The Che Underground site was first conceived to capture an interesting and undocumented moment in San Diego music history — but our scene was one significant limb among several in a tree with healthy roots and many branches.
To understand this fluorescence better, we’re undertaking something ambitious: a mapping project to lay out the history of San Diego’s rock-‘n’-roll underground. Step One is to solicit some general ideas about the shape of this family tree.
Here’s my first take, which is completely skewed by my age, my location and my own tastes. For me, the San Diego underground sprang in the late ’70s from three large, intertwined roots: the first wave of SD punks (Marc Rude et al.); great New Wave bands like the Penetrators and Unknowns; and a unique SD brand of retrovisionary cool, starting with Ron Silva and the Crawdaddys.
I’m sure some of you already have a different story to tell, but first let me add a little more rhetorical kindling: The Che Underground was one important crossover point for genres that had hitherto been carefully siloed. (Remember when calling somebody “hippie” was fighting words?) Efforts like ours sparked new eclecticism, and a thousand new bands bloomed.
You’ll note that my own story doesn’t encompass everything that was happening at the same time as the Che Underground bands. What’s more, it doesn’t explain what the cool kids were doing in San Diego before 1977, and it doesn’t even begin to address what happened starting in 1987, when I moved on. I’m looking through a 10-year window, and it’s foggy.
Your turn: Tear my version apart, build your own … This is DIY! What do you think our tree should look like? And who should it include?
PS: I’ll toss one more hook into this conversation … Then it’s someone else’s turn, I swear! 🙂
Looking at the ages of this site’s participants and those of our local musical progenitors, I’d say the swell in the Che Underground bell curve is ages 40 to 48, with the biggest group between 42 and 44. We’re hardly a scientific sample, but I’ve hypothesized that we do reflect a mini-boom created by all the sprawl in SD County in the ’60s and ’70s. (We’re also the precise cusp — ’64 to ’65 — where convention dictates the post-war Baby Boom gave way to what’s called Gen X.)
I believe our mentors in the scenes above are or would be in their early 50s. I think Ron Silva turns 50 this year, and Marc Rude would be 54. I don’t have birthdays for the Penetrators, but I’d guess second half of the ’50s as well.
So there’s some interesting generational stuff cooking there, too. … I’d love to get some of those big kids participating in this mapping project! (Not to mention thirty-somethings and younger, few of whom were even active the last time I played San Diego.)
Ron Silva will be 49 in September. Penetrators--early fifties, Chris Davies might be a little younger.
I think I started this discussion on too theoretical a footing. (Missing the forest for the trees!)
Let’s bring this back down to earth with some specific questions:
1. What was the first local band to grab your attention?
2. What local bands exerted the most influence on SD music? When and how?
3. Were there shows that you felt were turning points for the SD scene?
BTW, if you haven’t done so, click on the evolutionary tree pictured in this post and check out the linked blog entry … That Kenosha Kid and his friends are very witty!
The Answers with Sergio singing some songs showed me that original music could played by my peers that was melodic as well as intense. I saw the Crawdaddys earlier and it was great, I particularly remember people in the audience at the party singing choruses into the mic along w/Ron Silva. I was pretty young though, prob’ly 14, and didn’t see any local bands besides punk bands until I saw the Answers at 18.
The Penetrators were the first local band to make a real impression on me — probably early ’79, when I was turning 14.
By contrast, my exposure to local ’60s revivalists came shockingly late — like, 1983! Inexplicable, considering how much I liked that music, too, and how stridently I was telling my North County peers that there was some percentage in revisiting those sounds. I was playing out and going to some shows, so how I missed the entire thing is a total mystery.
I started hearing local punk bands somewhere in the middle, in the course of going to (too few) shows downtown … Probably 1980.
But it was the edgy, New Wave-y guys first for me.
I remember going to Mike Scheels wedding (he was a San Diego guitar player who fronted several bands over the years)…and the Glory Band played. Jerry Raney was always one of the most stylin’ guys around…he just seemed like a rock star even if he was just walkin’ around without a guitar. But this goes way back, to when Jerry Herrera’s Spirit club was located on Pacific Highway, I’m not good with dates. So there we were, all of us hungover, and most everyone on some kinda drug, outdoors, in the country, at Mike Scheels wedding, sitting on the grass. The Glory band launches into a short peppy tune. Everyone claps and cheers. Jerry says, “Oh, you like that?” And they play the same tune again. People clap. They play it once again. A few people clap. They play it again. A smattering of clapping, and many people looking around to see who’s clapping. They play it again. Everyone is looking around, glaring at anyone who is even thinking about clapping. About this time, Rosie, a long time fan who is high on downers, sorta wakes up from her temporary coma, and yells out…”Yeaah…Awright!”. And they play it again. Somebody goes over and speaks with Rosie. And this time, when they finish…absolute silence, with everyone looking around to make sure NO ONE claps. It was a great fuckin’ day. Jerry Raney can be edgy or smooth…a real talent. The Glory band was incredible.
A story that should be told by someone who was there, was when Jerry Raney and his boys went over to confront the new rocker house of Dan Mclain, Gary Heffern, and all the other guys that lived there at the time. I think Gary Rachac might’ve been in that household too, and he’s a great source who knows the San Diego music scene going way back before the Zero’s, the Penetrators, etc.
I think what Mister M’berg was actually trying to incite was an avalanche of information- restricted to (Maybe not so much “restricted to” but maybe “labeled by”) each person’s personal experience or stories that they’d heard- and relevant to bands, venues, cliques, place names (towns) and dates.
Not to step too far out of my own place (I wasn’t there for a lot of it), but I came up with some fraction of the idea- we’d like to map out the various roots of the San Diego underground and the various and talented ways in which it expressed itself after the “punk” thing had pretty much shot it’s wad. And we’d like to make sure things are as accurate as possible and no one is left out, and proper credit lays where it began.
You’re killing me, Mister Gee- one more candidate for the “best post ever” category (if there is one!) Thanks for your insight!!
Aloha- Toby
What Toby said! What bands came from where? Who hung with whom? Who listened to what?
And Harold: That is RADICAL. The Glory Band is a great name, too. Gary Ra’chac stopped by at least once — I hope he comes and visits again! (I invited Jerry Raney from his MySpace page … Dunno if he’s seen the scene here.)
The Unknowns are 46-47. Mark is still producing here in SD. More to follow…..
Craig: Thanks! I would like to get some more Unknowns insights — I enjoyed them a great deal.
So were the Penetrators, Jerry Raney et al. San Diego natives? (I understand Marc Rude arrived from NY in ’77, age 23, and Bruce Joyner — born 1956, according to this bio — came from Georgia.)
Many of us mid-’60s babies moved to San Diego with our families. It added a certain suburban anomie, I think, and forced us into new cliques. (People I know from less-transient regions of the country often grew up hanging with cousins and other extended-family members … I think a lot of us had to build our own extended families.)
How many of our local musical mentors — the guys born in the ’50s — were transplants, too?
P.S.: This thread discusses Jerry Raney and the Glory Band. “I have the Glory on the Air 1970 LP also, got it on the Internet, so it is out there. It has some very good old blues-based rock with Jerry, Jack Penny on drums and a great bassist named Jack Butler.” Guess it was re-released by Rockedelic, the same label that re-issued the very intriguing ’60s San Diego band Brain Police.
OK, I’m going to stick my neck out in a different direction and start throwing specific band names into different buckets. This isn’t an endorsement on whether the bands were good or not, but how they were positioned.
I suggested there were three general groups in the late ’70s: the punk; the New Wave (hey, I think it was the term then); and the ’60s revivalist.
Here are some old names to go with each …
PUNK
The Zeros
The Dils
5051
Battalion of Saints
Black Tango
Catch 22
District Tradition
Manifest Destiny
Men of Clay
Moral Majority
Personal Conflict
Sacred Lies
Social Spit
the Front
Injections
Executives
Standbys
Spent Idol
Nutrons
Solucion Mortal
NEW WAVE(-ISHNESS)
Penetrators
Unknowns
Beat Farmers (weird place for them, but … )
Puppies
Snails
Cardiac Kidz
Color TV
Land Piranha
Four Eyes
Claude Coma and the IVs
Trowsers
Hubcaps
’60s REVIVALIST
Crawdaddys
Hedgehogs
Manual Scan
I Spy
Hitmakers
Roosters
I’ll take a stab at the punk end of it. I think there are a couple ways to categorize these bands, both which are going to be relevant. Right away I see pretty defined groups between North County, East County, and San Diego Proper. But also the dates. The Zeros and the Dils are easy because they both became successful musically after they moved to Los Angeles and they both have some vary complete biographies available online. Also Batallion of Saints is easy because there wasn’t a lot of crossover into other local bands (James Cooper played in District Tradition and BOS, I think the rest of the band were all BOS until George got the Discharge guy.) When I get settled next month (I’m moving) I’ll try to find some time to do something on paper that’s a little more complete and separates bands a couple different ways. I’ll try to contact some of the bands and get a more succinct timeline- places and dates and lineups and venues- than is presently available online.
The complicated ones are like 5051 (who’s members cross over a lot of lines as far as how many bands they were in and when) and the North County bands (Moral Majority, Manifest DEstiny, Sacred Lies) who shared members with The Executives and Personal Conflict (who shared a member with Men of Clay and Catch 22.) This should prove pretty interesting. I’ll need some help with the pre 1981 stuff.
Bands left off your list that immediately come to mind:
The Brood (Pinells)
Blood Lake (North County?)
Ministry of Truth (??)
Perdition (A short lived North County band fronted by Vision Skater Owen Neider that had Scott Kelly of Neurosis on Bass)
Craig: Hope you stop by often and bring along Mark and Dave. For those of you who don’t know, Craig (of the Unknowns and Unclaimed fame) is my brother in law.
I’m currently working on a Crawdaddy history, which is long and complicated, but it might shed some light on late seventies music in San Diego. I’m also going to invite Lydia Butinski and Mark Zadarnowski to stop by and offer their two--make that four--cents. Mark Z was the original and most long standing Crawdaddy bassist, and played with the Town Criers and Shambles after that. Lydia is just ultra cool and probably went to every show in the early days.
Matt,
The list you made is a great start, although as usual, I’d like to quibble with a few of the details. Firstly, if we are creating a tree, I’d suggest we start with the trunk, with its solid mass signifying the unified nature of the late seventies. I would venture that it would be impossible to find anyone who would feel at all connected to the term “new wave,” which was initially a term invented by rock critics to describe music which was punk in spirit but didn’t sound like punk. In the early days, most of the people hanging out at shows listened to all kinds of music: reggae, rockabilly, old soul, etc. Bands tended to hang out and go to each others’ shows. There wasn’t much commercially available contemporary music that people were listening to. It was considered uncool.
When you take the second category, you’ve actually got a lot of top-40, skinny tie stuff that doesn’t really count as underground, including the Puppies, Four Eyes, Hubcaps and Snails. They played a lot of high school proms and places like the Catamaran. I say, if you didn’t get threatened from passing four bys, you don’t count as a founding father. That is not to say there were not some great bands around, just that some of these were neither influential or direct antecedents.
The third category is tricky. I would personally put Manual Scan, I Spy and the Hitmakers in a category with whatever we are calling the middle group. Bart and Kevin were just as influenced by the Jam, Merton Parkas, Squire, etc. as they were the sixties (if not more so), for example.
My last nit to pick is that there are actually a few mid to late eighties bands mixed in with with these bands, in particular the Front and the Beat Farmers. All of the guys in the Beat Farmers are better represented by their earlier contributions, like the Penetrators, Crawdaddys, etc.
This is all just my opinion, of course, but if I’m asking for an Internet smackdown, bring it on.
Ray: Not a bit of it! I built a total straw man there. Some of these names I just grabbed from Google … “San Diego new wave,” yo. (I don’t think I ever saw the Snails, alas.) I don’t want to slag anyone by name, but I chucked some absolute dreck into that second bucket, along with some real pearls!* (And there’s plenty more skinny-tie shite I didn’t list, cause it was making me pukey.)
I like your would-it-provoke-threats-by-rednecks litmus test for separating real SD underground antecedents from the Top-40-with-a-funny-haircut scrim. (Full disclosure: Some confusion over that simple distinction led me to acquiesce to a few woeful aesthetic decisions by my first high-school band, the one surviving practice tape of which has been locked away until the year 2080!)
And I agree RE labels: “New Wave” makes me all squirmy, too.
So I’m starting to see how we get the second- and third-bucket lists cleaned up and branching from one primordial hipster trunk … But somebody historically better-versed than me needs to trace back the point in time where the FONO set diverged evolutionarily from anyone wearing a tie, metaphorically speaking.
