Packing so much musical talent into the confines of the San Diego scene pushed the Che Underground Mixmaster into overdrive. A couple of short years produced a dizzying melange of amputations, collaborations and creative explosions as assorted musicians formed new combinations.
Sergio of Hair Theatre sang for the Answers; guitarist David Rives from Noise 292 joined them for one performance as Painted Sun; Sam Wilson moved from the Rockin’ Dogs to the Wallflowers to Hair Theatre; Joanne Norris drummed for the Injections, Noise 292 and Everybody Violet; Crawdaddys and Gravediggers became Nashville Ramblers; half of our bands converged into the Morlocks; and Dave Anderson kept the beat for everybody else.
Who were your favorite Che Underground hybrids? Who do you wish you’d played with or seen play together?
Me first: I at least got to jam with many of my personal heroes here (Fleminger, Ellison, Lucas, Bacher, Cornelius, Sergios big and small … the list goes on), but I regret I never once played (onstage or off-) with Wallflowers bass great Paul Howland. Who’s on your dream team?
I played with Meester ellison in a drugstore cowboy hybrid in 1987 with Mark Z on bass and i played the brushes. Has he ever mentioned that he can play the steel guitar? We need to start a Misunderstood cover band with him on steel guitar.
I remember seeing the hybrid era of bands. Dave anderson was a busy drummer back then. As long as the band could buy and decorate his bass drum head, he’d be game to play.
My fave was the Nashville ramblers. Carl and ron were a force, and Tom was no slouch either.
I actually got to play with the core of my dream team, having played a house- (and drum-) shattering version of Interstellar Overdrive with Matthew Rothenberg and Dave Fleminger at Emilio’s Cafeteria Musical in Tijuana. Had Dave Anderson been there to play drums and Jerry C. done the intro and vocals (on those numbers that required them!), perfection would have been achieved.
… And war would have been declared! LOL
People forget, or perhaps do not know that Matt Johnson was The Gravedigger V’s first drummer.
Well you know all you guys are in my dream band. It’s like one of those bad framed black and white drawings they sell in head shops where every dead rock star is jamming together in heaven …only we’re still alive (Dont tell me you’ve never seen one of those.)
Tony, if we ever do that again we’ll have to learn to sing harmony! I still dont really know how to harmonize with another singer…haha.
Hey, thanks Ted! As you mentioned elsewhere, it was the Shamen. I’d love to see those band photos we took at Balboa Park back then. Please refresh my memory, who played with us at that first party on someone’s back porch, where it was frickin’ freezing? I remember being at Chris Gast’s place (his grandparents?) with the band and him telling me not to move to Colorado (like I had a choice) ‘cuz we were gonna record.
>>It’s like one of those bad framed black and white drawings they sell in head shops where every dead rock star is jamming together in heaven
Dave Ellison: Here in New Jersey, they’d pose us like the cast of “The Sopranos”!
Joanne Norris played in the Wallfowers briefly.I wasn’t really a part of the decision to fire her, but I had to tell her. Thanks guys.
I was an Answer for a day … I think I was going to play bass in some sort of interim flux between Painted Sun and the Mirrors. I remember Daves Fleminger and Rives, and I think Sergio(?) on drums, me on bass, practicing in an empty lecture hall at UCSD. And there was the prospect of a big gig … We may have actually been trying to get this ready to open for the Three O’Clock!
Whatever — I fired myself at the end of the session. The idea of claiming the frets from Jeff Lowe on, like, two weeks’ notice? Yaargggh! Panic attack … I can feel my throat closing up 24 years later. 🙂
Shit, Matt I can’t remember. It was most likely Chris, Me, The Eskimo and Hanrattie. That was Chris’s parents house.
Or his grandparents, something like that. No, I meant which band did we open for at the party. It was one of the more established bands. The Crawdaddies?
I can’t recall. I just remember trying to teach Hanrattie to play the keyboard part to Gloria. He couldn’t get it right so I taped numbers to the keys, and, he still couldn’t get it right, so then I was playing the guitar and doing the keyboard with my nose. I vaguely recall that show, outside on someone’s lawn and it was cold, and, yeah may have been …
I saw that first GDV/Shamen show (with Matt), in somebody’s backyard and I’m not sure either who they were opening for…could it have been The Hedgehogs?
I should at least remember Ted playing keyboard with his nose..
Matthew my memories of Painted Sun consist mostly of playing in empty UCSD lecture halls at night, just making stuff up. P.Sun played a party at Larry Nadler’s house and he was most justifiably disappointed by us, he was expecting the Answers and I think by that point I was expecting (or hoping) the immediacy-juices of performing would inspire us to, uh, innovate or something…..dicey. Probably listening to too much Can and feeling all jammy..
There was a Painted Sun performance at Larry Nadler’s? I only remember an earlier event with the Answers and Hair Theatre as two separate entities, IIRC.
There was something super 1968-into-1969 about Painted Sun … Very woozy, post-hippie vibe — like the participants could exit the show and either (a) commit the Tate/Labianca killings or (b) found Apple Computer!
P.Sun played a Paul Allen party too…somebody in one of the other bands that night called us “Led Zeppelin”… amazing to think of that as a put-down..
“Woozy” is more apt description in any case.
I was in Hair Theatre for a while…there was a prototype version of Synesthesia (?) with Jeff, Dave A and Kristin in late ’83, they played a Pat’s House party…The Hollow Wood…all those twisted branches/twigs on the SD band tree chart..
Of course, I should mention that both Dave Fleminger and Sergio occupied the Noise 292 drum stool (not simultaneously) on a number of occasions!
Dave F.: We should indeed create some sort of downloadable PDF containing all the permutations and deviations we attempted in the space of — what? — 18 months?
18 months…the same timeframe in which computer speed doubles..
Moore’s law.
Didn’t Dave Klowden play drums with Noise 292 also? And Jeff?
Also Joe Asaro (first Answers drummer) played sax for both Manual Scan and The Ex-Offenders.
I think we need the family tree pdf!!!
It will be a pretty ambitious task.. and it’ll end up looking like a Celtic knot.
Maybe we could do the same for all the chics we went with …
My first (though very short-lived) band project was as bass player with the Injections. That’s how I met Joanne. Lou Scum, Joanne and I used to practise at Terry Marine’s house. I was awful.
I remember Terry Marine and “Be My Friend.”
Hahaa “Be My Freind” -- that was a fanzine he created in response to being hit with a flashlight by a bouncer at this little new wave club up in Clairmont.
Man, it’s hard to follow the loop back from “Be My Friend”, all the chics you dated, dead head rock posters and celtic patterns to the question of origin…”Who would be your Che Underground dream team?”…
I guess I feel blessed because I’ve already played with my dream team with Everybody Violet…singing and songwriting with guitarists/vocalists Anni and Carina Burns Randolf, with Michelle Crone on Bass and JoAnne doing her tribal drum thing…I have to thank Jeff Lucas for bringing Anni & I together in the first place, ’cause 20 years later and we are still writingsongs and making music! The big let-down was that EV didn’t completely finish our recordings, but another rock star Dave Flemminger is working with me to complete that project.
Working with Dave Fleminger is definitely a dream come true. I remember that in the old days I was almost afraid to speak to Flem, starstruck by his musical genius and omnipitent presence! Man, I can’t wait to get to work with you Dave!
But wait, my story gets even better…because now I am at work with Dave Rink and David Ellison on The Blues Gangsters project…which completely came out of left field and blows my mind. Better yet, it looks like my old buddy Matt Johnson will be drumming beside us-how cool is that? Love you, Matt!
I think I’ve almost died (and I almost did), but i’m in musical heaven!
I love being one of the guys…this is crazy fun!
I wonder, as the circle tightens…which other Che Comrade will pull out their guitar or…welll..you know!
