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In the cards: The Tell-Tale Hearts and Gravedigger Five

October 4, 2014 by admin

Two small pieces of paper tell a story: When I noticed Dylan Rogers had posted to Facebook a photo of a Gravedigger Five business card, I asked him if I could share it on Che Underground: The Blog, along with the back story on where he acquired it.

“Ron Rimsite gave the card around 20 years ago while I was living in New York,” Dylan replied. “He knew I was big fan of GDV and they had a big influence on my music, so he gave it and a Tell-Tale Hearts card to me.”

Both cards completed a round trip to San Diego when Dylan returned there, and he’s provided photos of both. Like other ephemera from those days, they each include contact information for members of their respective bands: The Gravediggers card provides phone numbers for rhythm and lead guitarists John Hanrattie and Ted Friedman, and the Tell-Tale Hearts card directs recipients to call bassist Mike Stax and keyboardist Bill Calhoun.

Hair Theatre: ‘Phantom of Delight’

September 14, 2014September 14, 2014 by admin

More than 30 years later, here’s a performance of a Hair Theatre staple at the Che Cafe Nov. 17, 1983. “Phantom of Delight” was part of a set that featured the debut of Dave Fleminger on lead guitar. The rest of the lineup was original Hair Theatre, if memory serves: Sergio (vocals); Sergio Castillo (bass); Cesar Castillo (rhythm guitar); Howard Palmer (drums).

Watch Hair Theatre perform “In Obscurity” at Che Games for May, 2009!

Followers of the Che Underground may recall that this gig also featured Eleven Sons (a last-minute replacement for Guy Goode and the Decentones) as well as my own band, Noise 292. There’s plenty more where this comes from, if we can sort out the song titles and other vital information!

The Tell-Tale Hearts on ‘It’s Happening’

August 31, 2014August 31, 2014 by admin

During its run from the mid-’80s to early ’90s, Audrey Moorehead’s and Dominic Priore’s cable series “It’s Happening” hearkened back to an earlier era of music television. The show featured clips from Priore’s video library as well as a cavalcade of the era’s garage bands.

“Priore and Moorehead choose the bands, design the Spartan sets, and write and edit the show, which is financed by Priore and grants from various cable companies,” the Los Angeles Times described in a 1990 article. “The equipment and crews are provided at no charge through the companies’ local access departments.

“The most striking element about the 30 low-budget segments that have been produced is their glaring, and oddly endearing, roughness. There are no jump cuts, computer-generated special effects or other MTV slickness.”

Che Underground turns five!

December 17, 2017February 16, 2013 by admin

Five years ago today, I posted the first entry to Che Underground: The Blog. I’d been talking to some old friends about a place where we could share sounds and images from our musical youth in San Diego, and this turned out to be the handiest solution.

Soon Rockin’ Dog Dave Ellison created our striking design, and contributors including Ray Brandes, Kristen Tobiason, Paul Kaufman, David Fleminger and so many others enriched the site beyond anything I could have hoped.

And my, how we grew! Hundreds of stories … Tens of thousands of comments and visitors. This little corner of the Web let so many revisit so much and introduced a whole new audience to the things we created back at the dawn of the ’80s.

The earth has made five solar revolutions since then, and most of us are still here on it. Looking back, I think we’ve moved in good directions, and I’m proud of any part this place played in bringing us back together.

Gravedigger V from the Bacher Collection

October 28, 2012 by admin

Befitting their short, colorful career from the summers of 1983 to 1984, souvenirs of the Gravedigger V have been in short supply on Che Underground: The Blog. Now, Tell-Tale Hearts guitarist Eric Bacher steps up with two new additions to the set.

“We just did some ‘fall’ cleaning, and I found a few old pictures,” Eric writes. “The one of Leighton and Chris Gast was given to Denise by Leighton some time in the 80’s, I’m not sure of the provenance of the other.”

There to Here: Cole Smithey,
Smartest Film Critic in the World

December 11, 2017July 22, 2012 by admin

(In this installment, Che Underground: The Blog catches up with Rockin’ Dogs drummer Cole Smithey about his career at the movies in New York. If you’d like your story told, e-mail cheunderground@gmail.com!)