*I’m probably playing the mime again, but as a kid I liked Four Eyes, even if they probably don’t fit anywhere this evolutionary tree. Can they sit in a little hedgerow on the lawn near the trunk, where they won’t bother anyone? 🙂
Im a cousin of Chris Sullivan from the Penetrators. Im at his house right now actually. As a youngster i hear stories from my mom, a San Diego punk from Helix. Its great to hear stories of the Penetrators and the events of the band. Sullivan now plays in a band, “The Farmers” or many may know it as “The Beat Farmers”.
Hey Thoma- welcome to the blog. You still have those Personal Conflict practice tapes? I’m still interested in a copy if you could manage it. P.S. What was your mom’s name?
I’d like to avoid the labels altogether on the tree itself and let the description of the band’s influences describe what they are, (somewhat) subject to the reader’s interpretation. Especially since there were quite a few band members who crossed over from one genre to the next. I think the most easy to read and interpret format would be for the tree to follow a timeline and the location/influences of the band could be color coded or something. Beyond that a brief bio and a link to further info outside of the tree could sum it up nicely.
Also there have been a few exceptionally well received bands in each genre that might get some further recognition- Battalion of Saints, Manual Scan and the Paladins names have all seemed to weather the passage of time more than just locally and have remained somewhat iconic for San Diego at that time in their particular genres.
I forgot the Front. I hadn’t noticed they were missing and I incorrectly said that our Drummer played with Catch 22- he played with the Front in 1982, which might make them less of a mid eighties band and more of an early eighties band (though I have no idea what their longevity was.)
Just my two cents as I’m just a total rookie at all the pre 1980s stuff and the mod/psychedelic offshoots.
And I agree that the seventies is a good place to start- though perhaps with a few brief nods to any bands prior to that who’s info surfaces in the interim.
There could also be a sidebar for cheesy rock bands like DFX2 and the Snails, etc…
This seems like a massive undertaking, but I like the idea. Ray, I agree very much with your suggestions -- “new wave” had a bad connotation and there is no reason to lump The Unknowns in with Land Piranha (actually I don’t even remember what they sounded like, haha).
I have one band to add for now, one that I liked but that may have been considered “new wave” by some:
The Dinettes -- Joyce Rooks was the leader. The started in ’77 as The Cockpits -- what a brilliant name! -- but I never saw that early incarnation. Dan McLain was also in that band. Joyce later joined The Trowsers.
One famous band / person from the late 70s SD scene that will never fit in any category is NON / Boyd Rice. Saw him once at the NPLC. That was the great thing about the early scene, was the great variety of bands that you could see at the Lion’s Club or Skeleton Club. From punk to surf (how about The Evasions!) to 60s British R&B to punk to industrial noise!
OK, that’s 4 bands to add!
Mark and Lydia were local heroes to me. They were a bit older than I was (and I was pretty old for the scene having been born in ’61) and they were super stylish! But they didn’t try to dress in any one particular era or like any one group. They would usually wear vintage but sometimes 50s clothes, sometimes 60s clothes. They had a great sense of humor as well. Plus, Mark was in the Crawdaddys so he was the local version of John Entwistle in my eyes!
Mark Z for president!
I’ve run across Dinettes info (here?) before. I really don’t like the idea of excluding anyone remotely related to the early (pre 80 or 81 or maybe as late as 82) scene just because so many characters who would not fall under the category of “punk” or “counterculture” by today’s standards were pretty radical and intrinsic to the evolution of what was to come. A couple more who come to mind are Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper and also Cindy Lee Berryhill. My vision of this family tree doesn’t have so much to do with “punk” but rather the whole evolution up to hardcore and the variety of cool stuff that went every different direction when hardcore exploded and a lot of the imaginative people moved on to do other more imaginative projects. I don’t think you can do that tree without including the 80-83 punk scene and I wouldn’t want to, but as far as music goes it seems like punk is a pretty confining parameter to try and sum up the San Diego Underground scene pre-mid-eighties.
Two more cents. And on that note- we.ve left off the Stand-Bys and DT and the Exterminators. Two more good ones for the list.
DT and Terry are on the internet here somewhere. I think I invited Terry here already.
I like Toby’s side-o’-cheese proposition, although it might add a whole extra cool-to-lame axis that we might not want to get into: a third dimension of fatuousness, if you will.
One of the more obvious ways to sort things out is simply by figuring out who knew whom when … When I asked earlier in the thread if the ’70s hipsters were generally San Diego natives, I was trying to get a sense of when that group started to coalesce as a self-identified “scene.” In schools, in neighborhood bands — where and how early did our slightly-elders come together?
This sort of sociological view should help model a lot of the shape of what we’re trying to achieve — definitely better than anachronistic genre labels or a subjective scale of suckitude. (Like I say, I definitely scored high on that last scale with a few adolescent efforts, and I bet I’m not alone.) 🙂
And to sieve through the minutiae: Leafing through Dean’s (and others’) scans of old music ‘zines could uncover a whole world of one- or two-gig wonders everyone here has forgotten.
Bottom line: Date, location and connectedness (i.e., who played in what bands, and what bands played together) are nice, clear parameters to piece together all the bands great and small. If we can document those parameters, we can map this nicely.
(Dean: My sole recollection of Land Piranha is a cover of “TV Eye” at La Paloma Theater when I believe they played with the Standbys in 1980. However, I did some more Googling, and it turns out Land Piranha was a short-lived vehicle for DJ Jim McInnes.)
Hey Toby,
Yeah I just got back in the country last week, so ill have it soon for ya…within a week. My moms name was Allison Larson, id have to ask her what kids she hung out with. One of her friends was Rachel and i believe she mentioned that someone in Personal Conflict dated this Rachel girl at some time.
Either Joel or Lloyd, most likely.
Matthew wrote:
“My sole recollection of Land Piranha is a cover of “TV Eye” at La Paloma Theater when I believe they played with the Standbys in 1980. However, I did some more Googling, and it turns out Land Piranha was a short-lived vehicle for DJ Jim McInnes.”
In that case they are most deifinitely not in the suckitude category, hahaha! Jim McInnis is another hero of mine. I fondly remember his show on KGB called “The Modern World” where I first heard the likes of the Standbys, Spizz Energi, and Throbbing Gristle!
Trivia: His wife Linda McInnis, who was by far the sexiest voice in rock radio in San Diego in the 70s and early 80s, later DJd at KFOG in San Francisco.
The individual musican is the basic atomic unit of this tree. If we made a table of every musician, their dates and connectedness to assorted bands, we’d have most of the degrees of separation we need.
I agree with everyone that genre is problematic, but even by the late ’70s, there were some bills I don’t see being played in San Diego — I was a little too young and a little too isolated in North County to explain exactly why, but somebody here can tell me:
Picking two random pairings, I don’t envision the Penetrators opening for the Germs, say, or the Crawdaddys on a bill with Black Flag. If I recall correctly (big “if,” there!) the nascent LA hardcore scene extended to a certain kind of show when those bands hit town, and the SD bands I see playing on those bills were likelier to play together on local bills.
How were these aesthetic decisions being sorted out? Was it a promoter-imposed notion of “punk,” were the audiences voting with their admission money, was it the social network of musicians … ? What was the impetus that shaped these bills? (Or were these musicians indeed mixing it up in ways I don’t remember?)
This San Diego Union-Tribune article offers a nice recap of the Penetrators’ genesis and references a Penetrators opening spot for the Ramones at Montezuma Hall in 1978 as a catalyst for change:
“’That was the turning point, that show. The time was right, the right people were there, we did a good show, we kind of clicked. That started it all rolling,’ Penetrators bassist Chris Sullivan recalled.
“’It’s the first time,’ singer Gary Heffern said, ‘the media actually went, “Hey, there’s something happening here.’ And Steve Esmedina from The Reader had a lot to do with that, as well.’ ”
Might want to add Laura Frasier to that trunk -- she had an enormous impact on SD music.
Boyd Rice / NON and Robert Turman were also super creative, original talents…imho.
As for Bruce Joyner…yeah, he is a bit older than the other Unknowns (laughs), but -- aside from a 1990 “reunion” CD for New Rose and Euro tour -- was only in the band ’til 1982, when Mark booted him and drummer Steve. I joined in ’83.
Gotta go to work…
C
Craig: Laura Frasier was mentioned most reently in a thread about the North Park Lions Club and the late Renee Edgington.
Do we know Laura’s whereabouts? I’d love her take on the rise and fall of the Skeleton Club, among other subjects.
Violent Crime were from Lakeside,their guitar player Scott later started Burning Hands in the late 80’s with Steven Ray who fronts the Deerejohns and plays bass with Lady dottie and the Diamonds, oh and they started out as Anomic Jazz who some may remember from the Rock Palace flyer (Hair Theatre,Eleven sons, Faces of Drama, which was Squirrel from 5051’s band), Violation 5 featured Roger Pinell if I’m not mistaken, Anti Trust had Bart Cheever on guitar.
Mickey Minor played Drums with Violent Crime and later was the vocalist for Catch 22.
Manifest Destiny were originally known as 502 and played a number of shows/parties under that name.
The Executives were considered Mod in 1980 and sported target festooned parkas ala quadrophenia and all the scooter mods of the time.They reminded me a lot of the Crowd if anybody remembers them.
Marc told me once that FONO was originally a band with himself, Testicle head, Tony Chuco and Terry Marine.
As for who played what, I only remember that Terry played Drums and he used chains instead of drumsticks. I wonder how that sounded.
Marc also had a project around 82 or so called Carnivorous Lunar Activities, some time before Dennis Borleck’s folk-group of the same name.
Somewhat unrelated to anything,I remember the Wallflowers used to do a terrific cover of Discharge’s “anger burning” and they sometimes used to let murphy sing. I remember a wallflowers/morlocks gig at the pool rec room at my Grandma’s condo complex in tierrasanta ended with Murph and a bunch of others getting arrested.
My comment is degenerating.Who gives a fuck anyway. I know that Londis Kues from Crucified Youth or maybe Capitol Punishment or perhaps both had a band with Joel Roop and Sam Kolesar from 5051 a few years back and that Londis currently plays Guitar with the present version of the Battalion of Saints.
There was also Paul Lima’s Skullbusters who were somewhat like San Diego’s version of Mad Society.Also previously mentioned here were No Age Limit which became District Tradition, Tommy Rulon later had a band called Sister Ray.
Robert Turman had a experimental group called THRT at some point in the first half of the eighties,later he played in a pretty well known about town alt-rock group of some sort who’s name escapes me now.
At some point Robert,Jeff from Black Tango,Peter Z.O. and myself recorded some improvised music at Peter and Jeff’s house in Normal Heights.
Later, Robert dropped out and we played with Jeff Mattson from Crash Worship and eventually we played a show at the Che(unrehearsed ala earl Can doncha know) with Jim Call from the Penetrators on Organ.We called ourselves Green Man and the show ended when Brett Bartmetler,chris Moore and Thomas Beals “kidnapped” me from the stage and threw me in the back of a station wagon and drove me to the am-pm near the Che for some coffee.They thought I needed it. I probably did. There may have been something else involved,there most often was.
In the forums, I just posted excerpts from a 2000 article by Robert Houghton, a high-school friend of Lester Bangs, that cites Jerry Raney and Gary Ra’chac as contemporaries and mentions some other names of people and venues that intrigue me.
BTW, did the older folks know Tom Waits?
Great post Bobby.
Here’s what Gary Ra’chac had to tell me about Harold Gee’s recollection of Jerry Raney meeting the House of Proto-Penetrators:
“Yea, Matthew, I remember that party vividly. First of all, we had one heck of a band that night, with [future Crawdaddys] Ron Silva on guitar [and] Steve Porterf on bass, Dan McClain on drums. Doug and Dave Farage sitting in with Raney and me fronting the group as lead singer.
“We did mostly covers and the crowd loved us. Actually, there was no ‘confrontation,’ as Harold put it, in that I talked Raney into coming over and playing. Historically, it was the first time Dan and Raney played together …
“Thanks,
“Ra’chac
“P.S. God bless Harold Gee”
These are all memories from a long time ago…but my memories are not usually that far off the mark. This was a house not far from the Oak Park neighborhood, and I thought it was pretty cool that “old school” rock confronted the new lions of punk. This was not a party, people did not play together as far as I know…and I’ve only heard recounts of this as a confrontation between different generations of rock. Beautiful, in that common ground was established between all these great musicians from different eras of San Diego rock.
