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Crawdaddys/Unknowns Labor Day
showcase from the McMullen Collection

January 19, 2012September 15, 2011 by admin

San Diego photographer Sean McMullen is a true friend of Che Underground: The Blog and of most of the participants featured here. He’s also a friend to anyone who cares about preserving gorgeous images of the town’s most exciting gigs.

Sean McMullen, Dave Doyle talk photography

I’m very grateful to him for his latest contribution: this wonderful set of photos from our recent showcase at the Casbah, which ran Sept. 2 and 3 and featured the 30-year San Diego reunions of the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns, supported by a galaxy of local stars.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for video and audio from Labor Day Weekend 2011!

Here are the acts, in chronological order:

The Ciros at Lestat’s

December 19, 2011September 9, 2011 by admin

Here’s another dose from the July 30, 2011, event “Che Underground present Sounds of the Sunset Strip”: two songs from 1960s Los Angeles performed with skill and élan by the Ciros, making their debut at Lestat’s Coffee Shop.

Like headliners the Sidewalk Scene, the Ciros feature a formidable list of names from San Diego’s music history, as well as some notable newcomers: Thomas Ward (12-string guitar); Anthony Suarez (rhythm guitar); David Klowden (drums); Dave Fleminger (lead guitar); Dave Doyle (bass); Lou Damian (reeds); Dylan Rogers (vocals); Heather Vorwerck (cello); Graziela Damian (vocals).

Support for ‘The Lion’s Jaw’

December 19, 2011September 6, 2011 by admin

Here’s an urgent opportunity to support one of our own and get some fine, fine music in return!

San Diego expat-turned-San Francisco solo artist Jeffrey Luck Lucas is preparing to re-release his third CD, “The Lion’s Jaw,” and it will require $1,300 within the next two weeks to print the CDs his record label will distribute and promote.

It’s a quid pro quo: Donate to to “JLL, The Lion’s Jaw CD Release and General/Overall Local Artist Support Fund,” and Jeff will send you a signed copy of the newly redesigned “Lion’s Jaw” CD as well as his nearly completed new studio album, “The Love of Leaving.”

Read moreSupport for ‘The Lion’s Jaw’

The Sidewalk Scene plays “Richard Cory”

December 11, 2017August 30, 2011 by admin

It may be a new band on the block, but the Sidewalk Scene represents a veritable Murderer’s Row of San Diego musical talent. (Don’t miss your chance to see the band open for the Unknowns along with the Comeuppance on Sept. 3 at the Casbah — Day Two of a Labor Day weekend blowout that also features an evening comprising the Crawdaddys, the Amandas and the Baja Bugs.)

Buy your tickets now for the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns at San Diego’s Casbah, Sept. 2-3!

This video clip (accompanied by photos shot by Unknowns bassist Dave Doyle) portrays the Sidewalk Scene tearing into Paul Simon’s “Richard Cory” at Lestat’s July 30, when they headlined “Che Underground present Sounds of the Sunset Strip.” A great band with hundreds of years of San Diego history among them, delivering with the passion we’ve come to expect from these consummate musicians!

Crawdaddys/Unknowns reunion flyers
from Kristen Tobiason

December 11, 2017August 26, 2011 by admin

(To celebrate Labor Day weekend’s 30-year reunions of the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns at San Diego’s Casbah, longtime graphic artist and Che Underground blog contributor Kristen Tobiason has prepared a striking pair of flyers to feature each night’s lineup. Here’s the story behind the art and a glimpse of the sociology of music flyering.)

It seems like yesterday I was drawing a flyer for the Wallflowers’ first gig with a black Sharpie.

Twenty years later, here I am putting together a poster for the Unknowns, while listening to one of their songs on YouTube.
I still sketch my preliminary ideas on paper, but my medium has evolved, becoming less primitive and infinitely more digitized.

Buy your tickets now for the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns at San Diego’s Casbah, Sept. 2-3!

Some girls love shoes, I love color and typography. I was never patient enough to learn guitar, but drawing came naturally. I loved record albums as a kid, and some of my earliest memories are of studying the covers from my dad’s collection. As a teenager in the San Diego music scene, flyering was a way that I could contribute to the music without having to actually be in a band. When I was 16 I got my first box of rapidograph inking pens, which I had seen Jerry Cornelius use for his illustrations. Jerry’s art was intimidating, but inspiring too. I learned by emulating his style, and used to sit and copy Tennielle’s drawings from “Alice in Wonderland,” or the covers of H.P. Lovecraft, to learn how to do the crosshatching/shading.

