“Manual Penetration” at the Casbah Jan. 30!

Next Saturday’s Che Underground showcase at San Diego’s Casbah continues to gain star power: Manual Scan announces a Penetrators-themed show-within-a-show featuring two members of that legendary band.

Manual Scan’s Kevin Donaker-Ring explains the circumstances that brought Penetrators bassist Chris Sullivan and guitarist Chris Davies to the Casbah show, which will also feature the Unknowns, the Town Criers and the Blues Gangsters.

“Bart [Mendoza] and I were always big Pens fans,” Kevin writes. “Back in the day, neither of us drove (Bart still doesn’t), and we’d have to rely on friends to get us to the shows. I even remember seeing them at a high-school dance — but not our high school. We snuck in. (I recall after the show [vocalist] Gary [Heffern] asked me the same question he always did back then — ‘When are you gonna cut your fuckin’ hair?’)

Download a flyer by Town Criers drummer David Klowden!

“So, being the fans we are, I thought it would be a nice tribute for Scan to do a Penetrators song. Maybe two. I mentioned this to Bart who then suggested asking Chris Sullivan to join us — great idea. So I fired off a message to Gary on Facebook just to gauge his reaction. He was flattered, which made me very happy. I then had the idea to do the first Pens EP — ‘Untamed Youth,’ ‘Vengeance’ and ‘Be American.’ Partly because there’s a link there — Scott Harrington, Penetrators guitarist on that first EP, produced the first Manual Scan EP, Plan of Action. Later, Scan played a couple of gigs at the Backdoor with Scott on bass and Joel Kmak (former Hitmakers drummer and now the current drummer for the Penetrators and The Farmers) on drums. Ahhh, how incestuous this San Diego music scene is!

“Well, to cut a long story short, plans (and song choices) evolved. I got in touch with Chris Sullivan, who then got in touch with Chris Davies. Both are going to be joining us on stage for four Penetrators songs. Somewhere through this, when I realized that there’d be something on the order of half of each band, a name sprang to mind: Manual Penetration.”

More Manual Scan news: On Tuesday, Jan. 26, Manual Scan will appear on CW-6 TV’s “San Diego Living” program at 9 a.m. The band will appear in the show’s last half hour.

Then that night, Manual Scan will go into Signature Sound Studios with producer Alan Sanderson (Rolling Stones/Weezer) to record a special edition of “The Pyles Sessions,” to be broadcast later on host Tim Pyles’ FM94.9 show.

Here’s the show so far:

• The Unknowns — guitarist Mark Neill, bassist Dave Doyle and drummer Craig Packham — will make their first live performance in more than five years.
• Alt-country pioneers the Town Criers (Ray Brandes, David Klowden, Peter Miesner and Mark Zadarnowski) will mark their 20-year reunion.
• Manual Scan (Bart Mendoza, Kevin Donaker-Ring, Tim Blankenship and Morgan Young) will appear onstage for the first time since the Che Games for May gig last spring.
• International Che Underground supergroup the Blues Gangsters (Kristi Maddocks, Dave Rinck, Dave Ellison, Dave Fleminger and Matt Johnson) will make its live debut.
• Your DJ will be Louis Mello, a k a DJ Dirty Bird.

Tickets ($10 advance/$12 at the door) are available now at the Casbah Web site.