Hello guys..it has been awhile since i was in San Diego but i just wanted to touch base with you. I was born in 1952 so i am 56 years of age now…I am in the Atlanta, Ga. area,I live across the hall from a new recording studio(It has no name yet) and front the band “Bruce Joyner and The Reconstruction”. When i lived and played in San Diego with the rest of The Unknowns.. Mark Neill, Dave Doyle and Steve Bidrowski ,we were friends with almost every one in the music scene at that time.. Craig Packham joined Mark Neill and Dave Doyle after i left..I founded The Stroke Band in Valdosta,Ga. in 1977 before i met Mark..Mark was asked to come play in the band..i started with Don Fleming,Max Sikes and Rusty Jones..I put out an album titled :Green and Yellow in Valdosta..Mark Neill is not on it..Mark, Max Sikesand i came out west to San Diego in late 1978 and life was hard for us until we got signed to Sire Records..Mark and i lived in cars,garages and made our eating money playing acoustic music in dives all over San Diego before we got Dave Doyle and Steve Bidrowski to join us as The Unknowns.. I don’t believe we were ever as popular as some of the more established bands already in San Diego when we got there.Our music improved because of that fact..we had something to prove..we were desperate and we never quit.I still believe Mark Neill is a genius guitar player today as well as producer,engineer and arranger of songs.I wish him the best.and Craig “I was never fired from any band i have been in so chill on rewriting the past”..I have records coming out later this year and another couple in 2009..some for The USA and some for Europe..I have been living quietly and trying not to stay depressed because my brother Richard died last year as well as my favorite uncle Elbert Wright.I’m coping with this by getting busy now. I don’t care what box people try to put The Unknowns in and as far as what we sounded like .. we sounded like ‘Nobody else’ ..and that is good enough for me..If you are interested in what i’ve done since then..put my name in a search engine and read…cause i ain’t dead yet.One last thing if you never saw us,don’t slag us,and if you didn’t like the band or me..well, you never said it to my face so “Kiss my crippled ass”.For everyone else..love ya..hope to see you again someday on a stage in San Diego…Bruce Joyner
Hi Bruce!
I’m glad you showed up at the party. I’m currently working on a piece on the Unknowns, and hope to give them a similar treatment to the Crawdaddys piece. I would love your input, so I’ll be in touch with you soon.
I had the opportunity to see you play with the Penetrators back in 1979 at Point Loma High School. It was a blast--so I went out and bought Dream Sequence when it was released . . .
Hello Bruce- I loved you guys! You played at my high school when I was a sophomore, and I went on to see you many times all over SD. Glad to hear you’re still making music.
Bruce,
I was I kid at tons of your shows as the Unknowns. I loved you guys to pieces.
Jesus! Neill & Doyle could crank-up the reverb, and still keep a clean tone, with distinct playing. I don’t know how that was done. Vocally, you carried on top of that. Amazing to me still -- like singing to a harmonically tuned Jet Engine! And all of that with the crappy PA’s at Fairmount or NPLC, or that crazy airplane-hanger in Chula Vista: Steck Aviation. I was saddened when the Unknowns de-camped for L.A., but glad for the Sire EP. It was a total blast to see you guys on Peter Ivers’ show after that.
A song never released -“Running From the Shadows” it might be called?- still echoes in my mind. I can call it back from memory, almost to the note.
I think that there was a space you made at the time, that was alien to SoCal -- SFO having Stan Ridgeway’s Wall of Voodo and Andy Prieboy’s Eye Protection. But the Unknowns were better -- Something new and old at the same time.
I have 4 remaining pieces of Vinyl I kept from those days. There’s a Kinks Pye-label single of “Dead End Street/Big Black Smoke.” There’s the ’67 Reaction-label of Cream -- “Strange Brew/Sunshine of Your Love.” There’s the Crawdaddys “Lolette/Pretty Face” on Bomp! … And the Unknowns EP on Sire. I’m keeping ’em.
Crawdaddys / Unknowns thought. I always likened the Bomp! recording by the original Crawdaddys, “I Can Never Tell,” to have a nod towards the sound that The Unknowns were making.
There were only a handful of double-bills of the bands, that I remember. Still, the two groups were the only thing I went out for in those days, and are linked closely in my mind to the days when something interesting began to find a space for itself, almost unnoticed at the edges of ‘punk’.
Thanks for joining us Bruce! I’m so glad you are still performing and recording. The new band sounds great! Hope to see you live soon.
wow! great to see a buncha old names on here, I’d been wondering what happened to some of these people. I’m now in Oberlin Ohio, a small town about half an hour from Cleveland. The alt-rock band I was in (that Bobby Lane couldn’t remember the name of) was FZ13, which still exists in its original form, (Scott McCarter and myself) we’ve just been on hiatus, there’s plans for new stuff. THRT is still a possibility, and I’m starting to do solo stuff again, after a long break, and also working with Aaron Dilloway of Wolf Eyes. I’ll check back here occasionally.
Jerry,
It’s quite perceptive of you to notice a link between the Crawdaddys’ “I Can Never Tell” and the Unknowns. I was just talking to Mark the other day (in an interview for a piece that will be posted soon). He mentioned that the Unknowns approached songwriting in the same way that Ron does--“beat music in a minor key.” He mentioned “I Can Never Tell” in particular as a song that was similar to some of his songs. Mark tells me that when he first saw the Crawdaddys, he thought they were the best band he’d ever seen.
Just came across this site and thought I’d throw in my 2 cents. My name is Joe Foy and I played bass in the Unknowns when they (Bruce and Mark) first moved to SD from Georgia. My roomate Jack Donohue (later drummer for the Crawdads) and I had recently moved from New Jersey to an apartment above the “Beef in a Sack” deli in South Mission Beach. Bruce and Mark moved in and the Unknowns rehearsed there. Trivia note: I ripped off the band name “Unknowns” from a defunct Paterson NJ band that played CYO dances in the 60’s. I first played bass in the Cardiac Kidz after moving to SD and was working at the Roxy on Cass St when the Unknowns formed. I also worked as stage manager for Laura Frasier at the Skeleton Club. Tim Mays and Tim LaMadrid were instrumental in promoting the early Unknowns.
Got a lotta great memories from those days. I’m now living in Atlanta and have been in touch with Bruce. Hi Bruce! His new stuff is killer.
Thanks,
-Joe
Hey Joe,
I just finished interviewing Bruce, Mark and Dave for a long Unknowns piece I’m finishing up. Look for it soon. Hope all is well in Atlanta.
By the way, I’m not sure I’d ever want to eat at a deli called “Beef in a Sack.”
You must not forget DFX-2 ,The Tokyos, The Upbeats, and Peter New York aka The Missing Foundation. F. O. N. O. Marc Rude’s conceptual group Friends Of No One, consisted of 4 people. Marc Rude, Chuko Tony, Shawn Kerri, and Rich Fortune. Also Claude Coma and the I.V.’s were quite instrumental in the San Diego “SCENE”
I remember a couple of bands that were a little younger than the Noise 292/Hair Theatre/Rockin’ Dogs/Wallflowers/Tell-Tale Hearts age groups: The Nephews and The Trebles. I remember the Nephews as being pretty impressive, seeming to come out of nowhere. Can somebody fill me in on these groups? Also, the Nashville Ramblers haven’t been mentioned much on this blog.
Hey Paul,
The Nephews featured none other than Dave Ellison’s little brother on guitar. I was just thinking about the Trebles the other day--Jay Wiseman, Xavier Anaya, John Chilson--Chula Vista guys who were actually our contemporaries.
Thanks Ray,
I didn’t remember the Ellison connection. I notice that the Dave Fest 3 featured the Nephews as well as Dave’s band the Wild Desires, another band I’m sketchy on the details of.
https://cheunderground.site/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/12-che-72085-dave-fest-iii.jpg
RE the Nephews: Tim Ellison reminds me of the Nephews’ MySpace page, which includes a couple of numbers by these talented (41-year-old) youngsters: http://www.myspace.com/wearethenephews
Tim writes: “The Nephews’ first show apart from playing some things around Poway and Rancho Bernardo was actually at the Che, probably sometime in late 1984. (I think we played with a band called the Frame, if anyone might remember them. David Anderson was their drummer.)
“Mark Stephens and I started the band, and we were sixteen that year. Probably the coolest show that we got to do in the early years, and that was related to this scene, was the Halloween show at Greenwich Village West. It must have been Halloween of 1985. I think the show got shut down before the Morlocks got to play and I think there was one other band on the bill. Maybe the Tell-Tale Hearts played that night?”
I’m pretty sure I played on a bill with the Nephews at GVW, although I may be doing another one of those Forrest Gump juxtapositions!
PS: Speak of the devil! Nephews reunion at the Casbah Jan. 25 (with Creedle).
I like the sound the Nephews had on the songs on their MySpace page. Kinda spare. They say they played with “weird art bands”. Who could that be Matthew?
I wonder if the Halloween gig could have been this one: https://cheunderground.site/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/flier-morlocks_noise292_hairtheater_cindyleeberryhill.jpg
I notice a lot of reunions of sorts are taking place at the Casbah in January: Nashville Ramblers on the 2nd; Penetrators, Manual Scan, The Loons (and the Latino Uncles?) on the 24th. I realize some bands never broke up. Wish I could go but I’m a bit cash-strapped.
Hi everyone. Paul, that must have been the show and maybe I just didn’t get to see everyone’s set that night, but now I remember Cindy Lee setting up after we played. I also remember that you loaned me a guitar string that night!
Didn’t the Nephews also play with the Neophytes, an early duo that featureð Cindy Lee? Or am I juxtaposing again?
PS: REAL sorry you missed our swan song that night, Tim … If we’d sucked any harder, the building would’ve imploded! LOL
The Verves, Rick Elias, The mature adults, Plimsouls, the Cockers, Bop Martyrs. The Knobs, Your Sister. Vamps. Does anyone remember Brian Bloodclot?
Bop Martrys, Decagents, Bogtrotters--all Joe Piper bands.
Matt:
“The individual musican is the basic atomic unit of this tree. If we made a table of every musician, their dates and connectedness to assorted bands, we’d have most of the degrees of separation we need.”
We tried to do something like that on the Shambles website of just people who were somehow related to the Shambles. A pretty big undertaking. It almost needs to be a wiki of some sort. Here’s a link to the Shambles stuff: Shambles connections
There was so much fabulous stuff happening in the late ’70s in SD. Yeah the Big bands were the Zeros and Hitmakers, then Dils, Battalion of Saints, Injections, Exterminators, etc…. Also many great surf bands, mod types, hippie bands, early metal; truly an artistically fruitful time!
I saw shows at SDSU backdoor with Navy friends as early as ’77.
Anyone remember Parrot World?? Don’t think so !
Bruce Injection
NOT SURPRISING THAT THE BEST BAND OF THE LATE 70’S/EARLY EIGHTIES WAS A BAND CALLED “THE BIG”..THEY PLAYED WITH JUST ABOUT EVERY BAND LISTED IN YOUR BLOG..FROM THE CRAWDADDYS TO PENETRATORS ETC..BUT IS FORGOTTEN BECAUSE THEY BLEW AWAY ALL THAT OTHER CRAP…ASK BRUCE JOYNER..AS A MATTER OF FACT HE FAILS TO EVEN MENTION THEM AS WELL..I GUESS WHEN SCOTT McCARTER TOLD JIM McGINNIESS TO FUCK OFF IT STILL RINGS IN THE MIND OF SAD DIEGO’S SOCIAL ELITE
>>NOT SURPRISING THAT THE BEST BAND OF THE LATE 70’S/EARLY EIGHTIES WAS A BAND CALLED “THE BIG”.
Bludworth: … Well, maybe just a little surprising (to me, anyway), since I don’t remember the Big! 🙂
Is there anything online about this band? Or do you have any audio or other artifacts you can send along? I’m intrigued … The e-mail address is cheunderground@gmail.com.
Thanks!
PS: Googling frantically … I found this reference to the Big (and another Scott McCarter band called Soldiers of Fortune) … And NON co-founder Robert Turman mentions the band in our piece on Saigon Palace. (Apparently Robert and Scott have worked together on a project called FZ13.)
BIG couldn’t have been very.
>>BIG couldn’t have been very.
Bruce: Heh! Not commercially, it seems … But who knows? Maybe they made wonderful music.
It seems a bit of a non sequitur to assert the Big is completely forgotten ’cause they were better than everyone … And I never heard that dissing Jim McGuinness could get you expunged from the historical record. But I’d be happy to hear ’em!
BIG could have been great!! But if none of my friends have even heard of them I can only assume….NOT big!
“Better than everyone”?
hey bruce how easy for you to forget when you rolled into el cajon flat broke..members of the BIG and blue meannie fed you and got you on your feet..thanks thanks alot
Must not be me man! The only time I went to El Cajon was for a dentist appointment.
Unless…I was “mind-altered” a LOT back then. Did I ever “roll” into El Cajon flat broke???
Maybe?
bruce….just say thank you.
Hey Clay…It’s not my fault…maybe it was the drugs, but I’ve never heard of the BIG and I never went to El Cajon…but…alright…I’ll say it: Thank you Clay
>>Thank you Clay
“G’night, Gracie!”
Matt -- you are soooo old!!!
hey bruce..sorry got you mixed up with bruce joyner of “the unknowns”
Dammit, I wanna hear the Big!! 🙂
Clay, you have moments of keen insight and clarity.
