got older I discovered rock and folk music and became influenced by the Who/Pete Townshend, the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Woody Guthrie, amongst many other artists. While this song was written in a country/folk style, I guess you could say I’m really a rocker at heart with a good foundation in country and folk music.

 In one of the more puzzling bluegrass traditions, many of Petite’s songs are at a  breakneck speed (“Little House,” for example), rife with mandolin and guitar-picking patterns that, at times, overpower the vocals. Petite’s style, however traditionally “country,” is sweet, while the backing instrumentals tend to be too cute.

Breaking the mold slightly is the track “Paris Incident,” which features well-placed elements of country (a pleasant violin interlude, most notably), and “Heaven Bound” is a calm interlude among the frantically paced songs.

Lyrically, Petite is not the most advanced; for example, on “Little House,” she proclaims, “My little dog’s the size of a pollywog,” perhaps the album’s weakest point. Overall, it’s a good choice for a square dance but may not resonate beyond the barn.

Album: Lead the Parade (2009)
Artist: Sara Petite
Label: Manatease Records
Where available/price: sarapetite.com for $12.99; iTunes for $9.99
Songs: 1) Lead the Parade 2) The Secret 3) Little House 4) Paris Incident 5) Heaven Bound 6) Buy Me a Ticket 7) Coming on Strong 8 ) Dead Man Walking 9) Uncle Irving 10) Little Girl 11) Six Smiles 12) Moonshine
Band: Sara Petite (guitar, vocals), Jesse Harris (electric guitar, bass), Rick Wilkins (electric guitar, mandolin, banjo, vocals), Shawn Rohlf (banjo), Steve Peavey (banjo, mandolin, lap steel, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals), Dave Banjoski (banjo, guitar), Chris Clarke (mandolin, guitar, harmonies), Jim Austin (upright bass), Annie Dru (harmony vocals)
Website: sarapetite.com

 The first track, “Changing Faces,” seems a little overmixed. The drums aren’t as raw as  they might be otherwise, vocals slightly too front-and-center. “Breaking Free,” the second song, follows a somewhat more traditional format, with a keening guitar background, fill-heavy drumming, and screamed lyrics. The final offering and the album’s title, “Strength of All,” is harmony-heavy and the band’s strongest track.

While it may be too bubblegum for hard-core metalheads and too…well, metal for the Rise Against and Shinedown set, Strength of All makes for an interesting listen at least.

Album: Strength of All (2009)
Artist: Sicarus
Label: self-released
Where available/price: sicarus.net, $5; iTunes, $2.97
Songs: 1) Changing Faces 2) Breaking Free 3) Strength of All
Band: Jon (lead vocals), KC (bass/vocals), Eric (lead vocals), Dustin (drums), Mad Scotsman (guitars/vocals)

 Much of the album showcases Zank’s vocals, as opposed to ensemble performances by  the crew of studio musicians. This is one of the album’s biggest flaws, as Zank’s country-tinged, alt-folk voice does best against a backdrop rather than over the top of stripped-down guitars on tracks such as “Wonderful” and “Stay.”

Overall, Zank does a good job with what he’s written. Some tracks are more inventive, like the slightly dark “Like Flowers for the Sun,” which features a haunting electric guitar and timely cymbal crescendos. Opener “Sorry” stands out as one of the stronger tracks on the album, with its driving rhythm and rising harmony.

Without a Bridge is radio-ready and well-packaged but feels generic.

