Reviving San Diego's Rock Renaissance
How do we do what online?
Time for a little topical palate-cleanser after all this rear-view mirror-gazing: I want to know if we really are the people our parents warned us about. (Well, not mine, considering some of their friends — but maybe yours. Maybe.)
Here’s the question: If you had the chance to spend half an hour chatting with yourself ca. 1983, what would the 1983 you have to say about the 2008 you? (Let’s say you couldn’t reveal your identity or tell yourself to buy Microsoft.)
As the Che Underground history tour gains speed, I keep getting the greatest stuff from all you wonderful people! Thank you for every beautiful audiovisual scrap of it — my biggest challenge is finding the time to move it all online and the technique to present it to its best advantage, but it’s all appreciated and will ultimately have a happy home here.
Our flyer gallery is picking up steam, as is our performance history page. (To create a nice frame of historical reference while keeping things manageable, I’m concentrating on the years 1981 through 1985 … But I want to hear about what years and what assets are important to you.) The related bands section is also slowly gaining traction; authors and bands welcome. Please visit — and please help fill in the many gaps that still exist!
In a brief break with the past, Personal Conflict bassist-turned-punk-historian par excellence Toby Gibson suggests an amusing palate-cleanser to catch up with our present doings: What is everyone listening to today, and what are your guilty musical pleasures?
“I’m presently working on a pointless short story whose conclusion has been eluding me while my kid naps on the couch,” Toby writes to tee things up, “and I’m listening to Joe Jackson’s old stuff on the headphones. Twenty years ago there’s just no chance — no way — I never would have guessed this is where I’d be right now here today, but I guess to some extent there’s just no predicting what path a certain person will end up taking. I certainly was ‘too punk’ to admit to enjoying Joe Jackson — or about a million other bands and performers I missed until much later in life. Sad but true.”
A lovely aspect of the Che Underground scene was how cheerfully it blended San Diego genres and geographies. We all had our influences and constituencies, and any evening with our bands was sure to bring different crowds into new alignments.
We’ve started a new Related Bands section of the blog to celebrate our bushy family tree with profiles of the San Diego bands we sprang from, performed alongside and created down the road. Ray Brandes has continued his support of this site with a fine profile of the Tell-Tale Hearts; who else’s pictures and stories do you want to see here?
Whacky…yeah we had a lot of parties. Most of you got laid or arrested there.
Pretty quickly we learned that most of our friends were cool, some were knuckleheads, and then we knew a few named Dave. Dave Rinck was our inspiration here…so rather than castigate them we decided to celebrate them…hence the 3 different parties called Dave Fest.
The first was The Wallflowers, Manual Scan, and the Tell Tale Hearts. That was the Hearts’ first gig if I remember correctly. That one was broken up when Arturo of SDSH used a Mission Hills mod I had a feud with as a battering ram and broke the toilet…whence we learned the rule “always put the keg outside.”
Dave Fest 2 was promoted quite a bit more widely, finally resulting in radio DJs in SF and LA announcing in for a week, bands from LA calling asking to be allowed to play…and yeah…that was broken up too when the guy we brought in to do security told all his friends to come and a couple of them had just got out of jail that day…they kinda ran amok, but they were not Red and White. Just SDSH associates.
That one was the Wallflowers, and the Hearts again, the Answers, and The Pandoras (they never got to play but they got paid)
I called the cops on that one myself. It was out of hand.
Dave Fest 3 was 10 bands for $10 at Che Cafe…get the keg out of the bathroom, and take it to the other end of town! Too many bands to name, but we had Noise, Hair, Hearts, Flowers, and on and on. I left town after that one.
Door policy at the house parties was as follows:
$3 admission, $2 if you wore your sunglasses after dark, and FREE if your name was Dave.
We had a lot of great times at 2866 E St. Many of our friends came to live there for extended periods of time. My mom (the much loved Linda) and I sat down and counted all the kids who at one time or other actually lived there (not just staying for the weekend) and it was over 26 names. You know who you are and are still loved.
Ironically after all the wild times I had with all of you, my little brother’s friends moved in after I left for SF and they ended up looting the house. Nobody would believe that this was my brother’s friends doing…it had to be me. Funny.
BTW I am throwing another party March 13 here in Watsonville to open my new studio. I mailed out 400 invitations and personally invited another 200 people. You are all invited too. Drop me a note and I’ll give you directions.
I still have the bug…heheheheheheheheh The local chamber of commerce actually sent me a flyer on “how to throw a successful party”. LOL
BEZEEYINGYOU
Things that confuse me so far about this blog:
1. It looks like I needed to approve you guys’ comments to make them appear. I’d like to skip that pre-approval step in the interest of faster gratification.
2. I don’t know why the first post was dated May 2007??
3. Has anybody registered successfully yet? I just talked to Cole onna phone, and he was going to try.
4. I’d like to tart up the appearance, but I haven’t figured out how to upload themes.
This site and blog will be the gathering spot for us to assemble the inside story on the vibrant scene that flowered in San Diego around 1983 and 1984 and performed many of its most crucial shows at UCSD’s Che Cafe.
This “Che Underground” encompassed the varied sounds of the Answers, Hair Theatre, Noise 292, the Rockin’ Dogs, and the original and definitive Wallflowers. It spawned collaborations and friendships that have lasted a quarter-century. But it produced few artifacts and monuments, since the participants were frankly too busy enjoying the creative milieu to document it systematically.
We plan to change that. Welcome to the Che Underground!