Then and Now | The Che Underground

Mark your calendars for ‘A Che Underground Midwinter Masque’!

February 15, 2022November 12, 2021 by Mmrothenberg

Mark ye well: A neat two years since “A Che Underground Leap Night Showcase,” the tribes will gather again in February 2022 for an effervescent weekend of mirth and music.

“A Che Underground Midwinter Masque,” Feb. 18 and Feb. 19 at The Casbah San Diego, will feature legends of the San Diego scene and beyond.

Fancy dress is highly encouraged but not required. (Stay tuned for costume contest details.)

And check out this boffo lineup (with more names to come)!

Then and now: Tim Mays, SD impresario magnífico

October 13, 2020 by Mmrothenberg

Those of us who came up in the San Diego scene at the turn of the ’80s were privileged to witness Tim Mays’ emergence as a promoter and club owner. Over the ensuing decades, it’s hard to think of anyone who’s done more to keep San Diego on the musical map.

To reboot our Then and Now feature, Tim has provided Che Underground: The Blog with an exclusive history of his career — and his insights about the future of live music in San Diego as we all contend with the challenges of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

From there to here

I put on my first show in Barstow, the town I grew up in, in 1979. It featured a hard rock band from Orange County and a friend’s band from Barstow — smashing success.

After that, a friend and I decided to put on a show in East Hollywood at Baces Hall, which, unbeknownst to us, had been the site of a show a couple years earlier that ended in a riot. This show was Weirdos, the Plugz, Suburban Lawns, and San Diego’s Penetrators.

We turned away people at the door, and the next thing I know, I’m getting a call from Laura Fraser asking if I would be interested in becoming her partner in the Skeleton Club. This was early 1980. I gave her a check for $1,000 and became her partner. This was the second incarnation of the Skeleton Club and was located at the corner of Market Street and 2nd Ave, two blocks from the police station at the time. We got hassled constantly by SDPD and had to close down in May 1980 over permit issues.

Really, quite a Comeuppance or two!

April 7, 2014March 6, 2014 by Jeremiah Cornelius

The Che’Underground’s very own David Fleminger has been granted a flattering profile in the San Diego Troubadour: “The Perpetual Flowering of DAVID FLEMINGER.” It’s a well-deserved tribute, that captures a significant side of Dave’s multifaceted career. David’s protean musical talent is given richly deserved attention, from with a comprehensive retrospective of his history in both San Diego and the Bay area. Says David, “I think a lot of the music that really moves me makes some sort of a statement. …it’s more than just an advertisement for a place and a lifestyle.”

Also published by the Troubadour, this last year, is a very fine review for The Comeuppance – David’s project with his wife, Heather Vorwerck. The group is already familiar to those, lucky enough to attend the 2010 festivities for the Che reunion shows at San Diego’s Casbah Nightclub.

Check it out!

Che Underground turns five!

December 17, 2017February 16, 2013 by Mmrothenberg

Five years ago today, I posted the first entry to Che Underground: The Blog. I’d been talking to some old friends about a place where we could share sounds and images from our musical youth in San Diego, and this turned out to be the handiest solution.

Soon Rockin’ Dog Dave Ellison created our striking design, and contributors including Ray Brandes, Kristen Tobiason, Paul Kaufman, David Fleminger and so many others enriched the site beyond anything I could have hoped.

And my, how we grew! Hundreds of stories … Tens of thousands of comments and visitors. This little corner of the Web let so many revisit so much and introduced a whole new audience to the things we created back at the dawn of the ’80s.

The earth has made five solar revolutions since then, and most of us are still here on it. Looking back, I think we’ve moved in good directions, and I’m proud of any part this place played in bringing us back together.

Back to the Gaslamp!

December 13, 2017March 15, 2010 by Mmrothenberg

A quick one, while he’s away: I’m blogging from the Hilton in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, where I’ve arrived for a very short conference. In all my years of business travel, this is my first event in San Diego … And I do believe this is my first time in this part of SD since moving away in February 1987!

Thanks to Kristen Tobiason’s documentary efforts via her “Then and Now” series, we’ve virtually revisited sites of past glories before this neighborhood was cleaned up and relabeled the Gaslamp: the Zebra Club/Saigon Palace, Greenwich Village West, Studio 517, Funland …

My time is short and packed with grown-up business, but I’m hoping for a few minutes to stroll the old ‘hood. What do you think I’d see, if I could walk away from me?

Then and now: The Che Cafe

August 20, 2011September 14, 2009 by Mmrothenberg

(High time! Che Underground documentarian Kristen Tobiason revisits the spot that gave the blog its name.)