Album: Without a Bridge (2009)
Artist: Zank
Label: Unsigned
Where available/price: iTunes for $9.99; Amazon for $8.99
Songs: 1) Sorry 2) How It Feels Right Now 3) The Last Car Ride 4) Wonderful 5) Like Flowers For The Sun 6) Stay 7) Growing Old 8 ) Letting Go 9) So Slow 10) With You 11) You Always
Band: Zank (lead vocals, assorted instruments), “Shauney Baby” (drums), Shawn Davis (bass), Jessie Taylor (violin), Peter Stanasoff (electric guitar), John Fretwell (backing vocals), and others
Website: myspace.com/zankmusic

Bevilacqua isn’t quite a single mother — at least not in the traditional sense. Sure, she is currently raising three daughters on her own, but she’s not exactly single. Her husband, Edward Bevilacqua, is, at the time of this writing, awaiting transfer to prison at the Vista Detention Facility, where he is beginning to serve out what he and his wife hope will be three years of a seven-year sentence. The story is as follows: Eight months ago, the internet-kiosk business the two started was raided by the FBI based on the (correct) suspicion that members were operating what the Union-Tribune describes as a “20 million [dollar] Ponzi scheme.”

The details may be convoluted, but Bevilacqua, 37, is adamant that her husband is innocent and that other employees are responsible for the company’s transgressions. Blonde and petite, Bevilacqua sits at the kitchen table of her rented home, one she will soon be leaving for much smaller accommodations.

“[My husband] was in jail for so long because he was refusing to plead to something he didn’t do and was pushed and pushed and pushed by the public defender’s office to take a deal,” she explains. “And, finally, the judge gave him an ultimatum: ‘If you don’t plead and you go to trial and lose, I’m going to be very heavy-handed with sentencing.’ ”

For Bevilacqua, who has been a stay-at-home mom for ten years, and her daughters, aged 5, 8, and 10, this means a drastic cut in income and the eventual relocation from their 6000-square-foot home in Bonsall to the modest yellow Fallbrook one-story they currently occupy. It also means that Bevilacqua has had to get a job and, ultimately, a roommate.

Hence the ad on Craigslist, in which Bevilacqua has outlined her willingness to sacrifice her “sanctuary,” the house’s master bedroom.

“I just can’t keep paying the rent here,” she says honestly, as the evening light fades in a window overlooking the quarter-acre property the house sits on. “I mean, family’s been helping me, but that can’t go on.”

The current economic crisis hasn’t made things any easier. Even with her job as an administrative assistant for a wholesale florist — her first salaried position in ten years — Bevilacqua is finding it difficult to support herself and three children under 12.

Her daughters, she says, are not “too traumatized,” but are having some trouble adjusting to their new, more frugal lifestyle. The major differences? No Disneyland, says Bevilacqua, and fewer meals out.

“They still ask me for stuff,” she says. “I tell them, ‘I’ve explained to you guys that we just have money for the basics.’ And they’re getting it.”

While Bevilacqua’s case may be unique, due to her husband’s unfortunate circumstances, her situation is not. There are dozens of other families who, like Bevilacqua, are seeking a roommate — sometimes more than one.

Rhonda Wallace found herself in a similarly tight spot when she moved back to San Diego in September from Las Vegas, where she and her 21-year-old son were staying with her eldest daughter. In San Diego, Wallace, 52, found and “fell in love” with the Spanish-style, one-story house in Talmadge she now rents. The back-patio view, which looks out over shrub-filled canyons and Fairmont Avenue, sold her on the place, and she doesn’t want to leave.

For the past three years, Wallace has been living off the proceeds from the 2006 sale of her house in Seattle, but now finds herself short on money. Even with her current job as a customer-service representative, funds are tight.

“I have not been this poor…ever,” she says matter-of-factly, as she smokes a Kool on her back patio. “I’m just not handling poverty well.”

Currently, Wallace has two roommates, a single father with every-other-weekend custody of his three-year-old, and a single woman, along with her 21-year-old son. Wallace says she hasn’t had to live in a shared home for years. Though she likes her roommates, describing them as “courteous and cordial,” she is definitely not used to sharing space with strangers.

“Having to live together with someone like we’re 20 years old, it’s hard,” she says.

The original plan was for a friend of her son’s to move in with the two of them, but that fell through shortly after their relocation from Las Vegas. In need of extra financial support, Wallace ran an internet ad and promptly found her female roommate. After putting up a “For Rent” sign around the corner from her home, she got her second roommate, the single father, who works not far away.

