Cathryn Beeks doesn’t live here anymore. Not physically anyway. But while the founder of the Listen Local radio show and musicians’ resource hub now makes her home in San Bernardino County’s Lucerne Valley, her music-loving heart still belongs to San Diego.
Since she began organizing open-mic nights at the Coaster Saloon in Mission Beach 19 years ago, Beeks has been one the San Diego music scene’s biggest fans. And as her projects expanded to include an online events calendar, festivals, club nights and a radio show, boosting became her business.
If you are a San Diego musician who wants to be heard, Beeks wants to make that happen. Because she knows what it’s like when it doesn’t.
“When I first got to San Diego, I had big dreams about being a famous rock ‘n’ roll singer. But when I was trying to get into open mics in 1999, it wasn’t very open. If they didn’t know you, you couldn’t get a showcase,” said Beeks, who moved to San Diego from Cleveland after years of working day jobs in the real estate business and touring and recording with multiple bands.
“I wanted to create an open-mic night where even people who had just come into town could find a show and play, where it was open and you could just get your foot in the door. It was a joy for me to find a good band and give them a helping hand.”
On Monday, Beeks will be hosting a holiday version of Listen Local’s free virtual song circle, a now-monthly pandemic project that gives musicians of all stripes the chance to sing and socialize. Since it’s the holidays, the songs will be festive. Since it’s Listen Local, the spirit will be, too.
“Cathryn is just amazing at bringing people together,” said local singer, songwriter and producer Jeff Berkley. “She sees opportunity everywhere and she knows how to put the right folks together to make magic happen.”
Born in Riverside, Beeks grew up in a house where everyone from Janis Joplin to ABBA and the Eagles got a spin on the well-used family turntable. Beeks finally started making music of her own when she went to high school in Lancaster. It was the mid-to-late ’80s, and when Beeks ed a neighbor’s band, she embarked on a decades-long journey that would find her playing with groups in Jacksonville, Fla., Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Cleveland; writing songs and opening a thrift store in Lakewood, Ohio; and busking in Boulder, Colo.
By the time she got to San Diego in 1999, Beeks had acquired a very useful set of survival skills. She knew how to juggle an office job and a musician’s life. She knew that being creative also meant being flexible. And as she began expanding her open-mic nights into something bigger, she also knew that when you want to change your life, it helps to have a goal.
“Everything I do stems from my fear of going back to a 9-to-5 job,” Beeks said with a laugh. “You try to figure out what do folks need, and then you try to provide that service.”
Over the next 10 years, that meant building ListenLocalsd.com into a website featuring a daily calendar of live shows by local artists and and a growing roster of open-mic showcases in clubs across the county. It meant launching the Band Camp Music Festival in Mission Beach. All the while, Beeks was playing with multiple local bands, including the Gandhi Method and Not Your Mom.
And in 2009, she took over as host of “The Homegrown Hour,” a long-running San Diego music show that had landed on adult-alternative station KPRI/102.1 FM. When that gig ended in 2014, the enterprising Beeks took her show to the web with ListenLocalRadio.com. Twelve years later, her monthly Listen Local Radio show is still giving a shot at airplay to any San Diego, Big Bear or high-desert musician who emails her a song.
“She has created opportunities for so many artists by opening up venues to them and playing them on the radio,” said Berkley, who worked with Beeks when she recorded “The Homegrown Hour” at his studio. “She has lifted up so many artists to be seen by the scene.”
From the Lucerne Valley home that she shares with her husband, Jon Edwards, Beeks has many artistic plates spinning. There is Hart Acres, an outdoor event space and mini campground where she hosts artist retreats and photo and video shoots. She still performs with her band Calamity, runs the @greenroomshop thrift shop on the online marketplace Poshmark, and makes videos on artists and musicians for her 1/2 Fast YouTube channel.
But no matter where she is or what she’s doing, Cathryn Beeks keeps her eyes and ears on San Diego. There’s no place like a musical home.
“The people in power in the San Diego music business are approachable and accessible, and they really want to help the people who created this community,” Beeks said. “San Diego is very unique in that aspect. The music scene is very friendly an cooperative. There is a lot of love for being such a big city.”
The Listen Local virtual song circle and holiday party is Monday, Dec. 20, from 6 to 9 p.m. Go to listenlocalradio.com for information.