Hey bludworth…no problem. It could have been me!!
At least I HAVE heard of the Unknowns.
“Dammit, I wanna hear the Big!! 🙂
>>”Dammit, I wanna hear the Big!!”
Picture me saying the above sentence like Beavis …
Ha ha…
With all your resources perhaps you could imbed a soundbite of yourself doing this??
>>With all your resources perhaps you could imbed a soundbite of yourself doing this??
DAMMIT! The Big, dammit. Heh-heh, heh-heh. Where’s the Big, dammit? DammitdammitDAMMIT!!!
Thanks…I’ll use my imagination!!
If you’re up..Pet Shop Boys on Jimmy Fallon tonight at 12:30.
I must see this!
>>Hey bludworth…no problem. It could have been me!!
bruce that’s so seriously BIG of you!!!! LOL!!!
i wonder how many daves got fed and never thanked properly by the wrong dave?!?!
(i’m rolling off my seat….sorry!)
>>i wonder how many daves got fed and never thanked properly by the wrong dave?!?!
On the flipside, Daves get to frequently blame other Daves for their misadventures . . .”Dave did it!”
Growing up…so many Bruce jokes! The moose, goose, Brucey-woosey.
I always countered with BRUCE Lee…BRUCE Wayne…
Hey man…it’s Dave….Daves not home, man…
Question: Who was the first SD hardcore band? Who first grabbed hold of that really fast and heavy sound that was busting loose in SoCal?
I’m thinking there were bands in SD by 1980, 1981 — but I don’t remember who came first.
PS: I know the terminology is always a little reductive … Hope I’m conveying the question without offending anyone by putting them in an arbitrary “hardcore” box. 🙂
Zeros and Pens started it. Injections, Exterminators, Neutrons were next.
More like 1978
>>Zeros and Pens started it. Injections, Exterminators, Neutrons were next.
>>More like 1978
Bruce: I’m talking about the super-fast, super-dense, Cuisinart kinda attack — like, DOA, Black Flag … All the guys you mentioned were a lot more spare, mid-tempo and melodic than what I’m talkin’ bout.
Are you implying that the Injections and Neutrons were melodic???
LOL.
No, I see what you’re saying. Zeros and Pens were first mod/punk/new wavy though.
Injections/Exterminators/Neutrons were the first to add the leather, FONO, almost super fast, almost super dense style.
I think LA/SF bands cornered the Black Flag, FEAR, Darby sound better than any SD bands…and earlier.
i’d argue that the nutronz were pretty damned fast…very little mid-tempo about what they were doing.
speaking of exterminators…..anyone ever hear of dt’s whereabouts?
I ran into DT in Providence, of all places, around 1990. Then I visited him in 1995? in SD. He was living right on Sunset Cliffs.
I think Neutrons/Injections/Exterminators all had a hardcore side, at least live. And we started early…when everyone was listening to Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, and Boston!!
I think the Injections were more Stooges, NY Dolls, Velvet Underground influenced in the beginning. Remember, we hadn’t heard the Pistols or the Clash yet. (I did love Sham 69 though).
There was certainly a heavier presence, and a HUGE volume increase in the music of the LA bands at this time though…I think that is the speed and volume Matt alluded to.
>>There was certainly a heavier presence, and a HUGE volume increase in the music of the LA bands at this time though…I think that is the speed and volume Matt alluded to.
Bruce: Yes, bingo. Thank you — you’re articulating the distinction much better than I did!
>>”you’re articulating the distinction much better than I did!”
Thanks Matt, but you’re much more articulate…come on!
My one observation is that we were some guttersnipe bands in the beginning. We played with Sears guitars, 50 watt amps, and broken mikes. Singers had to scream to be heard and guitarists fingers were shredded after a show!
When I first saw Fear, I couldn’t believe the equipment! Marshall stacks like KISS!! Good mikes, good PA’s…I think that helped turn the sound from the sham 69 type band into a force to be reckoned with!!
sound like early SD to me!!
sound like early LA to me!
Could someone explain the Cardiac Kidz to me? We’ve never had a visit from them I know of, but the name turns up periodically …
This thread from Killed by Death Records attracted various Injections; Penetrators; and Jeff Lucas, who credits vocalist Jim Ryan’s invitation to join the second-phase Cardiac Kidz as the origin of his band career.
The Cardiac Kidz seem to have been active since 1974, originally under the name Glass Onion.
Here is a Wikipedia entry on the band.
And here’s a 30th anniversary video on MySpace:
Cardiac Kidz -- 30th anniversary -- promo
PS: “Explain” = describe their connection to everything else that was going on.
The Cardiac Kidz seem to have known all our local influences personally and have played a ton of gigs, but somehow I missed ’em completely!
(Not that I’m any kind of gold standard … I was too young and too far north, sans driver’s license, to claim any consistent understanding of who was who in SD 1977-1981.)
okay then…maybe the nutronz weren’t ALL THAT fast….
but they were still the fastest of those grouped into this discussion.
well for san diego, I would say the nutronz were the heaviest sound, I thought the exterminators, injections, etc. were more garage sounding (and I mean this in a hugely complimentive way) stooges…great…dirty…rock! I think as far as the speeding up of punk goes directly to middle class from LA…everytime I saw em, they blew me away at how fast and short their songs were. They were doing it waaaay before anyone else was.
heff
Much agree with Clay and Heff.
I loved the alternative excitement of 1977-78.
The earliest bands in SD had much less specific designation. Not such much labeling of musical styles Punk, Mod, New wave, surf, etc…
A very fruitful time when anyone could start a band with any style and there was a venue and an audience.
I still think Pens/Zeros/Hitmakers started it all. Who knew at that time??
And we all owe NY Dolls, Stooges, Velvet Underground, Dead Boys credit for being there before any of us. I don’t know of any West Coast equivalent???
late 70s left-coast was pretty much journey, van halen and grateful dead, wasn’t it?
no wonder we were pissed.
of course there was toto.
Right again Clay!
All that ridiculous self-indulgent Eagles shit gave birth to punk. Some of us had a bitter, unrepresented taste in our mouths and tried to make something better. LOL ..all the shitty music made all the money!!
BTW, NEVER understood the attraction to the Dead???
Love isn’t always on time!
I know this is already on this forum somewhere, but it does answer the question of “Who were the early bands”?
This is all of them at the time, many forgotten…don’t know the year. (Notice there are only three venues!)
>>This is all of them at the time, many forgotten…don’t know the year. (Notice there are only three venues!)
Bruce: Betcha 1979! I remember enjoying the Standbys, Color TV and Jim McInnes’ short-lived Land Piranha at the La Paloma. Don’t remember the Electrics, Verves or Dawts(???) Who was in the Mature Adults?
I think you are correct sir. Had to be prior to 1980 because the line-up and clubs changed.
I know….some obscure names there, huh??
I can’t remember his name, but if you look at the original Injections 45 cover, the guy over my LEFT shoulder is the lead singer of the Mature Adults, AKA, the Tokyos!
Lot’s of stuff about Man Called Clay in that issue of Snare and the attached copy of Be My Friend..(link)
I love trivia.
link doesn’t work bruce…..i’d love to see those issues.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thejab/2687991780/in/photostream/
Here ya go Clay…enjoy!!
Thanks to Dean Curtis (a k a “the Jab”) for posting this stuff to Flickr. 🙂
Here’s a San Diego Troubadour interview with Joey Harris that names some names from the era:
I think it was “Trowsers” with a “w,” no?
Can somebody help me with the chronology of these bands? Who started when?
5051
Battalion of Saints
Black Tango
Catch 22
District Tradition
Manifest Destiny
Men of Clay
Moral Majority
Personal Conflict
Sacred Lies
Social Spit
Oh shit…that’s a question for Tom Grizwold or Cliff Cunningham.
Obviously, Clay could add a bit of info to this too!!
what kind of question is that?
there was no chronology…there was just being there doing it when it happened and never even imagining we’d still be discussing this
30 years later…..
not that that’s a bad thing but> it was more like a string of firecrackers going off very nearly simultaneously.
any attempt to delineate such events trivializes the beauty of the chaos which marked that time.
more dangerously it would suggest one event led to another.
that would be wrong.
no one had a clue nor cared…..
and i would think that’d be more true today than ever.
all i will say is black tango was there early on……
>>any attempt to delineate such events trivializes the beauty of the chaos which marked that time.
more dangerously it would suggest one event led to another.
MCC: Yeah, point taken. I wasn’t trying to imply causation … But I am interested in critical mass and certain kinds of tipping points.
It’s, like, 1979 looks pretty simple, with a fairly short list of players … Then KABAM! there’s a whole churn of new bands — your pyrotechnic analogy is apt — and I’ve never exactly gotten straight in my mind who was playing with whom, and where.
I think I kind of got caught up in an early transition from high school to college right about then, plus an extended trip abroad — and I felt like I sorta lost the thread. 🙂
I agree with your analysis of the simultaneity Clay. It did happen all at once…and no-one cared.
BUT, I too have a weakness for historical time-lines and music history in general!!
I would be interested in knowing why 1979 was SO explosive musically in SD.
It was actually ’78-’80 and then over pretty much in my opinion. ’79 probably being the year that almost every band existed in one form or another.
It’s hard to have any hardcore discussion after Fear, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Germs…they kind of said it all…and then a lot of imitation. Look at the ridiculous Green Day!!
Getting recursive here: Check out what Toby wrote early in this thread about ways to look at all this action. I agree with his impulse (which it sounds like Clay shares) to eschew labels … But I do like turning it in different directions and looking at how things came together …
put it this way…..it was like every week or month a new band emerged which we didn’t know about only to find out that they’d been doing stuff for awhile already….skullbusters was a great example.
there was no mainstream media to keep us up-to-date, there was no internet….no assbook..nothing…after i stopped bamboohead there really was a dearth of information as to who was doing what.
lo and behold….no one ever filled that gap.
… And I’m still waiting for someone to play me the Big!! DAMMIT.
Ha…maybe it ALL started and ended with the BIG!!
(no one has yet confirmed that this band ever existed…maybe I made it up in a moment of brilliance??)
RULES OF THE BIG
1st RULE: You do not talk about THE BIG.
2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about THE BIG.
3rd RULE: If someone says “stop” or goes limp, the headliner goes on.
4th RULE: Only two guys to an amp.
5th RULE: One song at a time.
6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes.
7th RULE: Sets will go on as long as they have to.
8th RULE: If this is your first night in THE BIG, you HAVE to play.
A Ha Ha ….. that should really be in he New Yorker!!!!
It’s SO perfectly appropriate…
You DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE BIG!
and if the name was ANYTHING but the BIG, it would be so much less-funny.
Thank you for bringing back the BIG…i had already forgotten, which proves my earlier point that………..
It’s much easier to trace the origins and influences of the early bands--the Zeros, Hitmakers, Dils and Penetrators. They were, to a large degree trapped in that post-sixties period that rejected the seventies culture. The transitional bands fascinate me, and that has been the focus of my research thus far. I’m currently looking at some of the bridges between the sixties and eighties, like Claude Coma and Jerry Raney--I’m interested in how they and their music was affected by the punk movement.
But, yeah--I agree with Clay that once the infrastructure was created by bands like those mentioned above, there was a bit of an explosion here locally. I can still remember the days when I’d see a new mohawk or parka walking down the street, or someone who you could tell through eye contact was cool (a kind of cooldar). After a point it became futile to try and meet everyone.
Clay’s also right in that we were all flying blind--buying records and discovering bands through trial and error and word of mouth. Those were exciting times, and (I know this is a bit of a generalization) but I think in large degree due to the amount of effort it took to educate one’s self, the people who ended up in scenes tended to be more sincere than they were later on.
“after i stopped bamboohead”….not to stir up too much shit…but isn’t this the mag I sat and did an interview with, and at the end of the interview the interviewer accused me of sleeping with his wife or girlfriend and said they would trash me in the interview?…I stopped doing interviews for a long time after this! ahhhh youth!
also…I would not have done the above knowingly, as it was not and still is not my style!
heff
>>Those were exciting times, and (I know this is a bit of a generalization) but I think in large degree due to the amount of effort it took to educate one’s self, the people who ended up in scenes tended to be more sincere than they were later on.
Ray (and Clay): Another facet of our role as the last analog generation … Not just the materials we made were created by hand; the connections we forged happened in real space as well. (Fed by commercial-media channels, to be sure, but happening in flesh and blood across the fairly significant expanses of San Diego County.)
Forgot about that altogether….God, when you wanted to make a phone call you’d have to get out of your car, find a phone booth, insert money….person wasn’t home.
Will they even believe that primitive concept in the future….flesh and blood and a lot of time to make social contact.
Even answering machines weren’t common until the early eighties. I’m still in awe of the phone trees we had in place to let each other know about parties. Within a couple of hours, everyone we know could crash a suburban part somewhere and all of this without the benefit of cell phones, text messaging and facebook.
