Performance History | The Che Underground

‘I was a Shambles drummer’

January 1, 2011May 22, 2009 by admin

(Bart Mendoza of Manual Scan and the Shambles counts off drummers he’s worked with.)

No doubt about it: Kevin Donaker-Ring and I have worked with a lot of drummers over the decades, keeping in mind that we first began our team-up in 1976.

Here are a few of the incredible musicians who have spent time behind a drum kit with Manual Scan or the Shambles over the past 30-plus years. Not pictured: Paul Brewin, Morgan Young, Terry Moore, Rob Wilson, Trace Smith, Brad Kiser. … There’s a future post there.

1) “I was a Shambles drummer” pin. People have sat in with the band for one song to obtain one of these.

From Scan to the Shambles

January 1, 2011May 16, 2009 by admin

(Bart Mendoza of Manual Scan and the Shambles talks about how he got from there to here.)

Of course the various members of the Shambles knew each other for years before the band’s formation, but I can put down the beginnings of the band to two events.

In the late ’80s, Kevin Donaker-Ring co-produced Manual Scan’s “Days & Maybes” EP with Ray Brandes (side note: humorous liners by Mike Stax), and we were all part of a group of musicians that frequented Megalopolis on Fairmount Ave., often playing round-robin style — David Moye and Jon Kanis amongst the round-robiners who didn’t end up in the band (though we did back up Kanis on a compilation-album track).

Gigs that hooked you

January 1, 2011May 13, 2009 by admin

Hey! Let’s talk about music, and San Diego, and San Diego music …

A long, long time ago, Che Underground: The Blog hosted a thread about our musicians’ first times on stage. Let’s reach even further back into the collective memory banks and talk a bit about those formative shows that made you feel like part of a scene of interesting people listening to interesting sounds.

We’ve talked about many local bands and a slew of notable visitors at venues ranging from the Skeleton Club to the Zebra Club to the International Blend/Kings Road Cafe … Adams Ave. Theater to the North Park Lions Club et al.

Now, which ones came first for you, and why?

Let the games begin!

March 27, 2019April 26, 2009 by admin

(Tell-Tale Heart/Town Crier Ray Brandes lays the table for May’s audio feast.)

The Che Underground Weekend Showcase:
Celebrating more than 25 years of San Diego’s underground music history

An incredible opportunity to reconnect, reminisce and rediscover will unfold as 25 years and thousands of miles of distance disappear in a single weekend — May 29 and 30 at the Casbah in San Diego.

The lineups have been set, the bands are rehearsing, and the drinks are on ice. Here’s what to expect:

The Mirrors: “Blue”

May 9, 2015April 22, 2009 by admin

(Answers and Mirrors co-founder Dave Fleminger talks transitions.)

Blue: The Mirrors live at the Che Cafe, Spring 1984

“This one’s called ‘Blue,’ and we’re gonna make it up … ”

Sometime in late May 1984 the Mirrors played our last performance in San Diego at UCSD’s Che Cafe. The band had formed in late ’83 after the fall of the Answers and in March recorded an as-yet-unreleased album of songs entitled “Have No Mercy.” In June I moved to NYC, but we would continue to record sporadically over the next couple years.

This we Dug: Wire

April 23, 2012April 17, 2009 by Paul Kaufman

(Guest columnist Paul Kaufman picks his favorite late ’70s LP as part of the ongoing series originated by Wallflowers frontman David Rinck.)

Best album from 1977? There’s a lot of competition. Of course, a lot of press covered the Sex Pistols’ “Never Mind the Bollocks” and the first Clash album; deservedly so.

But if I had to choose just one from that year to take to a desert isle, it would be “Pink Flag” by Wire. This primitive collection of 20 very short songs (some under 1 minute) dramatically threw down the aesthetic gauntlet back then: all you boring, epic-writing, guitar soloing prog rockers are now obsolete. Without the overt political slogans of the time, they were nevertheless revolutionary in their sound and approach. Spare three chord music; spare imagery:

UETA and the Beathogs: Live at Underground Express at Dass, Nairobi

January 1, 2011April 5, 2009 by admin

(Wallflower Dave Rinck files an update from Africa.)

March 19 the Underground Express rolled on at Dass in Nairobi. We had a particularly awesome night out, largely due to a rare visit from my own very favorite Kenyan rock band, UETA.

Consisting of three brothers and a cousin, UETA is one of the hardest-rocking bands on the local scene. They mixed heavy metal with a mini-set of acoustic numbers to create a really dynamic show that left the audience (literally) screaming for more.

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!

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.