Che Underground: The Blog

Seen any good shows? Pavement

December 13, 2017September 27, 2010 by Paul Kaufman

(Infrequent concertgoer Paul Kaufman catches up with a band from the last era he had time to appreciate.)

Friends, San Diegans, countrymen, lend me your ears. There actually were good records made in the 1990s!

Curiously, most of my faves from that decade came out on a single record label, Matador, which boasted Guided by Voices; Liz Phair; Cat Power; and today’s topic, Pavement. After a decade of Splitsville, they’ve reunited and are coming to a town near you!

Tickets had gone on sale ages ago. I had snapped one up, sure that this was my one chance to see them live, having gotten into them late (that is, after their best records, around 1997). Right before I left for the show, I was thumbing through the New Yorker, which had an article about nostalgic 40-somethings desperately searching their apartments for the Pavement tickets they had lovingly bought the previous year. You know you’re middle-aged when your fave indie band is profiled in the New Yorker.

Play “Misty” for me:
BOMBAST rocks out at Bar Pink

December 11, 2017September 25, 2010 by admin

(David Rinck provides his back story of this meeting of musical minds at the Che Underground Rock-‘n’-Roll Weekend. Plus, let’s go to the video, courtesy of Paul Kaufman!)

Now I’m really perplexed by this one. Dave Fleminger calls for the “end of the Age of Irony,” and then he is largely the perpetrator of a band called BOMBAST. This seems like a contradiction.

And then there’s the song-list issue — a couple old San Diego classics like the Wallflowers (“Rubber Room” and “Survive the Jungle”) and Blues Gangsters (“Tigershark Blues”), some Arthur Lee and Love (“Bummer In the Summer”), and even the Stooges (“TV Eye”) and Parliament (“Unfunky UFO”). Seems like a pretty strange brew, more contradictions? “Well, what do we all agree on?” I asked with great trepidation as the project grew. Pretty much one thing — BOMBAST is LOUD! Okay, that’s enough for me. I’m good to go.

Manual Scan at Bar Eleven

February 2, 2011September 20, 2010 by admin

(Manual Scan co-founder Kevin Donaker-Ring talks about a cool new club in San Diego and a turning point for this enduring band.)

I’ve been working security for over four years now. Last September, I started working at Small Bar, owned by the same people that run Hamilton’s Tavern in South Park.

Dennis Borlek, the first person in San Diego I ever met who had a scooter, and who continues to be a San Diego music scene fixture, is the general manager there. Small Bar’s owners recently purchased the Radio Room (formerly the Zombie Lounge) on El Cajon Boulevard, just east of 35th St., and renamed it “Eleven.” (Yes, that’s a direct Spinal Tap reference.)

They improved the sound system and the acoustics (not to mention expanding the beers on tap by an order of magnitude). But anyone who has been into the San Diego music scene will want to visit this place — they wallpapered large sections of the bar with reproductions of vintage San Diego show flyers.

Che echoes from the Alps

December 14, 2017September 15, 2010 by admin

(Rolf “Ray” Rieben of Feathered Apple Records describes how the San Diego underground reached Basel, Switzerland, and shares his cache of memorabilia from the Che Cafe and other points southwest. Stay tuned for much more of Ray’s trove from the Tell-Tale Hearts, Crawdaddys, Howling Men and more!)

I was working as a record salesman in Switzerland when the first Crawdaddys LP (“Crawdaddy Express”) on the German Line label had hit the market. Most of the Bomp! catalog was licensed to Line Records from Germany. Line Records had the best possible distribution, since because they were connected to a major label. They’ve helped to make The Crawdaddys and some of the other bands from Greg Shaw’s Bomp label famous over here in Europe.

“Crawdaddy Express” rates as the first modern ’60s garage LP ever made (after probably The Flamin’ Groovies). It was first advertised on the back cover of the July 1979 issue of Goldmine magazine. The sound was very British: wild raving rnb like the early Kinks, Downliners Sect, or the The Pretty Things, but undoubtedly influenced by Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and the likes. There’s even a few cool northern soul ballads featured on both of their LPs, too. These four fine young lads from San Diego knew what they were doing, they had the right spirits, and they could deliver in authentic ca. ’64 – ’65 style, too. It was exactly the type of brand-new LP that I was hoping for.