With Wallace’s son, who attends cosmetology school full-time, the grand total of additional housemates amounts to three — aside from Wallace herself, who acknowledges that things are for the most part working out.

“Everybody’s kind of independent; we all do our own thing,” she says. “It’s not like we all sit around and watch TV together like we’re a big family unit. It’s just not…it’s not weird, like I thought it would be.”

Recently, though, there have been bumps in the road. The single father, says Wallace, has started to skip out on his share of the rent.

“He told me he had tons of money, that he had enough to pay his bills and split the rent and utilities,” she recalls. “Come to find out, one day, when it’s time for rent, I had to cover his share because he showed me this court document where he had been kicked out of an apartment where him and his wife had lived. And that’s why he couldn’t pay me the rent. His wages were garnished.”

Wallace didn’t use a specific screening process for her renters, instead relying on intuition. This, surprisingly, is not uncommon. Laura Zapico, 33, who rents out a room in her home, as well as a granny flat on her property, uses the same method when finding tenants.

Her current renter, a fellow single mother and son, was a Craigslist find, a “really nice” woman whom Zapico felt she could trust. She had a steady job and, according to Zapico, “That was pretty much it.”

The house she owns in Rainbow, which sits amidst wholesale nurseries and avocado farms, is a three bedroom that she, her seven-year-old boy, and two roommates (also a mother and son) occupy. Half hidden by trees and shrubs, Zapico’s home is impeccably neat inside, despite her claim that she is a bad housekeeper. No one would guess that four people — two under ten — live there, save for a plethora of school pictures and academic certificates hung in places of honor on the wall.

Zapico, unlike Bevilacqua and Wallace, has had plenty of previous tenants, a few of them friends.

“Once I split up with my son’s dad, I wasn’t getting the same support that I was when he was living here,” Zapico says matter-of-factly.

It’s mid-morning, and she is sitting barefoot on the couch, dressed for the day in a black skirt and a shirt that reveals a tattoo of her seven-year-old son’s name inked across her collarbone.

“Actually,” she continues, “what first happened was a couple, a friend of mine and her then fiancé, wanted to move down to San Diego from L.A., and they were living in hotels. I said, ‘Why don’t you just stay here and drive down to San Diego every day and look for a place and job?’ So they stayed here, and then they gave up on finding a job in San Diego, and they decided they were going to just look around here. They wanted to rent this room, so I said okay.”

After they moved out, an acquaintance of Zapico’s — and the mother of one of her son’s classmates — expressed an interest in taking their place. Along with her three children, this woman received subsidized support via the government and worked it out so that Zapico was named her designated childcare provider. A stay-at-home-mom for her son’s seven years, Zapico took the job.

“Since my son was born, every job, with the exception of one, has been in childcare,” Zapico, who is otherwise unemployed and currently taking classes in creative writing at Palomar Community College, says. “I did that so I could stay home with my son, so that I didn’t have to work and pay for childcare elsewhere. But now he’s at the point where he’s at school until 3:00. The rest of the day, until 6:00, I can send him to — if I were to get a job — afterschool care, and it’s only $7 a day. Before that, I would have been paying a lot more for childcare, and it wasn’t worth it. Watching other people’s kids was beneficial.”

The children and Zapico’s son, whom Zapico describes as both a “good kid” and a “big pain in the ass,” got along fairly well, except for one of the children.

“My son and [the tenant’s] youngest daughter just butted heads,” Zapico says, “but I still continued to watch the kids until [the tenant] ended up losing her job. She worked at that restaurant [near the house] that closed, so then she didn’t have a reason for me to watch her kids anymore.”

Zapico’s current tenant, by contrast, is rarely around, working later hours at an urgent-care facility and returning home with her son — who stays at his grandparents’ and is enrolled in afterschool care — on the later side of the evening. At the time of this writing, they are currently moving out.

Being a single parent and living with near-strangers is a bit of a risk, Zapico, Bevilacqua, and Wallace all acknowledge. But each, as mentioned before, selected roommates based on good faith.