Good point Ray -- wow! Forgot all about the phone tree concept!
I just recently read that the majority of humans on this planet have never made or received a telephone call!!! Quite humbling…and startling!
wow gary….it’s been a long time since we did that interview but i’m
not sure you ever even met my wife…..and i’m quite certain i never for a second suspected you of as much
nor accused you of such….and certainly not in print.
i think i would remember something like that.
but who knows?….
maybe it’s ALL true??!?!?!
: )
it’s been ages since i’ve seen that issue but i really thought i interviewed a good portion of the band….not just you.
i remember first meeting you at doug diaz’s and being impressed with your energy and seeming good-nature and the fact that you were in an actual punk band.
i just don’t recall you and i ever getting too personal.
but hey it’s never too late, right?!?!?
this interview IS OVER!!!!
ok i’m the guitarist for “THE BIG” and if you want ill transfer tapes to cd of live or studio stuff..if i dig deep enough i can come up with unknowns..penetrators live tapes..dinettes rehearsal tapes.etc…i just about have every homemade flyers/magazines from that time period..i still have battalion of saints business card george gave me..i guess you could say i was the one who happened to collect this stuff(somebody had too i guess)..here’s a story for ya..dan (dick montana) was working at i believe a 7-11 in santee early/mid seventies and every night i’d come by with a little box of 45’s and we’d talk music and we started talking about maybe opening a record store..well that ending up with blue meannie records(me) and monty rockers(him)..rivals i guess and you know the rest..anyway contact me
clay, thanks for stepping up to the plate….i remember it was a morning interview and i’m sure there was alchohol involved….so maybe it ws just one of those weird moments…we’re cool.
>>anyway contact me
Bludworth: Very cool! I’d love to … BTW, the Che Underground hotline is open 24/7 at cheunderground@gmail.com.
PS: Blue Meanies was an awesome store!!
Bludworth: I would love to hear whatever Pens, The Big, stuff you have. BTW, the original Blue Meanie was magical for me. I remember it seemed like such a long drive from the beach where I lived and it felt like another world out there--a bunch of older nondescript buildings, very quiet, with this jewel of a record store where no one would expect it. I remember “getting lost” in the store for long periods of time. I bought the best Clash poster I’ve ever seen from you guys after a buying trip you took to England… Lots of great Bowie I had never heard before… There was a coveted red vinyl 45 of Elvis Costello’s Alison on the wall behind the counter--a great live EC record--“50 Million Fans Can’t Be Wrong.” One of the guys that worked there even made me a tape of a live version of EC doing Burt Bararach’s “I just don’t what to do with myself.” The videos you guys played were great too--John Lydon on Tom Synder, Live Blondie, etc. Thanks for the store and I look forward to any music that you might share with Che!
quick note..i was not implying I was blue meannie records ..i was just lucky enough to be involved in it..garry shrum and mitch holdenhausen started the store..i came soon after..also nobody bitched about it either,i just thought id bring it up..thanks
Bludworth: The e-mail you logged in with (that only those of us with Admin superpowers can see!) is bouncing when I try to e-mail you.
If you could write to me at cheunderground@gmail.com, I would be very excited to talk about what we could do with your archives on the blog!
You recent posters may want to search for “Blue Meanie” in the blog. I recall it was discussed (with great reverence) in previous threads.
I used to love to hang out there all day and watch videos in the back. They were real cool about letting us do that.
(No, it’s not the same Skullbusters … But it’s funny if you pretend it is!)
That’s kind of funny…but not as funny as THIS!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKMS4cp7pUI
The Big!!
THE BIG!
Boy, we’re a little OCD, huh??
Why did this thread “go away”??
If you can link to this edition of Snare, lot’s of answers on bands, good interviews, ( DFX2, Injections, Mature Adults,) and original ad for Iggy/Pens, etc……..
Great stuff!
>>If you can link to this edition of Snare, lot’s of answers on bands, good interviews, ( DFX2, Injections, Mature Adults,) and original ad for Iggy/Pens, etc……..
Bruce et al.: Click on the picture to follow the link. 🙂
Yeah Boy!! History.
email address was messed up..sorry..its [REDACTED]
[Editor’s note: Thank you for providing your address, Bludworth! To protect our users from the online — ahem! — Blue Meanies who check this site for e-mail addresses to spam, we discourage people from posting their personal e-mail. I’ve got it and will contact you. And if there’s anyone with whom you’d like to be in personal contact, including me, drop a line to cheunderground@gmail.com.]
Thanks Matt, and glad to hear from you Bludworth.
I want to keep this thread on top…somehow.
Maybe I’ll just keep my diary here or work on my school papers.
one way to keep it readily available is by simply bookmarking it.
Here’s an unnerving one (to me): In his very fine article on the Kmak brothers Joel and Jef, San Diego Troubadour writer Raul Sandelin cites myriad bands this drummer and bassist have played in.
Among them, Jef was in an early-’70s San Diego outfit named Mutt: “By 1972 their musicianship was attracting attention from well established local musicians. Jef was asked to play bass in the glitter, prog-rock band Mutt. ‘That was a band that almost made it,’ Jef says. Mutt rose to the top of the San Diego scene, selling out local venues including SDSU’s Montezuma Hall. Finally, they headed to L.A. where they were wooed by Polydor, Atlantic, and Electra. But, sadly the band was never signed and all but broke up by 1976.”
An accompanying photo shot in El Cajon lists the members as Jef Kmak; Bob Gartland; Larry Kusnitt (aka Eliot Wilder); Dan Linck; and Keith Seagal.
Now, on the face of it, this does not sound like my cup of Red Zinger (although I probably would have worshipped a glittery prog thing — with a white top hat, no less! — ca. fifth grade in 1974). But it’s scary how few references I can find to a band that was ostensibly “at the top of the San Diego scene.”
Eliot Wilder makes a glancing mention of the Troubadour article, explicitly denying the “glitter, prog-rock” label. A writer to his MySpace page says, “Why, anybody with ears back then knew Mutt was a ‘heady mixture of voodoo blues and Swedish milk maid music.’ ”
That’s more like it! Who was Mutt??
BTW, I don’t actually know if we ever promoed Toby’s history of Personal Conflict. I’d like to adapt this for a post of its own!
San Diego band The Cardiac Kidz make the “big time”!
This from the band’s Myspace page:
“Rave-UP Records” a record company located in Roma Italy,(http://www.raveuprecords.com/ &ttp://www.myspace.com/raveup) released a LP vinyl import from Europe which contains 14 songs by the band. This event only added to the bands mystique which was generated by mention in Henry Weld’s http://www.collectorscum.com/volume3/henmus.html “History of US Punk” discography and few appearances on the “Killed by Death” record compilation series specifically -- #007 which had “Find Yourself A Way” and #12 Which had “Get Out” both from the released single in 1979. After that the “Hyped to Death” records released a compilation record #51 which contained the song “I’ve seen you before” which was from the bands 2nd vinyl EP released titled “Playground”. The EP was recorded live at the infamous “Spirit” night club in San Diego, California.
Just recently a few of the very rare singles appeared on the E-Bay auction site; on September 27, 2009 the 7″ vinyl single went for $760.00. 10 days later another 45 single appeared on E-Bay and it’s final bidding price was $820.00.”
>>” … on September 27, 2009 the 7″ vinyl single went for $760.00. 10 days later another 45 single appeared on E-Bay and it’s final bidding price was $820.00.”
Holy smokes! The Injections’ single fetches $840 … The Cardiac Kidz’ single, $820 …
Who is shelling out this money, and would they like to hang out with us??
What’ll you give me for “Playground” by the Cardiac Kidz, VG, with original inserts? (I’ve got kids who’ll want to go to college and a Granny to visit in England…)
I was contacted by a collector in Texas who said he would pay any price I want for an original Injections 45 sleeve.
I’m not a collector or anything. What is an original?
All the sleeves were just pictures cut out, some little drawings and words, all pasted together, and Xeroxed!
There might have been subsequent copies made after the first batch. What is an ORIGINAL copy, and how can you tell??
>>What is an ORIGINAL copy, and how can you tell??
Bruce: When I was doing my very earliest research for the blog, I came across this guy selling vintage San Diego flyers (including the Hair Theatre piece I located) for $10 each … He’s currently selling a 1991 Hair Theatre/Fuzztones flyer from Bodie’s for $15.
How do you verify an original flyer that was photocopied in the first place? I guess you could carbon-date the paper, but you’d have to burn part of the flyer to get a sample …
Bruce,
What is confusing is the oxymoron “original copy.” To collector types, original means original or first pressing. I would assume that all copies of the Injections record are from the original batch. Sounds like what this guy wants is a sleeve from that first batch of sleeves. Perhaps he doesn’t know that they were all just photocopies, and not offset printed. Anyway, I imagine a less honest person might offer to sell this guy a photocopy of a photocopy.
Supposedly what our “Producer” was doing prior to going to prison.
The “first press” was 500 copies…they have more value than copies made…sometime later???
Hey boys…Doriot here. Just to set the record straight (vis a vis “Dean Curtis Says: August 6th, 2008 at 8:06 pm”[sorry…couldn’t make it any further down the thread at that point]). I was the leader of the Dinettes, and started the Cockpits. Joyce Rooks answered an ad I’d put in the Reader for a guitarist, and the rest is ancient history. The Dinettes went on 2 cross-country tours and imploded in Atlanta, just before opening for Joan Jett. Joyce, bless her heart and soul, had the sense to ditch us before the madness progressed to a fever pitch, before we even left San Diego. On the road Lisa Aston Emerson (RIP) was taking acid everyday and becoming more mired in a psychotic haze. One of our roadies (RIP) maxed out on crank…it was so very WT and not at all what I’d had in mind. Best part is that I’m alive and well (never thought I’d make it till 40).
xo
d
>>Best part is that I’m alive and well (never thought I’d make it till 40).
Doriot: We’re very glad you did! Thank you for joining us and for the stories!
Doriot!! Watching you sing “Wild Thing” at Skeleton Club # 1 , on Halloween is what got me into the punk scene I think!!
Loved you guys and loved Lisa. She definitely made my life a trip!
Doriot! Oh man…your post made my day…I am so glad that you are around…someone quick contact her and lets get the story of the Dinettes on here…oh man this is huge to me…thanks so much for posting Doriot!!!
>>someone quick contact her and lets get the story of the Dinettes on here…
Heff: Emotion seconded! Who can do justice to The Dinettes Story??
I don’t think I know a man who would be fearless enough to take this task…how about a woman…I think only a woman would ask the right questions!
hey people..working on cd collection of offenders live at roxy (board tape)the big live at zebra/spirit/all the way inn/studio/outtakes etc../penetrators at spirit/unknowns at spirit/dinettes rehearsal tape/offenders studio tapes..also the guy selling san diego flyers got them from me..maybe ill put together limited cd box set if i can get my shit together..in process of transfering tapes to cd..some are easy some are hard..quality varies from bad to excellent..i wont do any editing..just leave them as they are..i’ll update when i can
THE BIG!! Yes!!!
The Big played at Parkway Tri-Theatres? What is Parkway Tri-Theatres? A cinema??
parkway bowling alley..used to be cinnimon cinder i believe at one time..sonny and cher played there and strawbeery alarm clock
>>used to be cinnimon cinder i believe at one time
Oooh! Oooh! Cinnamon Cinder — hell, yeah, we’ve heard about it here. When did you start going to shows, Bludworth?
1967..seen alot..i remember going to a small place on greenfield in el cajon and seeing funky buckwheat which evolved into glory..swiss navy ..blond frog..total psychedlic happening..totally nuts..im surprised the cops weren’t on it..blacklights..the whole bit..remember first headshop out in lakeside as well..have a card from them around here somewhere.
Did anyone else know the Cinnamon Cinder was one of a chain of Cinnamon Cinders started by Bob Eubanks?
The BIG!! and so much more…thanks Bludworth.
bludworth….did i see GLORY open for Iron Butterfly at the old padres stadium around 1970 or was i just a teen-ager on drugs?
no i didn’t …probably due to some chick..did see the doors at sports arena that year tho’..i remember gari rachac and me watching jerry rainey practice with a pair of brothers maybe twins at some house in el cajon around 1967/68..maybe somebody remembers their name..also my friend garry shrum was in a band called “shadows in the street”.. anybody remember them?
Doriot Dinette, thanks for the clarification and update. Glad to hear that you survived and are doing well!
The only Cinnamon Cinder I recall (vaguely) was on the outskirts of La Mesa; it later became Straita Head Sound, which provided my only encounter with Gary Wilson & the Blind Dates (my Slash review is actually preserved online courtesy of a site dedicated to the Screamers, who headlined). I saw the Cardiac Kidz open for somebody at the Backdoor and also recall The Big (again, vaguely).
