Upcoming: Comedy punk rocker (or punk-rock comedian?) Joe Sib hits Tower Theatre Lounge

Plus, unpacking Victor Conte's ties to Fresno and its music scene.

Nov 09, 2025

It took me a bit to place Joe Sib when I heard he was coming to the Tower Theatre Lounge (7 p.m., next Saturday, tickets here. Get ‘em now).

Given my own inclinations toward punk rock, he was pitched as Joe Sib, front-man for the band WAX and 22 Jacks, and co-founder of SideOneDummy Records, whose roster of alumni and friends is a who-is-who of punk and indie-rock heavies. He also had a weekly radio show on Indie 103.1 down in L.A.

This is opposed to Joe Sib, the stand-up comic, who has created his own resume of cool-shit, including an opening spot (along with Jim Breuer) on Metallica’s WorldWired tour in 2018 (which did play the Save Mart Center).

More recently, he did a run at the Edinburgh Fringe (aka THE Fringe) with his one-man show “California Calling.”

This is the show Sib is bringing to Fresno on a very limited-run of performances (the other shows are in Bakersfield and New York).

“California Calling,” is the story of a suburban teen discovering and then fully-investing himself into skate and punk culture.

There is some name-dropping, obviously.

Sib got to work with Spike Jonze on the video for WAX’s 1995 tune “California,” which infamously included setting a dude on fire, and also palled around with Joey Ramone, who (SPOILER ALERT) gifted Sib a salad bowl of all things for his wedding.

But this is also about Sib’s family (his “original band”) and the foundational underpinnings of a good punk-rock upbringing (listening to Jerry Vale on the ole’ hi-fi and whatnot). It’s also the fear and discovery of a whole community of like minded souls at a skate park in Campbell, California, in 1981.

As a bit of a taster, here’s an animated short of Sib performing a piece of the show back in 2014.

Who knew? Remembering Fresno’s own Victor Conte

Victor Conte might be one of Fresno’s most famous/infamous sons.

Back in the early 2000s, the Bay Area businessman was implicated (and later arrested and convicted) in the so-called BALCO scandal, which rocked the world of professional and Olympic sports and called into question the records of any number of big-name stars (Marion Jones and Barry Bonds among others).

It’s the reason Major League Baseball banned steroid use in 2006.

I was reminded of this (and his connection to Fresno music scene) upon Conte’s death Tuesday at the age of 75.

New orgs across the country ran obituaries on Conte, who was born in Fresno in 1950, graduated from McLane High School and attended both Fresno State and Fresno City College.

Buried in most of those stories was a nugget about Conte’s short-lived career with Tower of Power. He played bass for the band in the late 1970s and was featured on the its 1978 album “We Came to Play.”

You can follow that connections back to Fresno thusly: Conte’s cousin, the late Bruce Conte, played guitar in Tower of Power for a large span of the 1970s, but got his start playing around Fresno in the 1960s in bands like The Road Runners, The Chandels and later Common Ground.

That band eventually relocated to the Bay Area, but started in Freson and featured Coleman Head (RIP) on guitar and vocals and Victor Conte on bass.

Bandgeeeek!

Ready for more?