“She was a single mom, she was really nice, and she had a job,” says Zapico of her latest tenant. “That was pretty much it for me. There were two other people that had wanted to rent, and I chose her, mainly because she was a single mom, and I trusted her because she was nice. I [didn’t] picture her needing a background check, for some reason.”

Wallace didn’t conduct any sort of check, either.

“I just kind of went on my gut intuition,” she says. “I was looking for somebody who was normal and stable and had a job.”

She does understand that there is a safety concern, especially with her son involved, in letting people she doesn’t know into her home.

“I don’t know [my roommates] from Adam, so I don’t know what comes with them,” she says. “So the first time one of their friends shows up at the door, it’s, like, ‘Okay, and who are you?’ It’s awkward.”

Zapico, unlike Wallace, says she doesn’t particularly want to rent to a single man, if she doesn’t have to. “I mean, I guess this is kind of sexist, but if [my renter] were a single man, I would probably at least check the Megan’s Law website and make sure he wasn’t a sex offender. I can’t even say that I’d want a single man in my house. I guess I’m prejudiced. I mean, I’m not scared of a woman. I don’t want a man around my child. A woman could do just as much damage, but I guess I just don’t think like that.”

The lack of background checks appears to be common, while relying on intuition seems to be the preferred screening method. Liz Drewry, who currently rents from a single mother in Mira Mesa, says she was interviewed at length by the woman she lives with but was not asked for references — which she has.

“I offered references because I have them, but she didn’t want them,” she says, sitting outside a Starbucks in her parents’ neighborhood of Rancho Bernardo, hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. “And it was the same thing with the other family I lived with. I guess I just looked trustworthy.”

Drewry, 24, has lived with three families, the first a single mother with a son in the Rancho Bernardo/Carmel Mountain Ranch area for $500 dollars a month, the second a married couple with three girls in Serra Mesa for $600 a month, and, currently, a single mother of two in Mira Mesa for $650 a month. Her current room is 12 x 18 feet.

She says she likes the family atmosphere more than rooming with friends because she finds it eliminates certain aspects of shared living that frequently come with the early-20s set.

“It’s definitely a different dynamic,” she says. “You get home from work, and instead of everyone just lounging around and playing video games, someone’s making dinner — usually mom — and the kids are doing their homework, and there’s less of a worry of who’s going to come in at two in the morning, drunk or whatever, which has never been a good thing for me.”

While she doesn’t directly help with childcare, Drewry does interact with the two girls, who are 10 and 12, as she has full access to the house and is considered a member of the household.

“I’ve actually offered several times to pick the girls up from school because I get off work a lot earlier than [their mother] does, but she’s always declined,” Drewry says. “I think she doesn’t want to cross that line. But I’ll help the girls with their homework. I definitely help them with their homework because their mom obviously has been out of school a lot longer, and she doesn’t remember stuff like pre-algebra. She’s got one more year before I’m out, too. I told her, ‘I can do this, but next year, you’re on your own!’ ”

So far, Drewry reports, things are working out terrifically. She likes the woman she lives with and the two girls, the eldest of whom she shares a bathroom with, and they are kind and polite to her.

There are, though, she says, times when it can get complicated living with a family, especially when the line between “tenant” and “caregiver” are blurred in the eyes of young children.

“It’s less complicated for me with these girls, especially because they’re older, and they understand that I’m not actually a parent,” she says. “And I’m sure that their mom sat down and explained to them that ‘Lizzie is an adult who will be living with us, which means that if she tells you something, you need to do it, but she’s not a parent, so you don’t go to her with problems.’ ”

With the previous family Drewry lived with, a husband and wife, each with a four-year-old daughter from a previous marriage and an infant together, she had less interaction with the kids, more often observing their behavior. The two four-year-olds got along well, she says, which surprised her.