>>(my Slash review is actually preserved online courtesy of a site dedicated to the Screamers, who headlined)
Here’s Mikel’s review from that show at Straita Head Sound, a venue I don’t think I ever heard of.
Plate o’ shrimp! Five minutes after declaring I have no recollection of Straita Head Sound, I google a San Diego Reader biography of Battalion of Saints that begins, “Battalion of Saints is an ’80s heavy metal/punk band who frequently played long-gone local venue Straita Head Sound. “
This is a funny story.
I obviously would take issue with the notion that diversification in San Diego music took off in 1986-87; I believe it might have more to do with the age of the reporter and his sources than any objective measure of eclecticism. What do you think?
I think this article is way off on some things.
The “philosophy” of Punk Rock…the term Generation X being coined in 1994??
History is always changing
This article still leaves me with the lingering question….did any SD bands ever “make it”??
I have never heard of any of the dozens of bands the author refers to.
Top of the Pops 1977!!
>>I have never heard of any of the dozens of bands the author refers to.
Bruce: I have, and I’d love some smart folks to extend our narrative here to connect those later San Diego strands to the earlier stuff we’ve explored.
But this Reader story seems determined to oversimplify everything that happened before the late ’80s so the author can claim special status for that era. That’s just silly!
P.S.: Any story that leads, “The roots of the San Diego music scene run deep. Musicians who began gigging around town in the mid- to late 1980s later became the bedrock of the diverse early ’90s scene … ” is going to make me laff. Wow: Stuff that started in the late ’80s helped shape the early ’90s … Those are some deep-running roots! 🙂
I remember being annoyed at the short-sightedness of this article when it appeared in the Reader. According to this history of the world, punk rock was created by direct act in six literal twenty-four hour days at the beginning of the nineties.
The simple but factual account of origins as presented in the article provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the earth and the universe.
>>I remember being annoyed at the short-sightedness of this article when it appeared in the Reader.
But, Ray, if I hadn’t read this story, I never would have known that the Nutrons/Battalion of Saints was the only local band to perform in San Diego before 1986!
Oh, sorry. Also, “Amenity and Unbroken were two of the better-known bands that played at house parties, such as Del Mar’s and Mitch’s in Chula Vista, but who also crossed over to hall shows and backyard parties throughout San Diego.”
Oh, yeah! Amenity. And Unbroken. At house parties. In back yards.
I remember a show at Strait Ahead Sound with The Executives and The Wigs, but I can’t remember any others (though I know I went a few times). I also remember hearing that it was a Cinnamon Cinder before.
During the years we were doing our thing, Strait Ahead sound was a heavy metal club. They have a facebook page dedicated to the big hair days: http://www.facebook.com/straitaheadsound
>>During the years we were doing our thing, Strait Ahead sound was a heavy metal club.
This is an aspect I’ve been mulling in response to Bruce’s question about San Diegans “making it,” but proceeding from there: No matter how far afield we’ve wandered, we’ve barely even touched the world of bland, glossy, unabashedly commercial pop product. I have no clue if any of the hundreds of local acts I would never have watched spawned commercially successful acts I would never have watched. 🙂
I would love to grab some ancient copies of the Reader, let’s say ca. 1977-1984, and just start copying down listings for local bands I never heard or would have heard. Bet there were … 500? More?
BTW, I don’t know if the metal bands at Straita Head sound were glossy, commercial, yadda-yadda. I know it wasn’t “our thing.”
Cheesy,perhaps?I like a little bit’o metal now and then,but I’d be willing to wager it wasn’t very good.I think i was at that executives/wigs show,probably with bruce Atwell,or Squirrel,or maybe both.I know I was at some parties at Del Mars house,it was in IB I think,Verbal Assault played there,the were on Dischord I think.Might have seen Shelter there too,the Krishnas were there serving food in the backyard.there were a lot of good houseparty/shows in the late80’s/early 90’s,as many as 3 or 4 bands would play sometimes.I played a few with bands I was in,sharing the bill with the likes of Milestone,Plum Daisy,members of which are in Mr.Tube and the flying Objects now.That guys piece probably is a bit period-centric,but there was some good stuff going on during that time,and just like the earlier scenes,it was about having fun,not about violence.
..does anybody remember these san diego bands from late 70’s/early 80’s?
>>That guys piece probably is a bit period-centric,but there was some good stuff going on during that time
Bobby: I’m sure there was … And there’s nothing wrong with period-centric — editorially you have to focus on something, or you have nothing.
But if you’re going to claim insight into the historical context about what came before the focus of your story, you really ought to do some research. As an editor, I’d have whacked the whole intro or sent the author back to do it properly.
Bludworth: Thank you for the images! I remember the name Offenderz (I think because I always did a double-take with X-Offenderz). I was at the Roxy only a couple of times. And I don’t recall the Box Office.
>>Strait Ahead sound was a heavy metal club. They have a facebook page dedicated to the big hair days: http://www.facebook.com/straitaheadsound
Ray: I’ve been getting a kick out of reading the big-hair parallel-universe comments on this page, waxing nostalgic about “the bands and people that made Straita Head Sound THE place to see live rock music in the 80’s.” Assassin, Aircraft, Arrogance … A lot of one-word bands starting with the letter “A.” 🙂
I like this guy’s attitude:
” Shane Bjorstrom Has anyone ever heard where Steve from Arrogance is at? It a trip seeing all the old guys and bands from back then. I say all the bands get back together and do a San Diego Woodstock.”
Hee, hee!
I remember one night playing perkins palace with the plimsouls. and after our soundcheck these big hair guys took me and dan out for a drink…it was motley crue…weird…and there’s a guy named mario who owned the whiskey, roxy and the rainbow, and he really liked us as well so he would let me into shows for free all the time…one night he got me into the whiskey to see ratt and after the show I went backstage as we had mutual friends…I remember thinking to myself “where did all these 14 year old girls come from?” completely surreal.
i haven’t had coffee yet..but we (THE BIG) played CLUB 30..it was a topless bar..everybody’s girlfriends was pissed off but mine..i was lucky she was bi…..it was quite a distraction…the box office was a strip club you could see from i-8 to the right in mission valley..it had a maniquinn dressed in a leopard skin thing(it was always half-naked) on a 80 foot pole..we played there a few times..i think this is the last time scott McCarter (lead singer) played guitar at..he was so messed up he couldn’t play and sing at the same time,so we took the guitar from him and from then on he never played guitar live..*have board tape from show to prove it*..it’s great to hear..funnier than hell.
>>i haven’t had coffee yet..but we (THE BIG) played CLUB 30..it was a topless bar
Bludworth: Tangent … My late-’90s SF band the Amazons played a benefit for sex workers at DV8 in SoMa. Admission was free if you were nekkid; of course all the takers (except a couple of shills) were flabby middle-aged mens.
And we played last, after a guy who lifted cinderblocks with his junk and some women who tased each others’ business and a strung-out tranny ballet dancer who kept coming untucked.
It was a strange night!
>>ratt
Heff: Thank you! San Diego band, sold approximately 11 million records, still at it … I think they “made it” by any reckoning.
Besides your anecdote, Ratt had nothing to do with us as far as I know … except that the little brother of Ratt’s guitarist played guitar with Dave Fleminger at Dave’s first-ever public rock-‘n’-roll performance!
Ah, Ratt. And the inevitable Ratt Poison tour. Good times. In those days bands like Ratt would insist they were “from L.A.” Later, Stone Temple Pilots would claim to be a San Diego band, much to the chagrin of the local scene.
Mickey Ratt
saw ratt opening for van halen
wwwmyspacecombludworth
>>”And we played last, after a guy who lifted cinderblocks with his junk and some women who tasted each others’ business and a strung-out tranny ballet dancer who kept coming untucked.”
God, horrific imagery!!!!!!
Didn’t know Ratt was a SD band. I guess they “made it”…not exactly the Beach boys or Beatles though!
i believe gary puckett and the union gap was a san diego band as well as moby grape had some members from here..also i think jerry rainey went to school with some of iron butterfly members too..ask him..
Stephen Bishop goes without saying — so let’s not! 🙂
(MCC: Have mercy … I’m just answering Bruce’s musical question, “Did any San Diegans ‘make it’?” And Mr. Bishop is in fact only a few years older than the Penetrators!)
Anybody here remember the Weeds? Or beat a young Stephen Bishop up after school?
PS: This scene almost redeems him. Almost.
>>i think jerry rainey went to school with some of iron butterfly members too
Bludworth: According to the SD Reader’s online reference, the city’s original Roosters ca. 1965 included both Jerry Raney and Jack Pinney, the original drummer of Iron Butterfly (whom Wikipedia says was replaced in 1966). The article refers to the Roosters at the Cinnamon Cinder’s “house band.”
BTW, Jerry Raney is the same age as Stephen Bishop.
i knew jack penny (correct spelling,i believe) but not that well but didn’t know iron butterfly connection..also jerry,jack and some other guy formed “the jerry rainey band”briefly..have promo 8x10 around here somewhere..i’ll post it when i find it…
I have fond mammories (umm, I mean memories!) of seeing the giant go-go girl statue above The Box Office strip bar when I was a kid riding in the back seat of our station wagon down I-8. Some other memories of her here.
OK, some bands came from SD! I still don’t really recognize any of them other than Gary Puckett.
I was wondering if SD produced a Brian Wilson or John Lennon type, I guess.
Somebody REALLY famous must have been born in SD??
Ann Wilson, Cameron Diaz, Ted Danson…not bad!
Google famous people born in SD
>>Ann Wilson, Cameron Diaz, Ted Danson…not bad!
Bruce: Uhhhhh … I’m not sure any of those people meet your John Lennon/Brian Wilson requirement …
A huge rock star? I think Eddie Vedder is probably the biggest to claim San Diego as a hometown, although he was a transplant like a lot of us.
An iconoclastic rock auteur with an international following? Tom Waits, again … But his unit sales are miniscule compared to the Beatles or Beach Boys.
I dunno … Who’s the Lennon/Wilson of Chicago, or Boston, or San Francisco, or Atlanta? It’s kind of a specific job description!
PS: Wikipedia has a list of notable San Diegans. The absence of Buford the Candy Clown or Captain Sticky makes me doubt its comprehensiveness.
who remembers mister toad’s wild ride??
I guess Jonas Salk, Ray Kroc, and Raquel Welch would be my rock stars from SD.
I never liked Pearl Jam so that doesn’t mean anything to me.
http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/8/812/8JRI000Z/raquel-welch.jpg
ICONIC!
>>I guess Jonas Salk, Ray Kroc, and Raquel Welch would be my rock stars from SD.
Not Dr. Seuss??
oh yeah ..he won’t admit it but jake e. lee (ozzy’s guitar player) for awhile lived or came from el cajon..at least his mother lived there…he would always say he’s from southern california..THE BIG played a show in lakeside at the park with a band called “child”..he might of been in that band but can’t confirm it…i was only their manager then before i took over being guitarist..mike rogge was the guitar player for THE BIG at that time..also brian dog was bass player in the band before he started the x-offenders/offenders with cindy bristol and kathy somebody..he’s a great guitar player as well..does anybody know what happened to PARIS TRENT AND THE UPBEATS?..very talented guy..
jakie lee came from imperial beach…..i used to watch him practice in his mom’s garage…..maybe he was from el cajon too though.
i knew jack pinney for years. he managed the arizona tile on morena blvd for a decade or two…..very sweet humble guy. i still run into him occasionally…i’ll definitely tell him he got mentioned here.
Paris Trent is on Facebook. Still alive and well. We lived with him and Gary, and Tom G. at Front Street.
TOM WAITS need I say anymore?
>>TOM WAITS need I say anymore?
Heff: Did you know Tom Waits in his SD days? I’m still hoping for some portraits of the artist as a younfg man …
>>mister toad’s wild ride??
Bludworth: A band? I assume not the Disneyland attraction …
NO.. IT WAS A MOM AND POP CARNIVAL RIDE PLACE OUTSIDE OF EL CAJON BACK IN THE SIXTIES..ALWAYS THOUGHT IT WAS A GREAT NAME..JUST MY SURREAL MIND I GUESS..BUT IT WOULD BE A GREAT BAND NAME..
>>”I’m still hoping for some portraits of the artist as a young man”.
I always preferred Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog!
OR, even better, anyone remember the ancient article in (Rolling Stone) on Iggy Pop…Portrait of the Artist as a Young Droog??
here’s a cut and paste from my facebook about tom:
the first time I saw Tom Waits with his backing band The Nocturnal Emissions was at the Backdoor at SDSU maybe 74? . I gave him some writings earlier that day …he came out on stage,walked out in the audience and told me “to keep on writing”. The next day he was on the Dinah Shore Show wearing the …same suit and I could see my writings sticking out of his suit…they were torn out of a spiral notebook. 1996, I see him at The Driskall Hotel in Austin…and tell him that story, and give him a copy of Painful Days,it was one of my proudest moments. You should have seen the look in his eyes.