The first time I landed on the surface of the Che Café was at an early-evening soundcheck for the Wallflowers (not the Jakob Dylan pansy MTV sensation, but the raw & funky, OG Wallflowers), who were opening that night for Noise 292.

Arriving and styling in Paul Howland’s parents’ green station wagon, we unloaded a couple pieces of equipment, and then proceeded to hang out in the woodsy picnic areas surrounding the venue, creating a smoky haze amidst talk of music and the humor of Tom and Paul’s use of ordinary soap as an alternative to dime-store hair gel.

Then and now: San Diego!

January 1, 2011May 8, 2009 by Mmrothenberg

(Kristen Tobiason rolls out the red carpet for Che Games for May.)

With the reunion happening at the end of this month, many of you will be trekking back to your original stomping grounds after many years of estrangement. Much like the sweetheart you were squeezing 25 years ago, time has changed the landscape.

I vividly remember the car ride to the grand opening of the Wild Animal Park in 1972. The drive north to Escondido was unfettered with the suburban sprawl that congests it today. There were cows grazing, clusters of eucalyptus trees, a checkered water tower. For years we looked to the north as Los Angeles spread like a virus, choking the groves of Orange County with highways and strip malls. “Thank god for Camp Pendleton,” we’d say.

The government-owned coastal stretch from Oceanside to San Clemente seemed like a fortress, like a desert between Sodom and Paradise. But with the real-estate Gold Rush of the ’90s, we were no longer an oasis. San Diego’s population skyrocketed to over 3 million. Those cows are long gone, and in their place, a Target, a Starbucks and many Olive Garden-type feeding troughs.

So when you come back to San Diego, you may notice some big changes:

Liberty Station, formerly NTC Base SD

June 30, 2009April 20, 2009 by Mmrothenberg

(A curious bit of ephemera: An author named Matt Rhodes stopped by the blog; added this evocatively written item and one other piece; then moved along, never to participate again. I appreciate it both as a historical touchpoint and a found object. If anyone is in touch with Mr. Rhodes, please thank him for the donation and invite him back.)

San Diego easily forgets. A perfect example is the City’s botched attempt to convert the old Naval Training Base (on Rosecrans) into yet another strip mall for tourists and transplants alike.

In 1993, the NTC was closed down by the Navy and sold to city developers for millions of dollars. The 361-acre development is in a good location: on the waterfront just west of the airport and only a couple miles from downtown San Diego. The project has been noted for its renovation of dozens of historical buildings that will be adapted for stores, offices, schools, and other purposes.

The base was gutted by developer/contractor Corky McMillan.

Then and now: Graveyard Park

January 1, 2011January 26, 2009 by Mmrothenberg

(Roving correspondent Kristen Tobiason revisits the scenes of our past glories. Today, we find out where the bodies are buried — or not.)

“You moved the headstones, but you didn’t move the bodies!” In the Stephen Spielberg film “Poltergeist,” a suburban family is attacked by malevolent spirits provoked by a relocated graveyard.

Calvary Cemetery, a k a “Pioneer Park,” (1501 Washington Place in Mission Hills) shares a similar history (tho’ the only spirits I’ve heard of there are those of the bottled variety). Historically, the area served as a Catholic graveyard “between 1875 and 1919, with burials continuing up until 1960.” In 1970 the cemetery was converted into a public park, and “the grave markers (but not the people) were removed. A group of some of the gravestones were clustered together and a central memorial was placed in the southeast corner of the park. The exact number of people buried there isn’t known, but research alludes to possibly 4,000 burials which have occured there.”

Then and now: New Year’s resolutions

December 14, 2017December 31, 2008 by Mmrothenberg

(Roving correspondent Kristen Tobiason revisits the scenes of our past glories. Today, we take a cup of — non-alcoholic — kindness yet for auld lang syne.)

Making a list and checking it twice. … It’s that time again. Time to make the list we never keep — Empty promises to our inner selves: To get on the wagon; quit smoking; lose 10 pounds; leave the ball and chain; or finally quit the job at the factory and become a rock star, for real this time!

Having already quit smoking, I am finding that my resolutions this year are not groundbreaking attempts at reform but just some small quality-life tweakings. It’s pretty tame.

Here’s what my current list looks like:
1. Return to 5x/week yoga.
2. Get the turntable fixed.
3. Write more and maybe even get out the drawing pencils.
4. Remember to send out b’day cards and thank-you notes.
5. Quit freaking out about getting older.
6. Meditate regularly.

I can imagine what my resolutions would have been when I was younger! (Yipes.)
Maybe something like this: