Che Underground: The Blog

Time-machine sidecar

January 6, 2011June 28, 2010 by admin

Two things that make me happy about this blog: It puts a lot of people and images and music I loved as a kid in one place, and it gives me a second chance to understand what I witnessed the first time around.

Sharing an adult perspective on the passions of our youth is a very cool thing to me. Even with those tools, though, I sometimes find it hard to explain to people who know me now what excited me then.

Hence today’s conversation-starter: Is there anyone you wish you could take back in time for a one-day tour of your wasted youth in San Diego? If so, who would it be? What would you like to show them?

Bamboohead 3000 on Terry Marine

January 6, 2011June 24, 2010 by admin

Clayton Colgin continues to reimagine his formative Bamboohead ‘zine online. This week, Bamboohead 3000 touches bases with another historic figure of the San Diego punk scene: Terry Marine, founder of Be My Friend magazine and a familiar face to anyone who frequented the SD underground of the late ’70s and early ’80s.

“I was always fascinated by Terry because something told me he was crazier than most of us,” Clay writes by way of introduction. “Nobody ever told me to watch out for him, and I never heard any ugly stories about him back then. I never saw him needlessly brutalize anyone. I did see him rush to defend the ranks when particularly-ornery-crews of LA-punks would come to our shows for the purpose of flexing fear-and-intimidation. He never shied from these situations.

‘Sweet Kisses From Mommy’:
An introduction to an old friend

June 21, 2010June 21, 2010 by admin

(Ray Brandes queues up a revelatory new documentary about Gary Heffern.)

For more than 30 years, Penetrators vocalist Gary Heffern has been celebrated as a local legend. He is known to most as a dynamic performer, a captivating storyteller and poet, and a tireless networker and promoter of music and art in all of its forms. Charismatic, gregarious and easily approachable, he has good friends and admirers who number in the tens of thousands.

Nearly every article that has ever been written about him suggests his life story would make a incredible book. Few who know Gary, however, know the burdens he has shouldered for his entire life. His real story is one which is reminiscent of the novels of Thomas Hardy, perhaps even Charles Dickens. This past decade, it has led him back to Finland, a few kilometers from the Arctic Circle, a land of desolate beauty and the setting for his remarkable childhood.

Father’s Day: Past, present and future

March 30, 2019June 19, 2010 by Paul Kaufman

(Old Lemons Are Yellow guitarist/new dad Paul Kaufman has something extra to celebrate this weekend.)

This is the first Father’s Day that I’m actually a father! This prompted me to share some musical thoughts with all of you.

Last fall, my dad was visiting the new baby and us, and one evening we saw one of those PBS retrospective/fundraiser specials highlighting major musical performances that had been on the Ed Sullivan show. Lots of classic bands at their peak: Beatles, Stones, Sam and Dave, Sly Stone, Byrds, et al.

This footage had all been shot when I was 0-5 years old, and that era remains the bedrock of my musical upbringing. However, to my daughter, the January 1967 performance of Mick Jagger asking to spend some … time … together is as distant from her birth as a scratchy newsreel of flappers dancing the Charleston is to mine. So, 40 years from now, will I be watching a Justin Bieber documentary with our grandkids?

Remember Walking in the Sand?
Sunscreen, lemonade and summer radio

December 14, 2017June 14, 2010 by admin

(Ray Brandes ushers in the season with a call for signature songs.)

“In summer, the song sings itself.”
— William Carlos Williams

“School’s out for summer!”
— Alice Cooper

Some of the greatest songs in the rock-‘n’-roll era were released in June, July and August. A great summer song doesn’t necessarily have to be about summer itself, but rather capture the quintessence of the season: that feeling of long, lazy sunburned days and humid nights spent making love to the sounds of crickets.

The summer of 1965 alone gave us the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” the Beatles’ “Help,” Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” and Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street,” songs that are quite different in theme but are bursting with the exuberance of the sunny season.

