Personal History | The Che Underground

Cecil “P’Nut” Daniels speaks

December 18, 2017October 4, 2009 by admin

One of the most exciting revelations inspired by Che Underground: The Blog was the reintroduction to our circle of original Wallflowers drummer Cecil “P’Nut” Daniels.

His arrival from Texas in the early ’80s (under the name Aaron Daniels) and unlikely alliance with the nascent Wallflowers wrought a profound influence on the band and on other members of our crew, such as Kristen Tobiason and Patrick Works.

“Aaron elevated the proceedings,” writes Wallflowers bassist Paul Howland. “He showed me how to play slap-style bass, (which we called ‘Thumpin’ ’ or ‘Poppin’ ’); played me recordings of some of the best purveyors of that technique; and even showed me how to set up an amp properly to achieve the right sound to enhance the technique.

Read moreCecil “P’Nut” Daniels speaks

Lurkers welcome!

December 14, 2017October 1, 2009 by admin

Thank you! September 2009 was Che Underground: The Blog’s biggest month ever for page views … And if it had 31 days like most self-respecting months, it would’ve handily beaten the record for the largest number of individual visitors. (Our audience did breeze past the 8,000 mark without the neighbors calling in a single noise complaint.)

You’ve been coming back month after month for almost two years, and we’re very proud and grateful. We’d also enjoy hearing from you!

War Games

December 31, 2010September 24, 2009 by admin

(Wallflower/Blues Gangster/BeatHog Dave Rinck recounts a major skirmish in San Diego punk history.)

I wanna say it was the summer of ’80 or ’81 …

In those days, punk rock in San Diego was pretty much like a club that met at a mutually determined location every weekend. A secret underground planning system worked out the details of the meetings and spread them with military precision through a highly effective communications network.

The system functioned like this: A secret cabal of “Organizers,” consisting of the highest ranking punk rockers (like Marc Rude and any member of F.O.N.O.), would determine the event from a menu of options that included:

Beatles: Rock Band … The missing buttons

December 11, 2017September 9, 2009 by Paul Kaufman

(Paul Kaufman contemplates exciting new hacks for the Beatles simulation game.)

VH1 is in full promotional mode for the release of the The Beatles: Rock Band game. I’m an unabashed fan of the band, and I’m generationally marked as one who never tires of hearing these tunes and seeing the film footage. Seth Schiesel of the New York Times raves that “by reinterpreting an essential symbol of one generation in the medium and technology of another, The Beatles: Rock Band provides a transformative entertainment experience.”

I like that idea in concept, and teaching a new generation about this music via today’s electronic vernacular is a great idea. But somehow, hitting color-coded buttons in time to the music strikes me as a rather limited goal. As the technology grows, these are the buttons I’d like to be able to push:

‘You just keep me hanging on … ‘

December 11, 2017September 1, 2009 by admin

Group consciousness in action? In the weeks after so many of us got back together for May’s Che Games at the Casbah (and the lovely Graveyard Park picnic that followed), I was struck by the number of references to Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” dropped by attendees.

Never mind its post-“Trainspotting” ubiquity: “Perfect Day” remains a haunting paean to love and loss, as the narrator muses about a perfect day with a companion who made him feel like “someone else … Someone good.”

It’s also makes me think about the “perfect days” of our youth … And days that approach perfection now.

The quirky bits: Scribbles we love

February 7, 2018August 26, 2009 by admin

(Toby Gibson asks after our favorite filler.)

It’s fairly easy to guess that pretty much everyone who comes through this site is some pedigree of audiophile — many have already confirmed themselves as walking archives of music history and have shared some fantastic personal details and trivia.

It’s also fairly easy to imagine that I’m not the only person who keys in on tiny personal fragments (or funny quirks, or just neat bits) of songs that I wait for every time I hear them — someone talking in the background, either by design or unintentionally, funny melodic idiosyncrasies that stick in the mind to become that moment that you wait for.

Gone fishin’ …

September 14, 2009August 24, 2009 by admin

Well, not exactly — but a family vacation (and a petition by the family members who comprise it that I unplug a while) has slowed our regular programming cycle. Che Underground: The Blog has a wealth of archival treasures and challenging conversations waiting in the wings, but it may be a day or two before I can get the gears turning again.

What are you up to this summer?

… Which in itself suggests a topic I’d like to hear about! In this networked world of 2009, how do you balance the digital and the analog parts of your lives? I feel very lucky to share the former with all of you (and the latter with many of you), but how do you make time for each?

Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen

December 16, 2017August 21, 2009 by admin

I’ve belatedly read “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell’s marvelous little book on the critical mass required to create an epidemic — whether a literal, biological one or the adoption of ideas or products.

I’ve been comparing Gladwell’s ideas to the intense little scene we experienced in late ’70s/early ’80s San Diego. In particular, I’ve been thinking about the people that played the three key roles Gladwell describes as necessary for a movement to take off. Check out the definitions, and then think about the folks we hung around with back when we were young:

Mike Woods, 1961-2009

April 23, 2012August 14, 2009 by admin

Toby Gibson alerted me to this obituary from the San Diego Tribune and to the comments on a related MySpace page.

Mike and Lori 2000 “Michael Dean Woods, 48, of Corpus Christi, Texas, went home to be with his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, on Thursday June 25, 2009. Mike had a rare genetic disorder, Porphyria.

Mike Woods “Mike was born in Oregon on April 1, 1961. He is preceded in death by his parents, Dean and Phyllis, who raised him in San Diego, California. Michael worked hanging drywall, he also made custom rockscapes.

Peter, Paul and Mom: Hippies of our lives

December 18, 2017August 13, 2009 by admin

(Stop, children! What’s that sound? Robin Pugh Yi contemplates what’s goin’ down with the older generation.)

I have tickets to go to a Peter, Paul and Mary concert with my parents in a couple of weeks.

It’s a family ritual. My husband gets tickets to performances by old hippies like Tom Paxton and Arlo Guthrie. I sigh and ask if he isn’t yet tired of Baby Boomers’ belief that they are inventors and keepers of the Holy Grail of Perpetual Adolescence. How can he maintain a straight face listening to “Hair” lyrics?

Then I go, because he has tickets. And it means a lot to Mom to go with us, enthusiastically sing along, and elbow me when I roll my eyes.

Then, inevitably, something breaks down my guard. Pete Seeger sings “Abiyoyo,” or Judy Collins sings “In My Life,” and I am once again a little girl in the Summer of Love. My parents, my aunts and uncles, their friends are so young, so sweet and earnest and unaware of everything to come. Sincerely trying to teach their children well.