“They were like best friends,” Drewry says. “They loved each other. It’s bizarre. [The parents] had been married for about two years so [the two girls] had known each other since they were two. But…I always felt like there was maybe a little more resentment from the one who lived there full-time than she was able to vocalize at four.”

She also recalls sometimes witnessing temper tantrums thrown by that child.

“Her parents reacted exactly the way all the child-rearing books say you should: you don’t react,” says Drewry, who has no children of her own. “You let her throw the temper tantrum, and you don’t give her any attention for it. Eventually, she’d stop because she wasn’t getting the reaction she wanted, but then like two days later she’d do the same thing. And this was repeated. I said something to the mom, and she said she thought [her daughter] had picked it up from some kids at her day care.”

Despite this, Drewry decided, albeit after deliberation, to live with another family. After the husband and wife bought a house too far for Drewry to commute to work from, she moved into a four-bedroom house with roommates. When that lease was up, she posted an ad on Craigslist, which the woman she currently rents from replied to.

“I had moved back in with my parents because what the hell else was I going to do?” she says, laughing. “And my mom announced that I was not allowed to move out unless I got a license and a car. So, I got a car, and I had a boyfriend at the time, and I was ready to go. I was 22 or 23, this was the third time I had moved in with my parents, and I was over it. So I posted an ad saying what I was looking for, and [she] responded and said, ‘How do you feel about kids?’ I almost didn’t even reply.”

In the end, she met with the woman, and it seemed like — and appears to actually be — a good fit.

The one concern Drewry has is what will happen when the eldest daughter, who is now 12, begins the arduous process of puberty. The house is situated so that Drewry’s room, a converted garage, leads directly into the girl’s room, which Drewry says is not an issue now but may become one later.

“She hasn’t started all of the fun high school things that happen,” says Drewry, with a wry smile. “I know that every kid’s different, but I’m concerned that once that happens, she’s going to feel less comfortable with me walking through her room all the time and that kind of stuff. My big concern is what’s going to happen when she hits puberty and possibly desires more privacy for whatever reason.”

Luckily for Drewry, that hasn’t happened yet, and she, the mother, and the girls operate like…well, a family, something that surprises her and the mother alike. The mother, Drewry says, had several potential renters that desired more privacy than could be offered.

“I can watch TV in the living room if I want to,” Drewry says. “I can use anything in the kitchen. [The mother], if she’s making dinner, will often fix me a plate, which was not included in the original agreement and is fantastic of her. But [other potential renters] wanted to just rent a room and not interact with anyone and [the mother] said, ‘I can’t give someone that. I have kids. I can’t promise that they’ll never come and want you to watch American Idol with them.’ ”

Some who rent from families, in contrast to Drewry, rarely see those with whom they cohabitate.

Eddie Dunn, 28, rented a tiny room from a single mother and her 17-year-old son for a four-month period last year in Oceanside. He paid $500 a month for a room that was roughly 10 x 10 feet. During that time, he barely came in contact with either.

“I seriously saw [the mother] if she was leaving for work or taking out the trash,” Dunn, a slight man dressed in a button-down shirt and sweater, says. “I saw [the son] fewer [times] than I did her, just because he was in school. I heard them at night when they were home and whatnot.”

For Dunn, who, unlike Drewry, did not have access to the house aside from his room, which he entered via the patio, this worked out well.

“I prefer to live alone,” he says. “So what was cool about this was that I basically felt like I lived alone because I never saw them. I had my own space, had my own bathroom, and I kind of did my own thing.”

Dunn moved to San Diego from Boise, Idaho, in 2008 to attend the American Academy of Golf, from which he has since graduated. He came with a $500 monthly budget and, before leaving Boise, made contact with his now-former roommate.

“She held the spot for me for a month; it was great,” he says. “[And] I took a risk with it. I had only spoken with her on the phone a couple of times. I think I gave her some references but she was…I guess she was kind of blind going into it, if you will.”

While he enjoyed living there, despite the smallness of the room, Dunn says he’d rather not live in a family situation again.

