Skip to main content

Venue Review: The Griffin, San Diego, CA

The Griffin San Diego bar area and stage
I had the pleasure of being part of a great bill on Valentine’s Day held at The Griffin. Previously an Irish Bar called O’Connells, The Griffin is a venue situated in a dark recess of the Linda Vista neighborhood in San Diego (1310 Morena Blvd).  With ample seating, including 3 large booths and several bar-height tables, it is a comfortable place to sit and enjoy good music.  And there’s plenty of standing room in front of the stage for a more rockin’ experience.  They even have a disco ball for the dancier tunes.

The venue is long and separated into three main sections.  Guests enter into the back room where two pool tables and the merch table are situated.  The pool tables are $1 to play and are surrounded by a few tables and seats.  I heard one guest complain that there was no chalk available.  The merch table lies in one corner with two chairs available for staffing.  It was a tight fit for three bands’ merch, and it was rather lucky that the fourth band had forgotten theirs.  For bands that don’t have credit card processing for merch or for guests who forgot to bring cash for the cover charge, there is an ATM in the corner, with a fee of course.

A narrow walkway leads to the bar and bathrooms before opening up to the booths and stage.  The bathrooms - at least the women’s - are relatively clean and stocked.  The bar staff was friendly and quick to take orders.

Bands can load in through a door next to the stage, with a parking lot available right next to the door.  This door is kept closed and monitored by security guards during the show itself.  The sound technician was quick, helpful, and knowledgeable.  He did a great job with all of the bands on Valentine’s Day.  For bands interested in booking, there is a PA specifications sheet on their site.

After running for 3 years, The Griffin went up for sale for $215,000 in January.  The sale of the business comes with a Type 48 license, colloquially known as a “cocktail lounge” license, which allows a full bar (liquor, beer, and wine) without food.  These licenses are no longer issued in San Diego.  As of this entry, the venue is in escrow according to Location Matters, Inc.

As of now, their website calendar lists a few shows, but nothing past April.  Local band Weight of the Sun has played their set from Commons there before, as have countless other local bands in the San Diego area.

Summary:
  • Lots of seating
  • Pool tables
  • ATM
  • Clean bathrooms
  • Friendly bar
  • Might be big changes coming
By: June Owatari
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hi-Z vs. Lo-Z – Impedance, DI Boxes, Preamps, and Mic Level v. Line Level

What is Hi-Z vs. Lo-Z?  What do people mean when they talk about “Mic Level”, “Line Level”, and “Impedance”? First, let’s look at Mic Level sources.  These are considered to be either at Hi-Z or Lo-Z : Hi-Z – High Impedance, High Voltage, Low Current Keywords : Guitars, Basses, Instruments; Short Cable Runs, Better Sustain, More Interference. Most of us will come to associate Hi-Z impedance equipment with things like guitars, basses, and 1/4” connector plugs.  Inside of a Hi-Z cable, there are only two conductors: a “positive” and a ground.   Since there is no negative cable (such as in a Lo-Z cable) to balance the positive cable, both capacitance and reactance suffer with increasingly longer cables.  In layman’s terms, this means your sound loses quality and gets noisier once your cable exceeds roughly 15’ – 20’.  (Ever wonder why it’s hard to find guitar cables longer than 20’?  Now you know why!) Fun Fact : Vacuum tube circuits have na...
8 comments
Click here to read more »

Marshall 1960A 4x12 Guitar Cab Mic Placement / Positioning

How should you mic up your 1960A rig at your next show or recording project? The short answer: Experiment with many different mics, mic positions, and even mic preamps before settling on a "best" sound.  There is really no "right" answer since music is so subjective, and there may be multiple solutions for different situations.  Make sure you know what speaker sounds best in your cab, and make sure you know where an SM57 sounds best, too, since that's what the average sound tech is going to throw on there. The long answer: Most of us know that placing mics in various positions around a speaker cabinet will yield different sounds.  Part of this has to do with each speaker sounding a little different (even if they're the same make and model), mic height from the ground producing various colorations due to differences in reflection time, and what kind of room you are in.  In particular, though, there are three (3) main placement factors that will affect ...
Post a Comment
Click here to read more »

Fostex 3070 Compressor/Limiter Review

One of my close buddies picked up a Fostex 3070 Compressor/Limiter today for $50.00 off of a Craigslist deal and promptly handed it over to me for inspection and testing.  To be honest, my experience with analog compressors is fairly limited; I have used EL Distressors in the past but beyond that, my knowledge is quite limited.  I know what "should" work in theory and what settings might be good for certain genres of music, but I really had no idea what to expect here. After a cursory inspection of the unit, which revealed it was manufactured in 1982, I read the manual ( available online here ) cover to cover.  I realized a few things right off the bat -- this is a VCA stereo compressor, it comes with an included noise gate, and side-chaining is completely possible.  The rest of the manual is surprisingly helpful... there's really no fluff here like with most modern manuals that are filled with useless garbage. The next step was to grab a few TRS patch cables a...
5 comments
Click here to read more »