Uncategorized | The Che Underground

The Zeros: I Don’t Wanna Be a Hero, I Just Wanna Be a Zero

March 27, 2019October 6, 2008 by admin

(Excerpts from Tell-Tale Heart/Town Crier Ray Brandes’ account of San Diego’s punk originators. Read the full version in Che Underground’s Related Bands section.)

Javier Escovedo: vocals, guitar
Hector Penalosa: bass, vocals
Robert Lopez: guitar, vocals
Baba Chenelle: drums

The Zeros, often referred to affectionately as the “Mexican Ramones,” cannot only justifiably lay claim to being San Diego’s first “punk” rock group but also can brag about being one of the first punk groups in the United States.

In a brief but brilliant career highlighted by some classic recordings as well as shows with the Clash and Devo, the Zeros played the first big punk shows in both Los Angeles and in San Diego as early as 1977, when they were still high-school students. It is a testament to the drive and spirit of these pointy-toed revolutionaries that such a group was able to spring from the sleepy suburbs of National City and Chula Vista at a time when greater San Diego was both indifferent to and unimpressed by counterculture movements of any kind.

“Sister Heat”

August 2, 2017October 5, 2008 by admin

(Jeremiah Cornelius describes the genesis of one of the great lost collaborations of post-Che Underground San Francisco.)

“Sister Heat is on slow drip — Someone blew her fuses”

A critical, high-concept description of my input to “Sister Heat” is “The Damned cover Bauhaus” — both of which were inspirations and targets for satire. The resulting style is a sub-genre of Glam that I call “Mock Bombastic” – A hallmark of both Romulus Johnson’s Deep Six and King Therapy, which were to follow in the next years.

The words for this song were written during a whirlwind of confusion that seems temporally located in the first half of 1985. It was conceived of as one of a dozen or so songs that I’d penned for a vaguely imagined power-trio. The ingredients for this concoction were a rooted in my revulsion at the general idea of intravenous entertainment — and a specific dismay at the introduction of a couple of young ladies to the pastime. Add large doses of imagery from Michael Moorcock books, half-digested Nietzsche and a steady diet of histrionic rock performers, and you get the kind of song that Dave Rinck hates!

This We Dug: X-ray Spex

December 16, 2017September 19, 2008 by admin

(In the first installment of a new series, Dave Rinck takes the mic in praise of germ-free adolescence.)

Hi guys, this is Dave Wallflower. Here on the Che Underground Web site, we’ve mentioned in passing a lot of the very cool bands outside the SD music scene that inspired us, excited us or are simply cool bands to listen to.

Well, not everyone may be familiar with all of these bands, so in this new series I plan to talk about bands we’ve dug through the years, why we dug them and what they’re doing now. Here we go!

The other day I put X-ray Spex on over the iPod at a party, and people around me reacted like I’d lost my mind. “This band is loud and noisy,” someone complained, “and the singer is screaming.” Hmmm … Yes, that’s all true, but exactly what is it that you don’t like about them?

Rolling with the Nashville Ramblers

March 27, 2019August 28, 2008 by admin

(Gravedigger V/Nashville Ramblers bass player Tom Ward peruses the Cyndie Jaynes Photo Collection for stories behind the photos.)

Among Cyndie Jaynes’ photos, I recognize a subset of black-and-white images from the Cavern Club, Hollywood, in 1985. My old band the Nashville Ramblers is featured in the pictures. These particular photos show us in our earliest phase.

The lead photo of the subset captures a once-ever moment: [guitarist/vocalist] Carl Rusk and me onstage with Claudia Brandes. She made a guest appearance with us to sing—as best Carl, [drummer/vocalist] Ron Silva and I can recall—a cover of Manfred Mann’s 1964 pop hit, “Do Wah Diddy.”

The equipment we are using is our 1985 gear, and you can just barely see a Vox Essex amplifier peeking out of the photo. Carl is using the first of several Hagstrom guitars that he would employ, a pale blue one that may have come from or gone to Ron Silva. My bass here is a 1966 Framus Star bass.

Then and now: Adams Avenue Theater

April 14, 2012August 21, 2008 by admin

(Roving correspondent/ photographer Kristen Tobiason revisits and documents the scenes of our youth. Today, the Adams Avenue Theater meets “Project Runway”!)

No one could have imagined that this hallmark of our glory days, the Adams Avenue Theater (3325 Adams Ave.), would metamorphose into something so random as Discount Fabrics. I don’t think it’s as humiliating as it is simply bizarre.

The humiliation occurred in the late ’80s, during the venue’s brief reincarnation as the Purple Rain Club. The transforming of a theater into a fabric store has a thread of irony that keeps San Diego “weird.” Frankly, I prefer it to the gentrification that has sucked the charm out of other neighborhoods.