“Not because of that situation; that situation was great,” he is quick to say. “I’ve got no complaints. It was a lot of fun; I got what I needed out of it, and I moved on. But entering into a family again, no. I either want to live alone or find some decent roommates.”

These days, it seems increasingly hard for families to find renters. Even though, as evidenced by Drewry and Dunn, there are those who are willing and able to do so, Zapico, Bevilacqua, and Wallace aren’t having much luck finding tenants.

Zapico reports that she received one reply regarding her ad, but says the woman sounded “a little bit off.”

Wallace is having similar problems and is getting few responses to her numerous ads on Craigslist.

“None. Zero. Zip,” she says, of her success. “And if you put an ad for a roommate on Craigslist, you would not believe the cockamamy stories that you get. Oh. ‘I presently live in the U.K., I’m 23, I’m a student…’ Unbelievable.”

A lot of these are scam offers, she says, from people overseas who want to send her checks for the house’s full rental amount, and then for her to send back an amount equal to the total rent minus their portion.

Other than that, Wallace says, her email inbox has been fairly quiet. “A couple called the other day, a husband and wife with a kid. But no, we can’t do that.”

Though the occasional visit from the single father’s three-year-old boy doesn’t bother her, as she has three grown children and a few grandkids of her own, the drama of a couple, she says, would be too much.

Still struggling to find someone else to fill the fourth roommate slot, Wallace may need to find another way to pay her rent.

“Now, trying to find a job? The job market is horrible; I can’t find a regular job, and at 52, starting out…” She sparks up another cigarette. “I not only have empty-nest syndrome, since the kids are grown and whatever, I have empty life syndrome. Where do I get a job? Who’s going to hire somebody who’s 52? I just thought my life would be so different at 52, and it’s just such a piece of crap right now.”

Bevilacqua is also not getting the responses she needs. She says she was contacted by a few potential renters, but that they eventually stopped communicating with her.

“I spoke with two women, briefly, and sort of told them about myself,” she says. “Then there was a woman that had a trailer, a 35-foot RV, who was going to park on the property. I’ve got a quarter-acre all fenced in here, and that sounded like it was going to work out great. She was going to pay me $400 a month, which now isn’t enough [since finding out that her husband was not going to trial and would not be home for several years] — this was a few months ago — to park here. She’d kick in a little bit more once we saw how the electric bill was affected by her plugging in to the house. And she was just going to mind her own business and come and go and do her own thing. It was going to be great, but she disappeared. She literally stopped returning my calls. I was so disappointed. She seemed for real.”

Bevilacqua pauses. “But, whatever,” she says.

Meanwhile, she’s still hopeful and has a back-up plan: moving into a one-bedroom apartment in Carlsbad with her three girls. It’ll be a tight fit, she anticipates, but the family will work it out somehow.

“Someone I know owns the building,” Bevilacqua says, “so that’s my next move, but [the apartment is]…teeny tiny. That’s going to be the biggest adjustment. But my theory is, if we have to live in a tiny apartment…it’s like half a block from the beach. I’m not going to live in the middle of Vista because that’s going to be zero fun. I’m going to put all my stuff in storage, and we’ll make do. We’ll live at the beach and make new friends.”

Wallace, on the other hand, is still nervous about her situation. The single father, she says, started to behave strangely and has now been absent for some time.

“I don’t know where he’s been staying or what he’s been doing, but that’s why I kind of have a feeling he’s going to move out and leave me holding the bag,” she says. “And I’ve asked him, ‘Are you sure you’re going to have the rent on Monday, are you sure?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ Like when he gave me the utilities the other day, I [asked], ‘Okay, you’ve got the rent covered?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,’ but I am just very uneasy. I don’t believe him.”

Zapico’s not sure what she’s going to do next.

“Honestly, living here has been great, but it’s getting a little old, and my son’s not particularly attached to the school,” she says. “I was thinking, I have some family in Guatemala, [that I would] take him down there, learn Spanish and live there for a while, or go down to San Diego and go to school, and he could go to school.”

