This site and blog will be the gathering spot for us to assemble the inside story on the vibrant scene that flowered in San Diego around 1983 and 1984 and performed many of its most crucial shows at UCSD’s Che Cafe.
This “Che Underground” encompassed the varied sounds of the Answers, Hair Theatre, Noise 292, the Rockin’ Dogs, and the original and definitive Wallflowers. It spawned collaborations and friendships that have lasted a quarter-century. But it produced few artifacts and monuments, since the participants were frankly too busy enjoying the creative milieu to document it systematically.
We plan to change that. Welcome to the Che Underground!
Trying to figure out how comment controls work from the control-panel side … Am I live?
Nice one Matthew, although i’m not sure how you posted from May 18th 2007.
“Matthew Rothenberg Says:
May 18th, 2007 at 12:21 am
Trying to figure out how comment controls work from the control-panel side … Am I live?”
Can you time travel? If so let us all know. I’d like to visit “Dave Fest” as an audience member. Of course it would probably be prudent to keep my presence secret. Is anyone on here a master of disguise?
“You Are There…take one”
Matthew,
This is awesome! It will definitely help to keep track of stuff.
Your email said something about registering, but I can’t figure out how to do that.
Matthew,
Sorry to be a pain in the ass, but can I change my registered name? I want to be Dave Ellison instead of David E.
Paul Howland,
Hello! It’s been years since I’ve seen you. Im in L.A. now and miss the whole San Diego music scene…and no need to apologize about my car “that one time”. 🙂
Dave Ellison: The back-office controls tell me I can’t change your registered name; instead, I changed your nickname to “Dave Ellison” and told the software to display your posts by nickname going forward. Whatever all that means! 🙂 Let’s see if it works.
Okay, I admit I’ve been remiss in contributing, but here’s a brief, and hopefully fun, questionnaire to get some balls rolling. I was going for a dozen questions, but got a little carried away. If everybody would give it a go, we’d have a slew of juicy content to chew on.
Bon appetite babies:
1) How did you join/or start the band?
2) What is your strongest memory of a specific performance?
3) What’s the funniest thing that happened at a gig?
4) What was the scariest thing that happened at a gig?
5) What were band rehearsals like?
6) Who was your favorite person in the scene? Why?
7) What’s your favorite story of just hanging out?
8 ) What was your favorite show that you played, and that you witnessed?
9) If you could go back and do it over again, what would you do different?
10) What was your personal musical path after leaving the scene?
11) What was your opinion of San Diego at the time?
12) What were some of your favorite shows by commercially successful bands you saw play in San Diego?
13) What’s your favorite story (true or fictional) about something that happened in or around the scene?
14) Did you ever have a doppelganger sighting?
Just in case you feel like you missed Episode 1 of the Che Underground blog opera, here it is. (House-cleaning gives me a chance to revisit all our greatest hits, so I figured I’d resurface the first post ever while I was here!)