For many of the participants in this blog, our involvement with San Diego music ended with our wholesale departure from San Diego. A large contingent of us decamped first to San Francisco, and we now make our homes in places like Seattle, Oregon, New York, Boston, Wisconsin and Haiti.
That means the string of Che Underground gigs we’ve hosted in San Diego (including May 2009 and January and July 2010) marked the first time in more than two decades that many of our musicians have played in front of a hometown crowd.
Performers like Dave Fleminger, Jeffrey Luck Lucas, Kristin Martin, David Rinck, Dave Ellison, Gary Heffern, Sergio Castillo and Kristi Maddocks have made the trip back to perform. Tom Ward recently returned to San Diego after many years in New York and will be performing Friday night with new R&B combo, the Fairmounts. Besides revisiting their old material, plenty of these musicians have brought their newer work to town.
So here’s today’s study question: For those of you who left, how have your perceptions of San Diego changed? For those who stayed, what do you want us prodigals to know about San Diego 2010, and what do you make of our reverse-diaspora?
OK, I’ll start to answer my own questions … I don’t know if it’s primarily because San Diego has matured or I have, but I feel more comfortable with the city than I did all those years ago.
We’ve both evolved, of course. And I do feel a touch of rue that San Diego’s discomfort with our weirdness has mellowed into nostalgic pride about the frisson of hipster cred our little scene lent it safely in the past.
It’s awfully hard to epater la bourgeoisie once you’re in your 40s … But then again, it seems a lot less pressing! 🙂
Notwithstanding that Marxist impulse not to belong to any club that would have me, I have found this reunion with SD hugely fulfilling. I moved around too much as a kid to have an uncomplicated view of “home town,” but I’m much prouder than I would have expected a couple short years ago to give San Diego the nod.
If you pace yourself with the tides, you can walk for miles and miles from the south end of Mission Beach up into North County. That made San Diego a beautiful home.
That sounds really nice Robin, I’ll have to try that some time. When I left SD I felt I’d only miss the beaches and the weather (having no social life then). It’s so vast I wouldn’t pretend to know what’s happening there, but it seems so much more hip now when I go back. And yet, there seems to be a homogeneity that persists, not that I’m much of a weirdo anymore myself.
From someone who has been out of the San Diego music scene for over thirty years to doing a few shows this year I tend to find that the San Diego music scene has been re-assimilated back into it’s funk of the late Seventies. Cartel clubs and “Production” companines controlling the roadways to music evolution here in San Diego. With a sigh of contempt and bit of time travel I’ll comment on this some more later. Sufice to say it was disco instead of Hip Hop and “Listen to me only” bands instead of “Self absorbsion” bands of today. I mean where is the fun Rock and Roll that we all participate in (Thank God for the Che Underground!)? I got to go for now. Get ready for a smalll rant Matt. The good news is that like the 70’s there hope for music here in San Diego in the 21 century. Be back soon… if it’s okay.
>>Be back soon… if it’s okay.
Jim: Of course! All perspectives are welcome. 🙂
Over July I had a chance to soak up more of the SD atmosphere than during any of the shorter visits of recent years…and while so much is familiar there is much that is new, or at least new to me. One evening at a cute Italian restaurant in OB (anything with interior-is-exterior walls decorated with indoor building facades is aces in my book) I did a double-take as I realized I was sitting directly across from the old Strand theatre building. It made me wonder whether my hometown was populated with ghosts from my past, or perhaps in fact I was the ghost, searching out the familiar sites I knew from years ago. It may not have seemed as poignant if I had been in town during all the subsequent changes (“what’s the chicken pie shop doing over there??”), but after 25 years it seemed as though it wasn’t just me that had evolved, this town had moved on beyond my preconceptions. Sounds obvious, but when you’ve been away for that long ya tend to hold on to an image that literally needs to be shaken away from you sometimes. And as my perceptions change a new, clearer image arises amid the murky memories. The natural beauty of the topography probably doesn’t floor me as much as somebody seeing it totally anew, but it still blows me away to see mesas rising up from canyons, where a densely populated neighborhood is stopped suddenly by the sheer size of a hillside that can’t be built upon (thankfully). That is such a unique feature of the town and IMHO is as much a contributing part of the ‘scene’ as any club or venue. I spent more time outside than inside — and to be able to enjoy Davefest rehearsals out under a fig tree, how great is that?!? I don’t think I ever really factored in how one’s environment determines one’s outlook and output as much as I do now…perhaps 25 San Francisco Summers have made me a bit more sensitive to that … I’m sure the miles of tides have an effect, why wouldn’t they?
The clubs I had the pleasure of performing at in July were all new to me, and so my impressions of the San Diego of yore seemed often inconsequential…altho it was nice to still know my way around the place. Lestats and Bar Pink are both fantastic places to play and hear music, and the Comeuppance also got to perform at a couple cool coffeehouses that were truly welcoming to us. 25 years ago I wrote myself out of the SD scene, and my impressions of the town have long been based on observations real or imagined from years back that I’d rather not simply rely on anymore as the way things are. Words can’t describe how amazing it has been to reconnect with many old friends…and to see everything and everyone in a newer context helps me to realize how I’ve changed and grown. We all have so many stories to tell.
I don’t think I have much authority to speak of the San Diego music scene at this point, but it sure kept me busy this past month and I’ve returned home with some phenomenal, cherished experiences!
I very much want to see what’s in store there for the 21st century…
“This must be the future, baby!”
When Mayor Pete Wilson handed me the Key to the city, I was shocked. I never expected to be accepted with such warmth from the status quo. I could call San Diego my home. Then when Dan Fouts used politics to steal the starting quarteback roll from me, I broke the key Pete had given me and shook the dust of the town off my feet. A chance encounter with Eric Estrada allowed me to purchase some wetlands in the east, and I have never looked back, well.maybe once or twice.
>>When Mayor Pete Wilson handed me the Key to the city, I was shocked.
Lou: Imagine how I felt when I heard he was playing bass with Battalion of Saints!
pete wilson?
>>pete wilson?
The neck tattoos tell me the man has permanently retired from politics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Wilson
neck tattoos?
really?
>>neck tattoos? really?
MadMike: God, no. I’m totally full of shit … But it would be pretty funny, wouldn’t it??
I don’t think artwork on a person’s neck is humorous.
>>I don’t think artwork on a person’s neck is humorous.
Lou: Wouldn’t that depend on what the artwork comprises? E.g., if you tattooed a series of slapstick stills in a continuous band around your throat, you could spin very quickly and generate your own stop-action comedy short!
(The length would depend on the diameter of one’s neck, of course … While Steven Tyler could accommodate only a few simple frames, Henry Rollins might be able to pack in a couple of short scenes.)
I’d like to see one example of neck artwork that is not humorous.
Laugh if you will, I think all artwork including slapstick stills on one’s neck, to be a serious matter
well…in the case of Pete Wilson…
I certainly see the humor in him having neck tattoos..
and I’m sure who ever has a neck tattoo
it’s serious business to them
but dont expect other people to see it like that
Stepping back into the scene roughly 30 years later allows me to quote “…. if we don’t learn from history we are doomed to repeat it.” As I referenced earlier in these threads, I see a almost an eerie correlation with the San Diego Music scene of today with that of the late 1970’s. When I first broke into the music scene all the then clubs held the gun barrel over the young bands of that age. They controlled the music scene by hiring “copy” or “Sounds Like” bands that mirrored the radio station play list. Unless you played top 40 or you sounded like a “on air group” you never had a chance to play. The media payed extra attention to the bands that were the “next__________” fill in your favorite band of the age.
The break through antics of the punk/new wave bands of that age opened the door to what the youth of the nation was looking for, a means to release their desire to change, belong and be heard.
This anthem is reverberated in today’s youth and once again our clubs and venues hold the gun barrel over their head (granted there are a few clubs, willing to take a chance with a new band). Their saving grace are that we are here now in a position to allow them to “explode” onto the scene giving us the chance to hear new music. Music that once again allows us to release, dance and rock. Rock ‘n Roll is about change causing it and participating in it.
Part 2 coming soon… Jim
Sounds like trouble
I was unaware that Robin had Lou Skum tattooed on her neck
To the left of the rainbow-tailed unicorns. You go drinking in Tijuana with delinquent friends; someone starts a game of truth-or-dare; before you know it “Lou Skum” is tattooed on your neck in bright purple courier font. Let this be a lesson to you young people tuning in.
Neck tatoos are serious and not funny !!
Says the man with Elmer Fudd wearing a pink tutu and clown shoes inked over his adam’s apple.
Before finishing this unrequested rant (later…) I wanted to connect you to Dave’s blog entry. He touches on some points I’m trying to make and introduces some other ones to think about.
https://cheunderground.site/?p=4120&cpage=1#comment-96571
But through all of this “Call for Anarchy” rememeber PLEASE let’s not take ourselves too seriously. When we do that our ego shuts down our ability to work together.
That means I’m getting drunk and … neck tatoo here I come. Now Lou do I use all caps when inking out your name?
it depends on your neck size
… And your rate of rotation.
Copy catter
I was do it in Hebrew….
Okay part 2:
Bottom line if we don’t keep pushing the envelope the barrier returns and solidifies 7 times higher. Before we had to arm wrestle it out with the club owners; now we have to go through the “events brokers” or “show administrators” the in-betweeners. The ones between us, the club and the Fans. No more give “us shot please”…Now it’s “if you want to play guarantee us 20 t0 30 people or you will never play here again”. Birth of “Pay to Play” venues. The owners love this infighting but club owner can step up to the plate and create a means of change and be part of it.
Lion’s club, Skeleton Club, Spirit Night club all trend breakers and catalyst of change. All clubs that changed the San Diego Music Scene by stepping forward and being bold in their outreach. Those venues were found; they were created by Fans, bands and a desire to change.
All of this is very reminisces of the days when no one wanted to take a chance on kid bands showcasing their own written material and new sounds. Like back than; all those years ago, there are a few “promoters” that are willing to step up to the plate and push the barrier. The key to the survival of this very underground is the ability to remove egos, stand united and have fun! The kids of today are just like we were. They want to be heard, they want to make a change, and they want to have fun.
I don’t long for the good old days I want to encourage the next generation to step up and be heard, cause change and have fun. The music scene is everyone that participates in it not just the genre clubs, not just the “I’m a Rock Star” bands and not a bunch of misfit kids with no future. The music scene is the sum of its participants.
San Diego Music Scene of yesteryear compared to today ….the same but different.
It’s the different part that will allow participants to make a difference.
The end of this rant.
You guys are very graceful with you space. It’s websites like the Che Underground That encourages my hope for the San Diego Music Scene and the kids of today can still rock ‘n roll if they want we did it so can they!