Rolling Stone: Breaking News – San Diego’s Hot.

For Rolling Stone’s annual Hot List, they chose to put flash-in-the-pan pop-theatrical darling Lady GaGa on the cover… adorned in bubbles. (Well, David LaChappelle shot it, and that’s sort of cool.) And while this sort of iffy-judgment is to be expected at this point in the mag’s history, what’s inside is of far, far more value to us San Diegans.

Not news to us, of course, but America’s Finest got props from the editors of Rolling Stone as the newest Hot Scene in music. They finally got something right! (I kid because I love, RS.) Though S.D. has been fostering terrific music for decades, it’s been too often that these bands have stayed woefully subterranean in the public eye.

But lately, it has been mostly under-the-radar revolutions that have broken outwards and upward, drawing an interested glance from the larger music collective to see what will happen next. And it’s not all one sound erupting from the scene, either: Whether by the principles of punk and lo-fi (Crocodiles, Wavves), acoustronics (The Album Leaf, Pinback), or rock-funk revival (Grand Ole Party, Delta Spirit), San Diego is definitely hot.

For Rolling Stone’s purposes, the publication name-dropped current noise-making buzz bands like Christmas Island, The Soft Pack, and the aforementioned Crocodiles and Wavves (get better, Nathan!), crowning our “Hot Scene” as the source of a new “seedy sound” in rock. Don’t worry; I think it’s a compliment. Also in the article are nods to the necessity and influence of independent record stores like Record City in Hillcrest and innovative venues like The Ché Café at UCSD to the scene.

For more of what’s Hot in 2009, check out Issue 1080 of Rolling Stone, on newsstands now.