Paul Kaufman | The Che Underground

Lemons Are Yellow: Afuegal Pitu

December 13, 2017April 14, 2009 by Paul Kaufman

(Paul Kaufman describes the creative ferment behind a Lemons classic.)

This song was written in tribute to the delicious cheeses of Spain. I chose “Afuegal Pitu” as the title not because it’s my favorite (that would be the powerful blue Cabrales or the smoky sheep cheese Idiazabal, depending on the day) but because it has the best name. Afuegal Pitu has a lot of red pepper in it, and the name is a local-dialect version of “Fire in the Throat.” Indeed, all the lyrics (except for the spoken-word part in the middle) are simply the names of different Spanish cheeses.

I used to live near an excellent cheese shop (the Cheese Board in Berkeley, CA), and I was so enamoured of the Spanish Cheese Poster they had on display, I wrote to the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture to ask where I could get one. It now hangs in my kitchen.

Read moreLemons Are Yellow: Afuegal Pitu

Lemons Are Yellow: “Spotted Dick”

December 13, 2014March 20, 2009 by Paul Kaufman

(Lemons Are Yellow member Paul Kaufman describes the secret sauce behind the song.)

Back in the day, Tower Market atop Mount Davidson in San Francisco was the place for the band Lemons Are Yellow to stock up on snacks. This medium-sized grocery had an inexplicably large “British Foods” section, where you could stock up on Devonshire cream; HP sauce; and a mix for making your own dessert known as “Spotted Dick,” a baked pudding containing dried currants (hence the spots). Of course, the packaging called out to us, and soon we were at the Fleminger kitchen, baking up a batch.

Nostradamus, I’m not. Part 3: Punk rock sweeps America!

April 21, 2012February 17, 2009 by Paul Kaufman

(Here’s Part Three from Che stalwart Paul Kaufman on how his young self was Dead Wrong on some major issues of our time.)

In the comments following Dave Rinck’s recent “This We Dug: The Sex Pistols” post, Dave Ellison perfectly nailed how I felt about hearing those records for the first time: “the Sex Pistols album made all the rock music, clothes, hairstyles, etc. that were around at the time seem completely outdated.” It’s hard to cast your mind back to fully capture how revolutionary it felt.

It was so clear in 1977. The Ramones and Patti Smith at CBGB, the Sex Pistols, Clash, Wire, X-Ray Spex, 999 and all the rest in England. So vibrant, making commercial radio (and San Diego was ALL commercial radio) taste like a mouthful of ashes. As a 13-year-old, I envisioned all the old boring stuff would be swept away in a tide of cultural and political enlightenment in the US. The UK was actually having records in the Top 10 that you didn’t have to leave the room for — why not in the US, too?

Ché Games for May: Musical Promo 2

December 13, 2017December 22, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(Once again, Manual Scan/Lemons Are Yellow veterans Paul Kaufman and David Fleminger bang the gong to promote the Ché reunion. Except this time, they get some help from a very special guest.)

Last week, the planets aligned — I was in San Francisco, visiting Dave Fleminger at his house; this led to the first musical promo for the reunion in May 2009 that was posted recently. Little did we know that our musical universe was about to explode.

Someone was calling on the phone. A voice said, “Is Dave Fleminger at home?” It was Dave Rinck, the iconic lead singer of the Wallflowers, visiting from Nairobi. Soon we’re all in the studio, and here’s the result. Considering the last time I had seen Dave Rinck in person was when he was onstage in 1984, this was an especially big thrill for me.

Ché Games for May: Musical Promo

December 17, 2017December 16, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(Manual Scan/Lemons Are Yellow veterans Paul Kaufman and Dave Fleminger put the jangle in the world’s first Che Underground jingle!)

Hey Ché fans, Dave Fleminger and myself have put together a little musical promo for our much-anticipated reunion at the end of May at the Casbah in San Diego.

Here are the lyrics, so you can sing along at home:

All you Rockin’ Dogs on the blog,
Meet us there.
The Wallflowers still have raw power!
You can see them there!

Nostradamus, I’m not. Part 2: The Cold War

December 16, 2017December 12, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(In which Manual Scan/Lemons Are Yellow vet Paul Kaufman finds himself back in the USSR.)

Here’s Part Two in a short series of examples of how my young self was Dead Wrong on some major issues of our time.