I was a huge fan, and the first and only person in line at about 3 in the afternoon…I had a sixpack of Coors, and some old golds…and he and his manager came walking up and I hear a gravelly voice say “hey it looks like you got some cold ones!” I look up and its Tom…we sat and drank all my beer, and I gave him my … Read Morewritings and they invited me to dinner at a place called the two bit special or something like that…but I didn’t want to lose my place in line…I remember telling my friends who I was meeting there about meeting Tom etc…and they cried bullshit…and the looks on thier faces, when he walked off the stage at the beginning of the set to talk to me was dumbfounding… I was shocked.
and the last one…
I remember hearing about him(Tom) getting beat up at the troubadour at a punk show…for some reason I’m thinking it was the skulls (I found out it was the bags??? and thinking man this is a bad day for punk rock…and I was at disgraceland while visiting mad marc rude in LA when rain dogs came out, and recall how excited everyone was about this album…rude at this point was… Read More wearing suits and had a goattee…and pointed shoes. After being scorned and beat up and made fun of, all of a sudden Tom was being recognized as the artist he truly is/was…the world is a funny fickle place.
..any surf guitar fans out there?..check out 3 of my surf guitar instrumentals at wwwmyspacecombludworth..also look at robert turman (ex-non) website as well..thanks
hello i went to myspace bludworth…but got a gothic folksinger female from portland….do you have a direct link?
yeah i know about her..i should be right below her..click on elvis drawing i did…ill see about link..thanks..also gary i have you guys at spirit club on cassette.i guess we did a double billing.i’m going to put it on cd for you..not sure if it’s complete show but it’s something from the past..
I noticed the mention of Mutt and it’s nice that someone remembers our little band. Yeah, the “prog-rock” tag is way off. We were much more influenced by the Beatles and the Kinks … for years our opening song was “Victoria.”
We did have a song called “Mission Bay” on one of KGB’s “Homegrown” albums. Eventually, we moved to Los Angeles, changed our name to Catch 22, and recorded an album’s worth of material, which was produced by Norman Ratner, who also produced “Hey Joe” by the Leaves. Sadly, the album was never released, and I have no idea what happened to the masters, but I did hear some of the songs a few years ago and, happily, they didn’t totally suck.
I currently live in Boston, a baseball’s throw from Fenway Park, and I’ve recorded 16 albums, all of which can be found at http://www.eliotwilder.com.
I have nothing but fond memories of playing in San Diego in the early 70s!
>>We were much more influenced by the Beatles and the Kinks … for years our opening song was “Victoria.”
Eliot: Thank you for joining us! Very exciting to have you aboard.
Did you happen to know big-time Kinks appreciator Dan McLain, classmate of the Kmaks?
Of course I knew Dan … we all grew up together in Fletcher Hills. He was junior class president at Grossmont High School, and I recall he was booted out by the administration for hi-jinks like putting painted footprints all over the buildings (I remember Jeff Kmak was also involved in that little escapade). Our drummer Pierre once lent Dan his drum set, and Dan managed to put a hole the snare and crack ride cymbal, which is no mean feat. I miss that guy …
Here’s a recent song of mine, called “I Can’t Fix This”:
http://www.eliotwilder.com/fixthis.mp3
Really like the song Eliot!!
Yeah — bravo, Eliot! I like it a lot. I’m enjoying your site very much, too. 🙂
Glad you like my stuff. Here’s another song, which I just finished, called “Stay Gold, Ponyboy”:
http://www.eliotwilder.com/ponyboy.mp3
>>”Stay Gold, Ponyboy”
Eliot: You definitely belong here … We built this city on disaffected SD youth quoting “The Outsiders”! 🙂
WELL THE CARDIAC KIDZ MUST BE UNDERGROUND SINCE THEY ARE LEFT OUT OF ALL THE “WHAT IS” AND “WHAT WAS”. IF YOU WANT SOME HISTORY LIKE WHO INTRODUCED THE DINITTES TO SAN DIEGO, WHO OPENED THE SPIRIT DINNER CLUB TO A ROCK SHOWCASE VENUE JUST LET ME KNOW. YOU CAN REACH ME THROUGH THE MYSPACE SITE OR AT THE EMAIL
JIM RYAN
DORIOT REALLY MISS YA. YOU WILL NOTICE IN THE UPCOMING CD RELEASE WE PLACE A SMALL PHOTO OF THE DINITTES IN OUR COLLAGE INSERT. YOU GIRLS WERE THE REAL THING. NO EGOS, JUST MUSIC AND INTERACTED WITH THE KIDS WHEN YOU PLAYED. GREAT SHOWS GREAT TIMES.
>>WELL THE CARDIAC KIDZ MUST BE UNDERGROUND SINCE THEY ARE LEFT OUT OF ALL THE “WHAT IS” AND “WHAT WAS”.
Jim: Welcome! Actually, we’ve been asking after the Cardiac Kidz a lot on this site … Your photos grace the top of one post, in fact. 🙂
Definitely want to hear your tale!
Yay!! Cardiac Kidz are here!
I thought I’d posted a link to the Cardiac Kidz MySpace …
I recently spoke to Scott Nichols of KFMB-TV about the Sun-up appearance of The Cardiac Kidz. Scott handles the archive video for KFMB-TV. He has confirmed that all Sun up tapes except those that having connections to “news” events (only a few) have been already removed and or recorded over. He said since the show was televised live that most of the Beta format tapes were not held on to very long. The great thing about it is that my mother offered to recount how the show went because of course she watched it. But let me tell the story since I was there. Bill Williams, Joy Foy, Bill lubbers and I appeared on the October show and we were to “lip sync” to the 45 “Find Yourself Away” Jerry Bishop did a short “sound bite” interview and then before I sat down on the drums they started the record. I then proceeded to toss the drum set around; grab the mike and dance around the stage “Lip Syncing” to the song. Needless to say they didn’t ask us back but it was a live show and it was the thing to do. Like all of you I have other antidotes and stuff. We should all get together and put something together much like Sean O’Neill’s history of Irish punk rock scene “It Makes You Want To Spit” or how about we put together our own “compilation” vinyl? Or how about a SD Punk Rock festival like they have in Blackpool, England. Just some ideas to discuss in this forum? The time period was fun and exciting. They bands were great to play with and work with. Oh to be young again…..
Thanks for the invite into this forum guys!
Jim Ryan
Oh yeah I forgot, There is a SD bands “Family Tree” that Dan McLain had put together for the an article back in 1980 I belive. There is a JPEG of it on the Cardiac Kidz MySpace site. Hope it helps…
And that is Joe Foy on bass who later played for the Unknows. How could I call him Joy? Hey I am 52 years old now….
Jim, good to see you here…do tell!
Hey gang, I found the original 4 track Reel to Reel recording of the complete 1979 “Cardiac Kidz live at the Spirit Night club” show in my vault of stuff. What studio can I get to digtialy archive it properly (for small bucks) before it turns into dust?
Dan’s family tree was pretty impressive and well-detailed.
Don’t even recall if anything was missing.
The Sneed Tweakers maybe…
Jim,
Dave Fleminger, who frequents this board knows the process for cooking those tapes to ensure that they are playable. I’ll tell him (or maybe matt can) to contact you with “the procedure”. You may want to Google it as a few companies provide this service as well.
So I’m going through many old gigs … A couple of observations:
1. The Big played on a lot of bills!
2. Who remembers the Upbeats? They seemed to be serious regulars at the Skeleton Club. I remember the name but don’t recall the band.
Oh! And Jim Ryan sent me some GREAT stuff! Stay tuned. 🙂
Here is another two anecdotes for the Waits pile:
My father was a National City cop from the 60’s to the 90’s. He knew Tom Waits from his pizza delivery job at Mario’s, which was on National Ave (now NC Blvd) at 8th St. He described as a street kid and a nice guy.
I worked at the Licorice Pizza that spawned so many other gadabouts on this here site. Tom Waits’ mother used to pop in to re-buy Waits albums since she had a habit of giving her copies to friends. Lived in the Hilltop area, if I recall correctly, and her last name was McAuliffe, or something similar. VERY pleasant woman.
Keven did you work at the “LP” at Claremont Mesa on Balboa Ave? That was one of the stores that carried the Cardiac Kidz vinyl records “under the corporate franchise table” as “commisioned”. That was how we broke into the franchise record stores like Tower records, Warehouse Records and Licorice Pizza. Me and Billy Williams would frequent the stores a lot, post flyers of gigs and hang around the stores networking relationships which led to agreements to put our records into their bins; by-passing the “closed loop” networking system of the record distribution process back than. Of course when our records did sell (to thier surprise) it made it easier for other locals bands to follow suit. And the tearing down of the franchise “walls” was started. But I will stress it was the independent record stores that helped build and support the San Diego music scene. We could not have don it with out these independant pioneers!
Oh and Dave Fleminger can you contact me. I’d like to see what we could do to salvage the reel to reel tape I spoke about earlier. Thanks.
Man I hate it when I do that!
Kevin I thought I checked my spelling before I posted. No disrespect ment toward your name!!!!
No prob Jim. Never liked my own name anyway.
i was at the CV Lic’Piz’ after a brief stint making trouble at the La Mesa LP.
And to the person who mentioned the Upbeats earlier, they were awesome. Could’ve really been something big, in my humble opinion.
“THE BIG” PLAYED SEVERAL TIMES WITH THE UPBEATS..PARIS WAS GREAT GUY…I REMEMBER SEEING THEM AT NORTH PARK LIONS CLUB OPENING UP FOR “THE GERMS” (THAT’S WHERE I MET DARBY..HE WAS TRYING TO “SCORE”..I MET HIM LATER IN L.A. LATER BUT THAT’S ANOTHER STORY) OR “XTC”..I CAN’T REMEMBER.(I’D HAVE TO REFER TO A FLYER THAT’S AROUND HERE).I RECORDED THE “XTC” SHOW…
>>”THE BIG” PLAYED SEVERAL TIMES WITH THE UPBEATS..PARIS WAS GREAT GUY…I REMEMBER SEEING THEM AT NORTH PARK LIONS CLUB OPENING UP FOR “THE GERMS”
Bludworth! You are another contributor whose stuff is seriously backlogged. Thank you for all the great content — I’m working to get everything up.
Oh, and by the way: Your materials prove your point — the Big did play out a lot! 🙂
Here more from Bludworth’s collection.
the photo above was “the big” playing a live radio broadcast from san diego state university..wish i had tape of that..long hair guy in front was roadie..always had great pot and he had a hot sister..talk about a bunch of ugly guys that didn’t “fit” in..
ty mmrothenberg..i was beginning to think nobody cared..
>>i was beginning to think nobody cared..
Rest assured, I’m frustrated at myself for how much time it takes to do these posts justice. We totally care! 🙂
Here are photos from Mikel Toombs, shot by Tim Griswold, backstage at at a Jan. 26, 1979, show featuring the Cockpits, the Upbeats, the Cardiac Kidz and the Mammaries:
Evie (RIP), Jacqui Ramirez and Kitty
The Cockpits: Doriot Negrette, ?? ??, Joyce Rooks, Jolie Gardener
Harold Gee
Fantastic!! A goldmine of memorabilia!!
I remember the girl next to Doriot, just forget her name….
That SUE!!!! next to Doriot! I love that picture…and also the one of Evie, Jacqui and Kitty…THEY WERE THE COOLEST!
Gary, Bruce: that is indeed Sue Ferguson next to Doriot. I saw her a couple of years ago at the Casbah, she still looked the same.
Two comments with regards to this post: 1) History is written by the victors. Alas this shouldn’t diminish the efforts of others be they lesser or not, but one should bear this in mind when mining the past.
And 2) Michael B; the Unknowns do recall both Blue Meanies’ and the Big’s assistance with due regard and respect. I was not a part of this as it happened earlier (just after Mark and Bruce came to town) than my involvement, but I have heard the stories many times…
thanks dave..wasn’t looking for glory just adding to the story of how things were in the “old” days.
Mike, thank you! It’s great that you have a veritable treasure trove of artifacts and have put them up for all to see and learn from.
And of course I’ll add that Blue Meanies was very instrumental in many of our musical palettes and a network node for many musicians/bands, I remember many a trip with my sis in the family station wagon to peruse the luscious selection of vinyl.
The Standbys: Who was in that band? I liked them. And I thought Tom the singer was a nice guy … In my experience, his agreeable temperament sort of set him apart from the rest of his group later, when he was in Eleven Sons. 🙂
Dave Astor was the Lead guitarist. He And I got along real well and they (tThe Standbys) played a lot of gigs with us don’t remember the others last names (long time ago ya know). besides Tom (always like his “Johnny Rotten” vocals) there was Ted (drums), Jeff (guitar) and Dan (bass).
I forgot to add that Dave has passed on.