She glances out a nearby window, looking wistful.

“I don’t know,” she says.

The theme of the song is about how you’ve stayed true to your roots. What made you pick this subject?

Jimmy Powers: I chose this concept because, being originally from the Boston area, I don’t get to keep in close and continuing contact with [the] friends and family that I grew up with. I wrote this track to reassure the people who helped mold me into a man that, although I may be 2500 miles away, very busy, and not talking to them as much as I used to, that I am still the “same James.”

One of the lines of the song is “we know times change.” How have they changed for you, even though you are the “same James”?

My life has been centered around change since I was born. I have lived in five different states in my short 26 years on this rock, [and] I think that I have grabbed a lot of different knowledge from not ever being stuck in one place. I honestly believe that my outlook on life changes with every passing situation or responsibility, but some just trump the others and that keeps me looking and moving forward.

Switching subjects: there seems to be some sampling going on in your song. What did you use and why?

Sampling is an integral part of hip-hop. To me, hip-hop without samples is like [a bathroom] without toilet paper. There [weren’t] any computer programs or things of that nature to create music with when hip-hop was about individual expression and artistry in the early ‘90s, which is when I fell in love with it.

I did not produce the track; it was produced by my friend LONEgevity, who I was able to connect with on a forum called BANTCESS. Basically, LONE sent me the beat, I heard the sample in it saying “Your love for me is gone” and immediately started writing an explanation to my peers that things change, but I am still the same loyal and boring person that I have always been.

The musicians that make up Tornado Magnet, including lead vocalist/bassist Phil Bensimon, six-string guitarist Mike Ashley, and drummer Tom Owens, are top notch, despite the album’s overdone country-music themes. Bensimon has a pleasant, slightly wavering John Popper–esque voice, and the band is tight, obviously benefiting from their years together. The problem lies in their apple-cheeked, “aw shucks” approach to country music, their choice of subject matter, and cloying compositions. The sweetness — complete with mid-song, formulaic key changes — is campy, over-earnest.

This is an album for diehard neo-country fans. There’s just enough “alt” there to keep it rock-y (Tornado Magnet cites Wilco and Old 97’s as influences) and certainly more twang than the average listener can handle.

Album: Double Wide (2009)
Artist: Tornado Magnet
Label: Big Bender
Songs: 1) Hook Up 2) Pistolero 3) Austin City Lights 4) Highfield 5) The Fall 6) King of the Campus 7) Reminds Me of You 8 ) Rednecks 9) South of the Border 10) Whiskey Tango
Band: Phil Bensimon (lead vocals/ bass), Mike Ashley (six-string guitar/vocals), Tom Owens (drums/vocals), Doug Meyer (pedal steel), Wolfgang Greskemp (accordion/keys), Devin Shea (fiddle)
Website: myspace.com/thetornadomagnets

Canobliss, though billed as metal, doesn’t get there. Instead, the band provides a mix of melody, fuzzy guitars, and clashy drums on their newest album, Psychothermia.

Though undoubtedly influenced by heavy metal bands, Canobliss doesn’t fit the category. They’ve got more of a radio-ready sound than many straight-up hardcore metal acts and possess an undeniable pop edge — especially vocally. Borrowing from pop-punk bands such as Fall Out Boy and reggae-rock hybrid 311, many tracks have a soft edge to them.

Most of the time, the pop side shines more than the metal. The songs tend to be repetitive at their core, at least instrumentally, but lead singer Johan Maldonado’s vocals are where things get interesting. Youthful and at times haunting, it is often overpowered by the “metal,” and not allowed to stand on its own. On tracks like “Take Vics,” on the other hand, it is showcased, and the band even throws in a harmony for good measure.

Despite a sometimes bumpy merge of genres, Psychothermia is a good listen. Even though Canobliss lyrics can be over the top, offering such statements as “going to hang you like a velvet noose straight down from the sky” (as heard on the album’s title track), all the elements of a solid album are there.