Todd Tomarrow memorial mixer!

December 19, 2011August 22, 2011 by admin

As Che Underground: The Blog reported in May, San Diego’s extended arts family lost a member with the passing of the hugely talented costumer Todd Tomarrow in San Francisco. Now, a circle of friends plan to round out the Labor Day weekend at San Diego’s Casbah with a celebration of Todd’s life.

Catherine Pierson Waters, Kelsey Farris and Kristi Maddocks will host “The Todd Tomarrow (Todd Bundy) Memorial Celebration & Pot-luck BBQ” Sunday, Sept. 4, from 2pm to 6pm. (Since it’s in a bar, guests must be over 21.)

“The Memorial Celebration will begin with ‘An Hour of Remembrance,’ ” the Facebook event announcement reads, “followed by a pot-luck BBQ & dance in the Casbah’s back patio. The event will feature a no-host bar. … DJ Van Richter will be spinning music for your Dancing Pleasure (just as Todd would have wanted)!

Save the Che Cafe!

December 16, 2017August 20, 2011 by admin

A Che PSA: UCSD’s Che Cafe is the target of a fundraising campaign to continue its decades-long run of music and memories. I hope a few of our many readers can get behind this cause with their wallets and creativity.

Followers of this blog will recall that the Che (for which this blog is named) suffered the catastrophic theft in August 2009 of its sound equipment, and insurance costs for the venue bring the fundraising goal to $12,000, according to the site.

The Penetrators, the Bedbreakers
and Manual Scan at the Casbah

September 30, 2011August 17, 2011 by admin

(After collecting a lifetime achievement award at last week’s San Diego Music Awards, the Penetrators performed Saturday at the Casbah Club, supported by fellow music veterans the Bedbreakers and Manual Scan. Che Underground: The Blog presents accounts of the evening by Sean McMullen, Gary Heffern and Kevin Donaker-Ring as well as a luminous selection of photos by Mr. McMullen.)

It was a full moon, I remember, and I was already sweating and thirsty after walking down from Banker’s Hill to the club, but couldn’t seem to get past the patio to the bar for a bubbly cold Tecate due to the onslaught of embracing and handshakes and stories that followed. Every one of these nights serves to reinforce the depth of this bizarre alter-family I have collected since I was a wild-eyed runt getting dropped off at Golden Hall for a Penetrators show, amongst others, full circle.

Indeed there are few things in my life as gratifying as seeing people who used to revolt and butt heads like rams getting along with so much love and joy and pride. And the sheer fact that we remain so devoted to our music, to this town and each other, speaks volumes of the magnitude of our youth, and how we carry it forward incessantly with age.

Goodbye, Bob Sinclair

December 18, 2017August 14, 2011 by admin

(Kristi Maddocks, assistant manager at the La Jolla Pannikin at the time I held the same title in Encinitas, contributes her memories of the San Diego coffee chain’s founder.)

It is with great sadness I say adieu to Pannikin co- founder Bob Sinclair, who was killed in a motorcycle accident last month. Bob died while riding his Moto Guzzi in the New Mexico desert.

Like many Pannikin employees, I started my stint there as a bright-eyed teenager, fueling up on coffee as I pored over notes with high-school study groups at the Del Mar and Encinitas Station cafés. Then, it graduated to hanging out at La Jolla café on weekend mornings, after a later night of dancing or at the tail end of a very cold scooter ride up the beautiful Southern California coast. Nothing was cooler than congregating on the deck of La Jolla Pannikin in the warm sun with your friends, living off an almost endless cup of coffee and bags of day-old bagels & day-old pastries. (That is back when the first cup of coffee was 75 cents, refills were 25 cents each!)

The Penetrators play SDMA!

December 19, 2011August 10, 2011 by admin

Thanks to documentarian Eric Rife, those of us far from Southern California can enjoy video of the Penetrators performing at the 2011 San Diego Music Awards at Humphrey’s by the Bay August 8, when the band received a lifetime achievement award for its contributions to local music. (Vocalist Gary Heffern in June shared his thoughts on the honor with Che Underground: The Blog.)

If these performances of “Walk the Beat” and “Sensitive Boy” put you in the mood for more stimulation, don’t forget: The Penetrators will hold another reunion performance at the Casbah August 13!