You recently celebrated your 15th year in New York and 15 years as a film critic. What was your path from drummer with the Rockin’ Dogs to your current role as “the smartest film critic in the world”?

It was a long and bumpy one, I can assure you. I moved up to San Francisco with the idea of finding a new band to play with, but that just didn’t happen. Having studied acting at SDSU, I got an acting scholarship to Hartnell College in Salinas. So, I spent a year in Salinas living out of my van. I played tympani in a 38-piece symphony orchestra there — doing classical music. I also played drums with the pep band at football games. The drama-department politics at Hartnell were horrendous, but I somehow managed to come out of it with a 4.0 GPA. There’s something to be said for living in your van: You just study all the time.

I moved back to SF and was working for my talent agent — sending myself out on auditions for industrials and commercials — when I picked up an issue of Sight and Soundmagazine. I realized instantly that I wanted to be a film critic.

There to Here: Cynthia Jaynes Omololu,
Young Adult fiction phenom

January 2, 2018July 10, 2012 by admin

(In this installment, Che Underground: The Blog talks to San Diego scene documentarian Cynthia Jaynes Omololu about her career in young-adult fiction. If you’d like your story told, e-mail cheunderground@gmail.com!)

With the publication of Dirty Little Secrets and the recent release of the first installment of your new Transcendence series, C.J. Omololu is developing a growing reputation as an author of fiction for young adults. How did you get from the San Diego scene of our youth to a writing career in San Francisco?

Aw, thanks, Matthew. I’ll take that kind of reputation. It actually makes a lot of sense – I have to write from the perspective of a 16 or 17 year old and a lot of people say I’m emotionally stunted at around that age. Okay, not totally true, but I started hanging around the San Diego scene at about that age, and it was a pretty influential time for me. We’d moved to Del Mar from Poway in the summer between 9th and 10th grade and I felt like I never fit in there – we were renting an apartment in the land of multimillion dollar beach houses and honestly, I couldn’t compete.

There to Here: Paul Kaufman,
University of Massachusetts Medical School

July 2, 2012July 1, 2012 by admin

(In this installment, Che Underground: The Blog talks to the original drummer of Manual Scan and co-founder of Lemons Are Yellow about his memories of the San Diego scene and his far-ranging career in biochemistry. If you’d like your story told, e-mail cheunderground@gmail.com!)

We actually met right after you’d left San Diego to study at UC Berkeley, then for your doctorate at MIT. But you stayed in close touch with all of us who were still in America’s Finest City. What was it like coming back for short visits and seeing the scene change?

I have very vivid memories coming back during quarter breaks and other holidays during my first year away, 1982-3. The most shocking thing was that every time I came back, the Answers song list was totally different, even within a couple of months! At the same time, the Mod scene became incredibly huge, and the punk scene seemed to go from an artistic, underground scene to a place laced with way too much testosterone. So I did feel like I was missing a lot, a lot was indeed happening, and not being there day-to-day probably accentuated that feeling. I stayed in San Diego during that amazing summer of ’83, so I did get to see some of the best parts first hand. (cue “Nowhere”).

And then when I came back summer of ’84, so much more had changed. No more Answers. No more Noise 292. I think that summer, the Morlocks emerged (pun intended) at a party at Paul Allen’s house. I remember I had to stand back, they were so loud, and I was accustomed to some pretty loud stuff back then! They played “Voices Green and Purple,” it was intense. And before long, everyone was up in San Francisco, just across from me in Berkeley, so I got to see a bit of that era before I left for Boston in late ‘86.

Support Gary Heffern!

December 11, 2017June 29, 2012 by admin

San Diego music legend and former Penetrators front man Gary Heffern has met with misadventure, and he needs our financial help to set things straight.

Heffern, now living in Finland, in May suffered a burst appendix that forced him to cancel a July Penetrators reunion in San Diego and postponed his work on a new CD, not to mention his day job. With bills coming due, Gary is reaching out to his network for support.

Here are a couple of opportunities to help this San Diego legend in his hour of need: