Among the highlights of our Che Underground event Jan. 30, 2010, at the Casbah was “Manual Penetration.” This collaboration brought Chris Davies and Chris Sullivan of San Diego’s legendary Penetrators onstage with the equally storied Manual Scan to perform a mini-set of Penetrators songs.
Scan co-founders Bart Mendoza and Kevin Donaker-Ring talk about the origins of this matchup, captured here on video shot that night by Eric Rife with sound engineered by Dave Fleminger.
“The Penetrators: Walking the Beat”!
Bart: You could say the roots of this joining of groups goes back to the late 1970s when the members of Manual Scan could be found at every Penetrators gig we could get to. But the roots of the Manual Penetration set go back to January 30, 2005, when The Shambles performed as part of my “Sounds Like San Diego” music series at Dizzy’s, benefits for Lou Curtiss’ Folk Art Records. The shows featured a mix of current artists performing hit/well-known local songs written by San Diegans and the original artists themselves — and sometimes a mix of the two. For this particular show, we were fortunate enough to have Chris Davies join us for two songs, The Penetrators’ “Sensitive Boy” and The Cascades’ “Rhythm of the Rain.”
Penetrator frontman Gary Heffern joins the Town Criers!
Kevin: Well before Manual Scan formed, the Penetrators were a huge influence on me. They were one of the very first local San Diego bands I ever saw, and going to every Pens show possible was always a priority (though not being able to drive made this a fairly difficult prospect at times). Beyond Bart and me simply being fans, there are links between Manual Scan and the Penetrators, even though we only shared the stage once or twice. I took several recording engineering courses back in the early ’80s, and at one point, I recorded the Trowsers as part of my course at Circle Sound on El Cajon Boulevard. Not only did Joyce Rooks sing for both the Penetrators and the Trowsers, she later sang background on one of the few songs I ever wrote when Manual Scan recorded it. There is footage of the Penetrators playing at “Off The Wall” — a yearly La Jolla event that preceded “Street Scene” — and some guy in a white Fred Perry shirt joins them on stage to sing backup and dance for one song. As the song finishes, Gary thanks Kevin Ring and tells the crowd to go see Manual Scan. I had completely forgotten this until Chris Davies showed me the video after a Manual Penetration rehearsal at my house.
Bart: When the Penetrators’ appearance at The Casbah on January 30, 2010 (five years to the day!) fell through, Kevin and I pretty much had the same idea. I made a few phone calls, but Kevin ran with the project , most notably resurrecting the legendary, unrecorded Penetrators song “Revolution Now.”
Kevin: For the Manual Penetration set, I insisted on one song in particular, “Revolution Now”. It had never been recorded by the Pens, and only two live versions seemed to be in existence — both with amazingly crappy sound and almost unintelligible lyrics. However, as an audience member, that song was always a favorite of mine. When the Pens played the Casbah the year before, and (to my overjoyed surprise) Scott Harrington joined them for part of their set, my first question was if they were going to play “Revolution Now.” While Scott wanted to, the song was not included in their final set list. So when this whole thing came together, I knew I had the opportunity to bring this one back. I’m hoping that I’ll get the chance to see them perform it again in the future.
Wow! I was just thinking the other day “I’d sure like to see some footage of the other bands that played January 30th,” and, voila!
Manual Penetration and the Town Criers with (and without, of course) Gary Heffern were simply awe inspiring.