A defining event for our generation is that we were the last to come to adulthood during the Cold War. Remember the Cold War, kids? Soul-crushing, Gulag-filling Soviet dictatorship on one side, anyone-against-them-is-our-friend (nevermind the atrocities) NATO on the other, both armed to the teeth. This lead to deadly, pointless quagmires on both sides (Afghanistan for them, Vietnam for us). For all the vile waste of life and resources this arrangement created, it was a form of stability.

So, did anyone here think the Soviet Union would just sort of melt away like a wet witch, without nuclear holocaust, bloody civil war, or even hardly a shot fired? I didn’t.

Nostradamus, I’m not. Part 1: The Final Frontier

December 31, 2010December 8, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(In which Manual Scan/Lemons Are Yellow vet Paul Kaufman re-evaluates his prospects for space tourism.)

Here’s the first in a short series of examples of how my young self was Dead Wrong on some major issues of our time.

If you had asked me as a 15-year-old what I wanted to be, I would have had no firm idea. But as a five-year-old, the answer was certain: an astronaut! It was 1969, and when I wasn’t listening to my well-worn copy of Yellow Submarine, I was reading about the Apollo missions and constructing home-made Command Modules out of cardboard boxes.

The future seemed obvious to me — we were just beginning to travel to space, and in the future, this would steadily become more and more of our daily lives, as had air travel, electricity, telephones, TV, et al., right? Soon we’d be booking commercial flights to distant planets, choosing among the tasty, reconstituted, colorful foods from the hip flight attendant, just like in 2001: A Space Odyssey. This would be the new frontier, and Americans are always drawn to frontiers.

This We Dug: The Red Krayola

December 11, 2017October 28, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

Hi everyone! Dave Wallflower here again. Underground culture is a worldwide phenomenon. It is everywhere. It is all around us. It is like the air we breathe, the water we swim in (assuming that we are fish). In this the third edition of This We Dug, you will learn about Red Krayola, a band that helped form the collective Che Underground consciousness. They were like some of the water we fish swam in. This issue of This We Dug was supplied by Che alumni Paul Kaufman and Dave Fleminger, two guys who in turn provided more than a little of the underground air we breathed.

Austin, Texas, made some very high-profile contributions to the psychedelic scene, notably Roky Erikson’s 13th Floor Elevators. But there were other bands in that scene you should check out. The Bubble Puppy album is cool. But my all-time favorite album from this time and place is the second LP by Red Krayola, “God Bless the Red Krayola and all who Sail with It.” This came after their half-song, half-“free form freak-out” debut LP “The Parable of Arable Land,” which provided the immortal “Hurricane Fighter Plane” (notably covered by Boo in the mid-’90s).

David Anderson: Drummer at large

April 21, 2012October 24, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(Manual Scan/Lemons Are Yellow vet Paul Kaufman recognizes a man who set the pulse of the scene.)
Many contributors to Che Underground: The Blog have already mentioned David Anderson, a legendary figure in our musical history. To recap, he made major contributions to The Gravedigger V, The Answers, Manual Scan, The Crawdaddys, The Trebels and I Spy. This vast resumé reflects the fact that Dave was already a formidable drum talent by his early teens. At one point his kick drum read, “Your Band Name Here.”

But Dave was much more than just a guy behind the drum kit. Answers bandmate David Fleminger says, “I first met Dave (I think he was 13) when he was playing with I Spy. He’s an amazingly energetic and innovative talent who can lay down a foundation beat like no one else. A fantastic bandmate with a great sense of humor.”

“David Anderson? A legend!” Manual Scan co-founder Bart Mendoza recalls. “Some of my fondest tour stories involve him. We once snuck all our friends into the General Public shows we were opening in San Francisco and had one of the best parties ever. I remember playing bumper chairs as beer was spilled all over the floor of our dressing room at The Kabuki Theatre and the night getting pretty rowdy. David nearly caused a riot in Las Vegas because he went commando onstage. He played a squeaky-toy solo at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco.

Sucking in the ’60s

April 21, 2012October 22, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(Original recipe/extra crispy Manual Scan rhythm section Paul Kaufman and Dave Fleminger come to honor the decade, not to rile on it.)

Even the most hardcore among us admire some aspect of ’60s music and culture. And for some, this era still remains the zenith of everything that was cool. There were rapid changes in taste and style from one year to the next during that tumultuous time, and by the end of the decade the seeds of excess were already planted. So, we ask the simple question:

When did the ’60s jump the shark?

Some moments worth considering:

The assassination of Martin Luther King.
Death of Brian Epstein.
Death of Brian Jones.
Altamont.
Letting Phil Spector “produce” the Let it Be album.
Magical Mystery Tour.
Sonny Bono says “Music took a left turn.”