The Skeleton Club in flyers

July 24, 2021June 10, 2010 by admin

Che Underground: The Blog has written before about the legendary Skeleton Club, the backbone of San Diego punk that Laura Fraser and Tim Mays ran for a scant two weeks at 921 4th Ave. before reopening (always a half-step ahead of SD authorities) at 202 Market St.

Now Mikel Toombs enriches our store of Skeleton Club lore with a wealth of flyers, including announcements that accompanied the original venue’s opening and closing.

“The one about the Skeleton Club closing was handed out at the final show at the original Skeleton Club,” Mikel writes. “I don’t have any recollection of the other one.”

The Wallflowers: ‘Walldrugs’ at Che Games

January 6, 2011June 6, 2010 by admin

One year later, we’re finally on deck to start releasing performance footage shot by Eric Rife at May 2009’s Che Games for May reunion, synchronized to Jason Brownell’s high-fi audio courtesy of resident polymath Dave Fleminger.

First up, the first live performance of the original San Diego Wallflowers’ signature “Walldrugs” since 1985. Lead singer David Rinck reflects on resurrecting the song:

“When we were putting together the Wallflowers set list for the Che Games last year, we had to listen closely to the old recordings to figure out how we played those tunes, in order to get us all on the same page on the arrangements and all, since with me in Africa and the rest of the band spread out all over California, we were basically working via the Internet.”

Blues Haitien and the Best Nightmare
on Earth: Update from the West Indies

June 3, 2010June 3, 2010 by admin

(David Rinck reports on recovery and music in Haiti.)

Port-au-Prince, Haiti — Jan. 12, 2010, was a date that changed literally every person’s life here in Haiti, and still continues to define daily existence for so many people, even as the eyes of the world slowly and inevitably forget and turn to the next disaster area, wherever that may be.

When I turned on the computer at my desk in Nairobi to check the news on that day and read that an epic earthquake had rocked this country (destroying most of the capital Port-au-Prince and killing over 250,000 people), I knew it was only a matter of time before my life changed as well.

Spotlight on Mark Zadarnowski

January 6, 2011June 1, 2010 by admin

(Bart Mendoza offers an appreciation of this San Diego bass phenom.)

Although I had seen the Crawdaddys numerous times by that point and had probably even been at some of the same parties, I was first introduced to Mark Zadarnowski (a k a Mark Z.) by Carl Rusk. Mark was living behind the Kings Road Café at the time and while I’m sure he was less than thrilled to have his house invaded just prior to a show, it was cool formally to meet a member of one of my favorite bands.

One of the bedrocks of the San Diego music scene, the roll call of bands Mark’s recorded with would rank him as a music legend, even if he had stopped after the first one.

A founding member of the Crawdaddys, he can be heard on the legendary 1979 Crawdaddy Express LP, as well as the 5X4 EP and “There She Goes Again” 45. He’s not on another release for a few years, but when he next pops up, once again, it’s on a winner: the short-lived Mystery Machine’s “She’s Not Mine.” Included on the seminal 1983 compilation, Battle of The Garages Vol. 3, the tune has appeared on several other compilations since.

Forever changes: Che Games for May
and the the perpetual nostalgia machine

January 6, 2011May 29, 2010 by admin

Detail: Dave Fleminger, the Mirrors; May 30, 2009 (photo by Dave Doyle) Ava points out that it was exactly one year ago that Che Underground: The Blog hosted its first-ever reunion gig (a k a “Che Games for May”) at San Diego’s Casbah.

The two-night blowout included eight great San Diego bands (nine, if you count the unannounced, sizzling first-night mini-set by Lemons Are Yellow), most of whom hadn’t played together in a quarter-century. It marked the first time most of us had been together since the mid-’80s — and the opportunity to meet a few new friends who’d met through the site and their shared San Diego musical history.

This anniversary thus represents an interesting object lesson in the recursive nature of memory: This event itself has now passed into its realm and hence deserves its own commemorative post!