I didn’t know that dave had passed on…how did he die?
Dave Astor (Sr.), who was a great guy, killed himself several years ago. Tom’s last name is Waller and Jeff’s is Hildrebrand (from copyright data). Ted’s last name apparently begins with “O.”
>>Tom’s last name is Waller
Do we know if Tom is still with us?
> Do we know if Tom is still with us?
I would certainly hope so, but I have no idea. BTW, Jeff Hildebrand went by Jeff Dean (his middle name) and Ted is Ted Olson… Here’s a photo:
http://punkmodpop.free.fr/standbys_pic.htm
>>BTW, Jeff Hildebrand went by Jeff Dean (his middle name) and Ted is Ted Olson…
Mikel: Got a lead on Dan the bassist’s surname?
Here’s the MySpace page for Dave Astor’s son, also named Dave:
“Born july 18 1978. I started playing the drum’s at the age of 14 and started one of my first band’s at the age of 15. I got into metal and punk music at a young age. My dad RIP played guitar for some punk bands growing up. One was called THE STANDBYS and the other one was the BATTALION OF SAINTS.”
I didn’t realize Dave Sr. was in the Bats.
Wow--thanks for posting that picture! Look at all that make-up! The last time I saw Sue was a few years ago at Joyce Rooks’ house--yep, Sue looks just the same but not as emaciated. I, however, do not look just the same.
Hey Jim, thanks for saying such nice things about us. Sometimes I wonder if it all really happened. But, that said, there are the pictures and lasting relationships to prove it. Joyce had a little Solstice gathering for her peeps the other night, and it was great to see her. We usually do a Thanksgiving dinner together each year as well, which is loads of fun.
I’ll dig around in my improperly stored archives and see if I have some surviving photos other ephemera to contribute.
Hi Doriot -- still remember you singing “Wild Thing” at Skeleton Club #1. I thought you guys were SOOOO cool!
If you have any memorabilia or photos of Lisa it would be much appreciated. We loved and miss her….
Hi Bruce,
I know I have a bunch of large format color negatives from a studio shoot we did, and Lisa is in the photos. I’ll look through those soon.
Luv ya Doriot…thanks!!
What happened to Gene King? He still owes me twenty five dollars 🙂
Geez….$25.00, invested at a modest 5% return per anum, times 30 years!!! Lou you might be a rich man!!
Last I heard (in the late ’80s, that is) he was in prison somewhere. Can’t think of a better place….
It’s amazing how many “associates” from this time are dead or in prison!!
Makes those of us that got out seem a little dull…married w/children…but underneath…who knows. The dead and the incarcerated…criminals in general, still bring a little twinkle to my eye.
I miss Lisa ’cause she was special and a great musician…I just didn’t know it then. Hope her kids know!
Oh god… bad news.. Lisa Aston dead?
I met Lisa in spring of ’67 – Summer of Love. I’d met her older brother, Steve, when we were all running around the streets of PB & MB. Disaffected youth… whatever happened to Steve? Lisa told me he’d moved to Oceanside, but that was almost 30 years ago…
Such great strange memories hanging at the family manse in that exclusive enclave of the well-to-do on Mission Bay. Only the domestics around to care for the kids… is it any wonder then?
Later, when Prez Ford came to town, he stayed 2 doors down…. funny – thinking of him sunning on the same beach…
In Lisa’s room, the soundtrack was Tim Buckley & Donovan…
On the firefly platform on sunny Goodge Street
Violent hash-smoker shook a chocolate machine
Involved in an eating scene.
Smashing into neon streets in their stonedness
Smearing their eyes on the crazy cult goddess
Listenin’ to sounds of Mingus mellow fantastic.
“My, my”, they sigh,
“My, my”, they sigh.
In doll house rooms with coloured lights swingin’
Strange music boxes sadly tinklin’
Drink in the sun shining all around you.
“My, my”, they sigh,
“My, my”, they sigh, mm mm.
“My, my”, they sigh,
“My, my”, they sigh.
The magician, he sparkles in satin and velvet,
You gaze at his splendour with eyes you’ve not used yet.
I tell you his name is Love, Love, Love.
“My, my”, they sigh,
“My, my”, they sigh.
“My, my” -- sigh.
Once I was a soldier
And I fought on foreign sands for you
Once I was a hunter
And I brought home fresh meat for you
Once I was a lover
And I searched behind your eyes for you
And soon there’ll be another
To tell you I was just a lie
And sometimes I wonder
Just for a while
Will you remember me
And though you have forgotten
All of our rubbish dreams
I find myself searching
Through the ashes of our ruins
For the days when we smiled
And the hours that ran wild
With the magic of our eyes
And the silence of our words
And sometimes I wonder
Just for a while
Will you remember me
The Yardbirds covers band I played in rehearsed in the living room, and she’d sit in the corner and listen…
Goodbye Lisa…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRrjLkVaHK8&feature=related
Wow…I used to hang out at Lisas house in ’79 and ’80. I saw pictures of her as a teenager growing up in MB(?) she was so beautiful. I never knew she had an older brother….I wonder about her kids.
If I had not started a family when I did I’m sure that I would either be dead, in jail or dead in jail. A remember one time getting pulled over by San diego’s finiest and I had 1/2 once and 2 hits of LSD on me. My buddy Terry Torgelson stepped right up and took the rap said it was his. Later after he was released I asked him why he did that and he said that he wanted to make sure that the band could keep playing and that he already had a arrest record. WOW! Thanks again Terry! As one of the lucky ones I now have 6 children (3 boys and 3 girls) oldest 23 youngest 16 and one granddaughter 4 years old. All my kids ask me from time to time about those years especialy since the Rave-up vinyl came out. It’s fun to talk about it with them but it was more fun actually living it. For us; that makes us a rare, if not odd breed.
Great story Jim. I’m not sure how I’ll explain those days to my daughter when she’s grown..maybe just the truth.
It will set you free
Maybe Gene King is listening to the Injections 45 in prison on my stereo he stole. Irony.
>>Maybe Gene King is listening to the Injections 45 in prison on my stereo he stole. Irony.
Lou: I bet you can’t keep turntables in your cell. You could turn them into tattoo equipment or drug labs.
You guys are funny….Happy New Year!!
Bruce,
My 7 year old daughter is asking me questions about “those days” and I’m giving “child like” explanations so that she will understand, but I will say that she has taken a liking to our music….I still cant believe we lived through them…
Jerry Cardiac Kidz
Doriot Negrette was always one of my favorites.Brian Dog and I loved you.I have the coolest Dinettes outtake tape if you need it.
Hi, Sue from the Dinettes here. Just found this site, and enjoying all the stories. Those were great times, and when I think back, we did not know just how important those times were. I went from the Dinettes to Private Sector, then a very brief stint with the Unknowns, then Dark Victory with Scott Harrington, then Shelf Life with Irene(Dinettes) and Richard from the Puppies, then Trowsers with Joyce. Whew! Just recently got together with the Dinettes, Lisa was missed as we all talked about those days. Chuck Noli- yes, we’d love to hear that tape…..!!
>>Hi, Sue from the Dinettes here. Just found this site, and enjoying all the stories.
Welcome, Sue! Who’s going to write the Dinettes story for us?? 🙂
Hi Sue….can you fill us in on some more circumstances regarding Lisa?? She was our beloved Bass Player forever you know.
If not here, on Che, you could email me personally, (ask Matt for address), or FaceBook friend me.
Thanks Bruce Injection
Matt- can you send me Bruce’s email? I will tell you what I know. The Dinettes were interviewed by Eric Rife for the film he is doing on the early scene in SD. It was great to have everyone together, as we had not seen each other in over 25 years. We all are living in SoCal again after several of us had moved away for the 90’s.
The Dinettes story should be written by Doriot as she can tell the whole story (or at least what she wants to tell) as I was the first to leave in 1980. But I do have fond memories of it up until then…..except for GK. 🙁 And to think I was the one who introduced him to the band.
Hi Sue… long long time…… 🙂
So when do we have the big retro-underground festival? You know like a Saturday in the park thing. The left standing bands and or composites of the members with a big end of show all-star performance?
Just an idea….. your thoughts gang?
You can’t go home again
I like the way Jim thinks!! Need lots of logistical help…as well as on-site EMT’s, cardiologists, urologists, and, physical therapists 🙂
I’d suggest setting a date a year or more in advance so everyone can get it together with no last minute excuses. I could even get the Injections there with enough heads up time…Zeros, Pens, Dinettes, some form of Hitmakers,….Oh man…that could be good!!!
Sounds like fun to me! Jim, refresh my memory- which band are you from? Sorry, but it’s been too long….
Would love to get together monthly or something. meet at the back bar at Casbah or at a park just to see everyone and reminisce about the old days- I agree Lou, you can never go back- but, you can go forward!
Like Lou said you can’t go back
I come from the “glass half full” generation where you never go back but, you never stand still. If you stand still you never go anywhere. So as Sue said forward it is.
I would like to set up a meeting to push the idea around. Those of you intrested in taking the “first step” to this concept email me at cardiac.kidz@live.com. If there is enough intrest we’ll start meeting and see what happens.
The Kidz will be playing a re-birth show soon and we may have to farm new members since Joe has decided to remain out of contact with us for now with us (He lives in Alanta) and Steve lightfoot hasn’t connected with us as of yet.
Jim “Cardiac Kidz” Ryan
We had a meeting with Matt and his Bloggers, they decided to set up a fund to support a home for Old washed up Punk Rockers, It will be located near Horton Plaza, I am ready to be inducted.
Skeleton Meadows
DEFINITELY ready for Skeleton Meadows…as my body is now totally falling apart!!! Hope they serve soft food…lots of Jello and mashed potatoes…bingo…shuffleboard…Friday night dancing…and low impact aerobics.
Maybe we can start a band…the Injections may be more apropo than ever now???
Bruce Injection
Geritol as sponsor
Mosh pit with canes, walkers, and oxygen tanks…kicking ass in orthopedic shoes, (black of course).
You guys are great 🙂 (love the feed back… lol). keep the input coming.
I think that I did enough drugs to pickle my self pretty well so I can still put out the show, now the sad thing is that only about 50 of the fans are still alive or serving a life sentence in the Pen.
If we charged $500.00 ticket we just might break even.
Jim :p
I think 500 is fair 🙂 I heard the Stones are playing weddings now for 1 Million!!
Please…500 to witness history…we’ll be there, with our doctors, prescriptions, attendants, nurses, defibrillators….totally do-able!
Bruce Injection
The Injections * “DEAD” at Skeleton Meadows*
Hah!! That’s one show we can all agree on and we will definitely make it!!
Bruce Injection
Hey Matthew, I have a 1979 or 1980 issue of Kicks magazine with a feature story about the Dinettes -- let me know if you’d like a scan. Now that I’m reminded of them, I’m about to dig it out anyway, so we can update their page in the Reader’s local music database (where we recently quoted -- and cited -- above thread) -- http://www.sandiegoreader.com/bands/dinettes/
Update: We’ve gotten word that Tracy Wright, bass player for the Big, passed away recently. Condolences to the family from Che Underground … Does anyone have more details?
just a note from Scott McCarter, he says “watch for Big stuff coming soon!”
and not to dispute my good friend Bludworth’s memory, but the Cinnamon Cinder was never in El Cajon, it was in La Mesa, and from what I can tell from the address 7578 El Cajon Blvd., La Mesa, it was at the corner of EC Blvd and Comanche, isn’t that where Straita Head Sound was? ‘that’ was the Cinnamon Cinder, where Sonny & Cher played
robert….your right…..did you see THE BIG play at parkway plaza..remember MR RADIO CARHED SAYS flyer…
Welcome back, Bludworth! I want to post more about the Big. Send more info, please … Any audio?
HELLO..I RECORDED JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING BUT I BELIEVE SCOTT THE LEAD SINGER IS UP TO SOMETHING..I THINK HE PLANS ON RELEASING OFFICIAL CD’s
>>I BELIEVE SCOTT THE LEAD SINGER IS UP TO SOMETHING..I THINK HE PLANS ON RELEASING OFFICIAL CD’s
C’mon! I want to pull together a little history of the Big … With the personnel, dates, whatever we can get onto the page. When did the band start? When’d it break up?
I’m totally intrigued by this band!!
the earliest history was i started out as a manager of sorts..the band consisted of of scott mccarter singer.. brian dog (later guitarist of the offenders)on bass.. michael rogge on guitar and larry somebody on drums ….then later i replaced rogge on guitar and tracy wright replaced brian on bass..and peter t.(italian name i can’t spell)….i believe this was around 1978..79..maybe earlier…
SORRY PETER T. REPLACED LARRY ON DRUMS
Shark Patrol Button
In the photo above with the buttons, the Shark Patrol button with the Madness Man was made by me in 1980. Interesting to become a punk ephemera footnote after all these years.
Steven Schneider