I’m pretty satisfied, musically, that is…there’s onty a couple of international rock stars left on my dream team list (and I’m not telling you who, though some of you know!) Then again, I’d love to sing with Ron Silva, maybe Tom Ward, Paul Howland, Bart Mendoza….uh, so many men, so little time.
Anyway, I once obsessed about one of the guys from Eleven Sons, but I had a one night stand with him years ago, and it got it out of my system!
I´ve been fortunate to either play live with or record with some of the coolest people and best musicians in San Diego. Being so small, the San Diego music scene was always a little incestuous, and perhaps that was because the circle of people with good taste with whom we all associated seemed so small. In the Hedgehogs, I played with Carl Rusk, Ron Silva and Paul Carsola. Next, in the Mystery Machine, was added Bill Calhoun, MIke Stax and David Klowden and Eric Bacher. When Eric left the TTH in early ´86, we recruited Peter Miesner from the defunct Crawdaddys for about a year.
When the TTH broke up, Peter, Dave Klowden and I formed the Town Criers with Tom Ward. From 1987 to 1990, the Town Criers included the following SD luminaries: guitar: Pete Miesner and later Dave Ellison on steel and Jim Frizell on fingerpicking Mosrite. Bass: Tom Ward, John Vetter and Mark Zadarnowski. Drums: Dave Klowden and Dan Tarte.
Next, I formed the Shambles with Kevin Ring, Mark Z and Bart Mendoza, who can give you a much better run down of the band after I left in 1991. They win the award for the most Che Undergrounders: myself, Kevin, Bart, Mark Z, Brad Wilkins, Dave Klowden, Ron Silva, Bill Calhoun--am I leaving anyone out, Bart?
Does anyone remember that book about rock family trees? It would be a great project to undertake here. Maybe some day when I have time . . .
Last but not leasdt-I’d love to collaborate with Ray Brandes one day…
Ray was a huge influence on me with EV performances…every single time I shook the maracas on stage, or sang while also playing tambourine, I was inspired by the many times I watched and enoyed eirger Ray Brandes or Ron Silva doing the exact same thing…
I guess, there was also the Rolling Stones, Leighton Koizumi of the Morlocks, the Moody Blues and Vico & Maureen Tucker of velvet Undeground in the mix as well…
Ray, what ever happened to Dan Tarte? He was in the Town Criers when I joined, but left soon after. The tape I have of us has Dave K. on drums. Sean McMullen even played drums for us once at the old Casbah… remember that?
May we pretty-please post some Town Criers on the site? I missed this whole era, dagnabit.
And somebody, somewhere asked if Dave Klowden was ever in Noise 292 — he showed up for one very early practice at Kristin Martin’s house, which is absolutely good enough for me. 🙂
During the time Dan was in the TCs, he was working at Vons in Point Loma, saving up to travel by van to South America and write a book. He lived in Argentina for a while, and last I heard was completing some post graduate work at UCLA, although the last time I saw him he was driving a tow truck! Dan was a genius, in fact, the only guy I´ve ever known to get into a UC school with none of the required classes and a grade point average of lower than 2.0. He did it with perfect SAT scores.
Dave,
I´d love to hear your tape of the Town Criers. I have some recordings we made at Mark Neil´s studio when it was in El Cajon, a tape of us playing at JOe Hughes´wedding in Joshua Tree, and a video of a set we did playing with the Unknowns at Rios in Point Loma. Nothing with you on it, though. Got any photos? Peter might have some, or maybe Tom Ward. I can do a related bands page on them . . .
By the way, that first Shamen show was also the first gig of the TTH, at a party somewhere in Clairemont, outdoors, of course. The Shamen and early Gravediggers played all of their shows with us.
Ray: Can you nail down a date for that first show? (I started an inquiry on the subject over on the forums, too!)
Paul. Ya bas#%* !! Firing me like that :)Ohweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell we all have “getting fired” stories 🙂