DaveFest Four: ‘Richie Dagger’s Crime’
b/w ‘Let’s Lynch the Landlord’

March 30, 2019September 10, 2010 by admin

More highlights from the Che Underground Rock-‘n’-Roll Weekend July 30 and 31, 2010, in San Diego: Che Underground supergroup the DaveFest Four performs the Dead Kennedys’ “Let’s Lynch the Landlord” and “Richie Dagger’s Crime” by the Germs.

The DaveFest Four plays “Richie Dagger’s Crime”: Listen now!

“Dave Rinck came up with the idea to do an all-Dave set of our favorite punk anthems with a semi-acoustic roots sensibility,” writes Dave Fleminger.

hING at the Casbah

February 2, 2011September 4, 2010 by admin

Another new collaboration from a beloved old friend: Lou Damian has been playing reeds with a new “collective improv” dubbed hING. It also features Josh Quan (drums); Michael J. Stevens (guitar and percussion); and Michael Zimmerman (keyboards).

“hING is an elemental assemblage of five individuals with disparate musical experiences,” Michael Zimmerman explains. “We have come together to investigate inner and outer space with a communal brew of free improv and sound/tone investigations that seeks to attain feral heights of aural extremity and sustained moments of contemplative beauty.

These five individuals are, much like a jumble of letters, constantly shifted and shuffled into different shapes and formations to create a singular sound which is best described as the music of hING.”

The Amazons: “Procrustes”/”Sisyphus”

February 2, 2011September 1, 2010 by admin

Here are two parts of an uncompleted song trilogy I wrote for the Amazons, the acoustic band I was in until I left San Francisco in April 2001.

I always liked the weird anti-heroes and losers in Greek mythology, two of whom figure in “Tales of Brave Procrustes” and “Roll Like Sisyphus.” (I always intended to write that third one about Icarus, mainly so I could be the first songwriter I know to get the word “heliocentric” into a lyric.)

The P Man to play platters at SDDubstep’s
‘Dead Technology’ event

December 13, 2017August 28, 2010 by Paul.Howland

No school like the old school dept.: Low tech jumps into 2010 on Sept. 10 when our own P Man (née Wallflowers bassist Paul Howland) joins a roster of other talented DJs in full-analog mode at SDDubstep’s “Dead Technology” event. No laptops, no CDs … It’s all vinyl, and that’s final.

San Diego’s Kava Lounge (2812 Kettner Blvd., San Diego) will host this digital-free zone. In addition to the P Man, featured acts include EshOne, Misk, Pure Boom Hi Fi and Beingstok.

DIY: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
and the Punk Rockers from San Diego

December 11, 2017August 22, 2010 by admin

(David Rinck freaks out to a Moon Age daydream.)

NOTE: This post works best if you slip on Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album and cue up the tune “Soul Love” as you read it.

That tune, “Soul Love,” always takes my mind to a hip London of the very early ’70s, a sleepy, happy, self-contented London where hippies happily ate organic alfalfa sprouts in little cafes, and men wore frocks, complacently proud of having created and survived the ’60s, and looking forward to wallowing in their achievements spreading peace and love ad infinitum. The war was protested, the pot was plentiful, and everybody’s hair was down to his or her ass.

But it’s actually an unsuspecting London, on the eve of the explosion that was Glam, and then the firestorm of punk rock.

Fundraisers for Thomas Yearsley

February 2, 2011August 19, 2010 by admin

Thomas Yearsley, founding bass player for the Paladins, suffered misfortune Monday night and faces the medical-insurance woes of far too many working musicians. Click here to go to a site set up to help him get on his feet financially — and catch some music at a number of benefit shows.

“Thomas Yearsley, longtime bass player of The Paladins, was hit by a train on the evening of August 16 while trying to save his dog from the same,” reports the Help Thomas Yearsley site. “He was Life-Flighted away to Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., although he should be discharged by now. He suffered a broken leg and other injuries; unfortunately his dog Swango didn’t survive.