Discount Fabrics never remodeled. Outside of the merchandise, everything looks the same as it did. A quarter-century later, there is still a reflection of the building’s punk-rock roots. Shadows still linger, and I can imagine an entryway streaked with the scuff of Doc Martens and cigarette butts; blood, sweat and spit in the hall; the pit, a cluster of motion, like hornets, swinging fists and bodies, a stage bomb, a swan dive from the balcony …

Scooters in San Diego

December 11, 2017July 23, 2008 by admin

(Answers/Manual Scan/I Spy bassist Tony Suarez talks scooters with some help from the Cyndie Jaynes Collection of photos.)
Scooters — Vespas and Lambrettas in particular — were primary transport for many mods and punk kids even before the appearance of the Who movie “Quadrophenia” in late 1979. They were cheap and plentiful. You had three places to buy them (Vespa at the Beaches, Vespa of San Diego, Moped Mama). They showed up in the Reader Classifieds on the cheap.

Bart Mendoza relates that there were a few mods already in circulation by 1979. Dean Curtis, Kristine and James Harrell, Dennis Borlek, and Steve Medico were early adopters, and the movie just added to the interest.

These photos of San Diego mods and scooterists at Ski Beach in Mission Bay date from around 1984:

More sides of David Klowden

March 27, 2019July 21, 2008 by admin

(5051 and Tell-Tale Hearts veteran David Klowden continues to explore his back pages with more artifacts of his crucified youth.)

Here are both sides of the 8 1/2 x 14 insert that was folded up and stuck in each of the records [the 1981 EP by seminal San Diego punk band 5051, vocals by David Klowden].

Also, two photos.

First is the only Crucified Youth-era (1980) photo I have of David GI (the punk nickname given me by Marc Rude — some thought I was called “GI” because of the ubiquitous Army jacket, but the real reason was because I was a Germs fan and that was the name of their album.) This picture was taken in San Carlos in front of the house between mine and Dennis Quick’s.

Hyphenates

December 16, 2017June 2, 2008 by admin

Ray Brandes’ incisive revelations about his Mexican-American identity and Kristi Maddocks’ remarks about feminism in the context of the early-’80s San Diego underground prompt another complex discussion: How many of us had another ethnic, sexual or cultural identity that colored our personal view of the San Diego underground?

Me first: I was certainly aware of the other Jewish kids in the scene, and I know many of us of the Hebrew persuasion read special irony into swastikas and other signifiers in some punk quarters. (SD underground veteran and friend-with-benefits of Che Underground D.A. Kolodenko has dealt intelligently with this Jewish-punk identity in his fiction.)

Fab gear! Glide rides!

December 11, 2017March 10, 2008 by

By popular demand, here’s an official thread to geek out on the equipment we boasted back in the day. What axes and amps did you lug to shows? And while we’re at it, how’d you get them there?

I’m the guitar-tech Luddite of the group: Series IV blonde Guild Starfire (much coveted and emulated by the far superior Noise 292 guitarist Dave Rives, to my eternal pride); turquoise Fender Musicmaster bass; and the much-discussed Vox Essex bass amp. I don’t think I even owned a guitar amp during Noise 292’s run!

I drove the gear in my folks’ red Dodge van, which popped a hose and leaked gasoline all over the Headquarters parking lot the night we opened for the Pandoras and the Answers. I came out to find firetrucks everywhere. (Later, we lined this van with aluminum foil to film the abortive late-phase Noise 292 feature movie, a “Let It Be”-worthy spectacle that resulted in a group of us being detained by the police outside the House of Naugahyde.)

This week, I’ve talked to …

December 17, 2017March 4, 2008 by

Journey-is-the-reward department: Our Che Underground reclamation project is proving an amazing opportunity to exercise the phone chops I honed back in the day as an investigative tech reporter. Plus, I get the chance to interact with an assortment of fascinating characters old and new. Here are a few I encountered this week:

Doug Moody, founder of Mystic Records, which of course included the Wallflowers on one of its compilations. What a great raconteur! Much wonderful history locked up in that skull.
Greg Stumph, genial bassist for Bottle of Smoke, a Seattle band Wallflowers guitarist Tom Clarke was in a few years back. Greg showed a lot of hospitality to this cold-calling stranger and helped me get closer to locating Tommy.
Certainly not least: Sergio! Our elusive Hair Theatre vocalist and reclusive genius is alive and well and happy about our history project. I look forward to adding his artifacts to our virtual treasure chest.

And it’s only Tuesday! Let’s see who else turns up.