Personal History | 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

Hobbies and diversions

January 1, 2011April 7, 2009 by admin

Having known most of you best during one little window of our lives, in a scene focused on music, I really cherish the opportunity to learn about the before, after and sideways.

Over the past year, we’ve heard a lot of passing mentions of folks’ extracurricular activities — the stuff they loved as kids and the things they like to do now. I discovered that I wasn’t the only aspiring magician on the blog, we’ve learned about Patrick Works’ fascination with Russian in general and Rasputin in particular, Dean Curtis (and others) have shared their epicurean enthusiasms, Toby Gibson (and others) have cited their affinity for matters aquatic … The list goes on.

So, open question: Besides listening to and playing music, what did you like to do then? What do you like to do now? Do the dots connect, or would the kid you were then be surprised at the activities that amuse the grownup you’ve become?

Turning points

January 1, 2011April 2, 2009 by admin

(Miss Kristi Maddocks goes from crayons to perfume.)

It is not quite as dramatic as turning from the living to the undead, but each of us hipsters had a point in our youth where we were bitten by the bug of the underground.

This photo is a time capsule. It was taken early in the summer of 1980 and captures me on the verge of change. By this time I was attending shows at thr Del Mar Fairgrounds and the Distillery East. I obviously still had long hair, which was deemed very uncool by the punk girls, who used to try to cut it when I was at the big shows.

Read moreTurning points

Who’s next? Bands that mattered

March 30, 2019March 31, 2009 by admin

I’ve likened Che Underground: The Blog to one of those God’s eyes many of us made in the groovy ’70s: While the original effort has been focused on a small set of bands playing together in San Diego in the early ’80s, much of the beauty has come from the warp and weft of wider connections.

Along the way, we’ve talked about many local bands that influenced us and some later bands that shared members or aesthetics with the scenes and sub-scenes at the tight core of the site.

A few examples: Ray Brandes has done unprecedented historical research on the Crawdaddys, the Zeros and the Unknowns, and participants themselves have told us tales about Claude Coma and the IVs, the Injections, 5051, the Front, the Frame, Atrocity Exhibition and Structural Fracture, among others.

So, whose story should we tell next? Let’s discuss local bands you’d like to learn more about!

He’s a complicated man … Who’s your hero(ine)?

December 18, 2017March 23, 2009 by admin

(Patrick Works invokes a roll/role call of history.)

A long while back I went to see the remake of “Shaft.” I decided in the end that the movie fell kinda flat because the director missed a crucial half of the character. As I see it Shaft was Shaft because of two distinct things:

1. Shaft is a bad motherf*cker.
2. The chicks really dig him.

While Sam Jackson’s Shaft was definitely a pretty bad dude … Richard Roundtree he ain’t.
Then it occurred to me that Shaft was really a rock star character on screen … or that our rock stars are really screen stars on stage. Mick Jagger has of course explored this at length, as has David Bowie more fully and completely.

Now of course we have more than just music figures as role models, though so many of us fix on entertainment. Lately some dialog here has revolved around historical figures of influence so I thought I’d post the Lester Bangs Memorial Personality Survey:

Who in history is your underground hero? Punk progenitor? Fifth Column Forebearer?

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.

‘I saw a film today, oh boy’: A Che Underground feature film

October 18, 2014March 14, 2009 by admin

(Ray Brandes brings the casting couch to your browser.)

director's chair The characters and events of our youth, it has often been suggested, would make excellent material for a big budget, Hollywood drama. Imagine having $100 million to re-create a show at the Che Cafe, a late-night Presidio Park gathering, a line of scooters outside the Ken Cinema for a showing of “Quadrophenia,” or a fight behind the North Park Lions Club, for example, using some of the top names in the business today.

Earlier threads, back in the days of the Che Underground blog’s infancy, floated names like Christopher Walken, Shia LaBeouf, Johnny Depp and Daniel Radcliff (of Harry Potter fame) to play Steve Garris, Matthew Rothenberg, Jerry Cornelius and Bart Mendoza, respectively.

‘Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza, and Count the Head Lice on the Highway’

January 1, 2011March 5, 2009 by admin

(Ray Brandes offers a brief history of misheard lyrics in rock ‘n’ roll.)

Music fans have long been thwarted by misinterpretations of lyrics mumbled by rock ‘n’ rollers, with often hilarious results called “mondegreens.” Numerous such misinterpretations were to be found in the Kingsmen’s 1963 version of Richard Berry’s “Louie, Louie,” and led to an FBI obscenity investigation after a parent wrote of her disgust with the lyrics to then Attorney General Robert Kennedy. In his book about “Louie, Louie” Richard Marsh describes the phenomenon:

Back in 1963, everyone who knew anything about rock ‘n’ roll knew that the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” concealed dirty words that could be unveiled only by playing the 45 rpm single at 33-1/3. This preposterous fable bore no scrutiny even at the time, but kids used to pretend it did, in order to panic parents, teachers, and other authority figures.

More mod match-ups from Elker deMello

January 1, 2011February 28, 2009 by admin

Dancing Skeleton scooter club co-founder- turned- Che Underground benefactor Elker deMello’s generous bequest of mod-themed photography continues to enrich our understanding of early-’80s San Diego’s scootering classes.

While the pictures are there in abundance — many of them shot at Ski Beach or Seaport Village — details are sketchy on some of them. Can you help fill in the blanks?

Son of Che: Underground Express at Dass, Nairobi

January 1, 2011February 19, 2009 by admin

(Peripatetic Wallflower Dave Rinck extends the Che Underground to East Africa.)

Somebody called me on the phone … They said, “Hey! Is David home?” It was Gilbert Barthe, lead guitarist of my current band the Beathogs. “We’re all down at Dass. You wanna come down and play a show in about 45 minutes?” Well, sure, I thought. Why not? I was always under the impression that Dass was just this sort of funky Ethiopian restaurant located on the second floor of a grim concrete building on this crazy street of bars in Westlands (a part of Nairobi near where I live). But anyway, I was at this lame party, kinda bored, so I though well what the hell … it’d be more fun than staying here. So I grabbed my guitar and headed on down.

Next thing you know, I found myself climbing this narrow cement staircase up to the second floor of this dusty old building. I knew the place on the first floor was Havanas, a nightclub and restaurant that a friend of mine named Zelalem deejays at, attracting huge unruly mobs some nights that spill off the sidewalk out front and into the street until all hours. I myself had frequently held court over plates of fish almondine on linen tablecloths and huge carafes of wine in the backrooms of that place well after midnight. But I’d never made the haul up to the second floor. Well, that was all about to change …