Reviving San Diego's Rock Renaissance
The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic have spawned a thousand new flowers of socially distanced creativity — and the artists of the Che Underground are tending their mind gardens for your delectation.
Case in point: This latest effort from P-Touch All Stars, which gives an old favorite a new cinematic treatment (with a little help from the Library of Congress’ film archives).
Plugger/Bums from Deep Space present their first joint under the Che Underground label. What happens after the fairy tale ends?
It’s been a long time, you know? I mean, a long time. Since she rode off with that guy while they stood waving their caps until she disappeared over the horizon line, a lot has happened (or should have happened?) — but nothing has really changed.
How long was she with them, anyway? (Outside of her crystal casket, I mean.) A week? It’s crazy how much difference that little bit of time made. But in the mines, time doesn’t move the same way. There aren’t the same visual cues. And the time you’re on the surface is that much clearer, but it’s brief, you know? Little pinholes in a black box.
Remember the pre-pandemic days when a few hundred close friends could pack together into a crowded club and make music?
Che Underground remembers: Viz. the collective manifestation of musical solidarity that transpired on Feb. 29 at La Mesa’s the Riviera Supper Club & Turquoise Lounge under the name “A Che Underground Leap Night Showcase.”
The gig featured a trio of Che Underground supergroups that brought special guests back onto a San Diego stage for the first time in more than 30 years.
Most rock-‘n’-roll historians know San Diego’s Che Underground scene as a mad scientist’s lab for musical experiments at the top of the ’80s.
Named for notable shows they staged at UC San Diego’s Che Café — but active across the region — the bands of the Che Underground brought together artists steeped in punk, psychedelia, garage and more. Throwing their influences into a high-speed blender, bands like The Answers, Hair Theatre, Noise 292, The Rockin’ Dogs, The Tell-Tale Hearts and the original SD Wallflowers provided a soundtrack for Southern California youth culture.
Four decades later, those musicians and artists continue to kick out the collective jams — and on Feb. 29, some of the best minds of that generation will stage a family reunion at the Riviera Supper Club & Turquoise Lounge for “A Che Underground Leap Night Showcase.” The night’s lineup of Che Underground supergroups will feature two stars of the scene who haven’t performed in San Diego for more than three decades: Jeremiah Cornelius and Tom Clarke.
As we prepare our Che Underground family reunion for Leap Night 2020, a highlight of this magnificent evening is a musical set fronted by by none other than Jeremiah Cornelius — back on a San Diego stage for the first time in decades.
Jerry Cornelius was a legendary presence on the scene: writing, illustrating, managing, MCing and otherwise setting the tone of the entire Che Underground. His taste was impeccable, and his influence extended across the bands of the era.
Check out the details of ‘A Che Undeground Leap Night Showcase’!
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!
(A new perspective on our old stomping grounds. Any other readers from the Che collective want to chime in?)
So, I am flipping through the Reader, and I see the short article about your site and I go check it out because back in the day I belonged to several lefty campus organizations that put on benefit concerts at the Che.
I recognized the name of your band, Noise 292, because of all the shows we did. I had one flyer saved from back in the day, and it has your band’s name on it along with The Front and The Odds. It was for a Feb. 24, 1984, concert [to benefit draft resister Michael Marsh] sponsored by the UCSD Committee Against Registration and the Draft which was a part of the Progressive Student Organization at the Che.
Che Games for May 2009 continues to pay dividends for aficionados of San Diego subculture, encapsulated here in two choice cuts from the reunited Lemons Are Yellow: “Thousand Island” and “America’s Finest City.”
The LAY lineup comprises Paul Kaufman (guitar, vocals); Dave Fleminger (guitar, vocals); Kristin Martin (bass, vocals); and Seth Affoumado (drums). Heather Vorwerck shot the performance, which opened the festivities May 29, 2009.
Here’s a song that’s traveled with me since age 16 (when I first translated the words from the 1923 poem by Tristan Tzara) and got its definitive treatment when we formed Noise 292 in 1982.
I’ve played “Chanson Dada” in a lot of bands since (and even recently found my translation had been covered by some wacky Scandinavians!), but it’s probably the composition of mine I identify most closely with Noise 292. That made it a special pleasure to perform at our reunion May 31, 2009, when we presented Che Games for May at San Diego’s Casbah.
I’ve written before on the blog about my oldest musical connection within our scene: with David (a k a Kavika) Rives, the fantastically talented lead guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for Noise 292. My musical association with Kavika began in eighth grade, ca. 1977, and was rekindled after a long separation when Noise 292 reunited to play Che Games for May 2009.
Here are two examples of Mr. Rives’ talent: his songs “Mr. Pumpkin” and “Talking in Circles.”
Read moreNoise 292 plays ‘Mr. Pumpkin’
b/w ‘Talking in Circles’