I was lurking at Hawthorne Heights Myspace page today and I noticed that the big promo pic at the top was shot right here in good ol’ Chico, in Upper Bidwell Park, known around here as simply Upper Park. It seems like the last year or so Upper Park has been in more many emo band pics as Paul Frank. First there’s the cover of the new Saves The Day record, Under The Boards, which makes sense since STD frontman Chris Conley has been known to lurk around these parts:

Then there’s also the video for Number One Gun’s “Wake Me Up,” which makes a lot of sense, since Number One Gun aka Jeff Schneeweis live right here in Chico. In fact, if you look hard enough at that Hawthorne pic you can see a couple pieces of that door that Jeff smashes at around the 3:12 mark in the video, still kicking it on the hillside thar. Wake Me Up, moar liek PICK IT UP AMIRITE?? KEEP BIDWELL PARK BEYOUTEEFUL!!!1

UPDATE: It turns out that the backdrop in the above Hawthorne pic is actually the cover art for their new CD, Fragile Futures.

Continuing our ceaseless coverage of local international sensation The Collective Sound, the summer School of Rock-style band camp located in Chico, please enjoy Episode 7.

www.thecollectivesound.com

School of Rock-style band camp The Collective Sound, documentary Episode 6. Do eeeeet.

Continuing our ceaseless coverage of local international sensation The Collective Sound, the summer School of Rock-style band camp locate din Chico, please enjoy Episode 6.

www.thecollectivesound.com

According to former Synthesis hip-hop inspector turned freelance-scribe-for-hire (meaning, if you run a hip-hop mag you should drop him a line) C. Bloom’s blog, our friends One Block Radius have gotten themselves signed to Island / Def-Jam. Chico has known these dudes were on some shit for years, but soon the rest of the world will find out. If all goes as planned you’ll be seeing a Gurp City shirt on MTV sometime in the near future. Thug E Fresh better up his supply.

UPDATE: Forgot to add that like the man said if you want to check out some OBR you should definitely grab the Cut Some Static mixtape here. Shit is too much fame!

Nestled in Northern California is a little college town with a lot of flavor. Home to Sierra Nevada Brewery, the largest Costco in the world, Synthesis, and for 70 happy years, the best ice cream ever. Chico’s favorite ice cream and candy parlor, Shubert’s, is making big waves as one of Good Morning America’s four finalists for “The Best Scoop in America”. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of licking a cone-full of Chico Mint, vote for Shubert’s right the heck now!

Other finalists are Moomer’s Ice Cream in Traverse City, Michigan, Jaxson’s Ice Cream Parlor in Dania, Florida, and Ron’s Gourmet Ice Cream in Hyde Park, Massachusettes. All lame names, all not as good.