Sacramento jazz fans, get ready. The second annual In the Flow jazz festival starts Friday and will be invading four venues on downtown's Broadway. Last year's festival was held on the patio of True Love Coffeehouse. This weekend, Beatnik Studios, The Comedy Spot, R5 Records and Java Lounge are opening their doors for three days of live jazz performances. "Sacramento has an incredible jazz scene. We have great players with great, original ideas that span all things jazz and beyond," said Ross Hammond, the main coordinator of the festival. The idea for the festival was dreamt up during a coffee outing with Hammond, jazz musician Byron Blackburn and some of their friends. They wanted to h

On April 18, 2009, R5 Records will be having a huge record swap for the internationally celebrated Record Store Day! Record Store Day is a day where hundreds of independently owned record stores celebrate the art of music. When R5 Records had their celebration last year, over 1,000 people showed up to see tons of local bands play and to get their hands on some awesome music paraphernalia. This year we will once again have a huge lineup of local bands and DJs that are going to be playing great music all day long. Inside the store EVERYTHING is going to be on sale and you'll have a chance to find some awesome stuff in in the Rock n' Roll garage sale we're having. There's also going to be rec

When Tesla the band launched nationally in 1987 on powerhouse label Geffen Records, few thought that Sacramento’s most successful rock export would still be rocking more than 20 years later. That was even more true when the band broke up in 1995, victims of their own rock star egos and chemical dependencies. Even after reuniting in 2000, some wags dismissed the band’s return as the mere desire to cash in on a well-known name from the classic rock era, which said naysayers considered completely played out. What a joke, they said. But Brian Wheat has had the last laugh. Bassist and manager of the band he co-founded with guitarist Frank Hannon in 1982, Wheat has worked for this decade to r