Che Underground: The Blog

Tube rox: San Diego public-access TV

December 11, 2017March 13, 2010 by admin

(Jay Allen Sanford tunes into San Diego music on the public airwaves.)

One of the many things we can either thank or curse the U.S. Congress for is public-access television. In the 1970s, as TV cable companies were growing into regional monopolies, Congress mandated that larger cable providers must put aside channels for public-produced community programming.

Today, there are over a thousand public access TV stations operating nationwide. When the city of San Diego grants charters to cable giants like Cox and Time-Warner, those companies guarantee this access to the airwaves, training (at no charge) interested community residents to run the equipment and to shoot and produce their own programs.

Fresh Manual Scan on the air!

January 6, 2011March 10, 2010 by admin

Manual Scan has returned to the studio for the first time in 22 years and emerged with five new tracks that will debut on San Diego radio Sunday, March 14, at 9:30 p.m.

Scan (last seen tearing it up with members of the Penetrators at the latest Casbah Che Underground showcase Jan. 30) will be the featured band on FM94.9’s “The Pyles Sessions,” hosted by DJ Tim Pyles. The songs were produced and engineered at Signature Sound Studios by Alan Sanderson, who has worked with such luminaries as the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello, Paul Westerberg and Weezer. Listen live at www.fm949sd.com!

Lyrical associations

March 30, 2019March 8, 2010 by admin

(Megan S. polls the Che Underground for top lyrics.)

I thought I would take advantage of this vast collective musical knowledge to ask a question: Which lyrics have meant the most to you?

When I was young, music was a sort of neural primal scream. The lyrics were just more sounds in the mix and didn’t really mean much at the time: I hadn’t fallen in nor out of love, been beaten down by The Man, known much about regret nor spent much time down by the river. I was mostly concerned with scraping up gas money.

The Comeuppance meets “Alice”

December 13, 2017March 5, 2010 by admin

(Dave Fleminger and Heather Vorwerck of the guitar/cello duo The Comeuppance ride the Mad Hatter’s coat tails and drop some fresh new tracks into the rabbit hole. Dave describes the journey.)

Recently I chanced upon the English director Cecil Hepworth’s 1903 movie “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” It was the first cinematic portrayal of Lewis Carroll’s famous Victorian novel. The only remaining print of the film is unfortunately quite damaged, even missing some scenes, but it’s a magical movie. And if anything the state of the film stock even adds to its otherworldly quality — perhaps because it was made less than 40 years after the book was first published. it offers a small glimpse into the very world from which the story originated.

Clearly, the storyline was already well-known to the 1903 movie-going public, as Hepworth chose to illustrate scenes from the book without much explanation of the plot.

Read moreThe Comeuppance meets “Alice”

Fused Forces to cover P Man show

December 16, 2017March 4, 2010 by Paul.Howland

(More international love for the work of Paul Howland, a k a P Man.)

album_pman_photo040 I’m pleased to announce Fused Forces will be covering my weekly CybaFM show on Tuesday March 9 at 10 pm GMT. (I’m gonna be out of town.)

For those who don’t know, Fused Forces are a two man production and DJ team out of Essex UK. They’ve got an impressive discography of vinyl and digital releases, as well as a whole slew of really good Dubstep Forum freebies. They are known for their Dubstep and Grime stylings, but they assure me they are gonna switch it up a stylistically for this special cover show.

The request line is open!

January 6, 2011March 1, 2010 by admin

If only February were as long as other months, we’d have another traffic record on our hands! Two years since it began, Che Underground: The Blog keeps growing; every week brings more veteran San Diego scenesters into our orbit, all of them with their own stories and insights about the town where we grew up.

In that spirit: What bands, gigs, people or places would you like to learn more about? With nearly 10,000 of us hanging out here each month, we’ve got a mighty store of memories — and chances are awfully good that someone visiting the blog has answers to your questions. Let’s train the group mind on new subjects!

Wendy Pyro: Punk pioneer

December 11, 2017February 26, 2010 by admin

(In which Clairemont High School alum Dave Fleminger strikes rock ‘n’ roll in a back issue of his alma mater’s paper.)

January 1981: Imagine the trepidation felt by young Clairemont High news reporter Alan Graham about this front-page assignment.

He has been given the responsibility of unveiling the “punk-rock lifestyle” in the pages of the Arrow, the school paper. To do so he will be interviewing Clairemont High School’s best-known proponent of the movement, Wendy “Pyro” Gaines. Perhaps he could have also gone undercover, like Cameron Crowe had done at Clairemont High a couple years earlier, but that could have gotten a little rough, and Wendy has graciously granted Alan an opportunity to stay within familiar CHS territory and still learn about a mysterious group whose meeting place (?) was at a Lions’ lodge in far-off North Park.

Big hair, long memories:
Straita Head Sound games for April

December 14, 2017February 22, 2010 by admin

Apparently the Che Underground crew isn’t the only set of 40-something San Diego veterans with a yen to revisit their musical past: A contingent of bands that frequented Straita Head Sound in the early ’80s has announced its own reunion show at San Diego’s 4th & B April 17, featuring Assassin; Street Liegel with Mike Liegel on vocals; Dirty Birdz (with members of Vamp); and Jonas Grumby.

“Straita Head Sound may be gone, but the music lives on,” the promoter proclaims. “So dig out your KGB cards and head downtown for a killer night. With an event like this, you never know who might show up!”

Probably Perhaps few of our own regular visitors! At 25 years’ remove, the names and places do evoke for me a few very dim echoes of a side of San Diego that might as well have been a different planet. And at the same time, the impulse to get their scene back together is awfully familiar in light of our own Che Games for May, among other projects.

Gary Wilson: Return of a local cult hero

February 20, 2010February 20, 2010 by admin

(Jay Allen Sanford explores the fall and rise of a San Diego indie pioneer.)

“You don’t remember who I am, do you?” Gary Wilson asked me via e-mail. I’d been interviewing the indie-rock pioneer about his rediscovery since being name-checked in Beck’s “Where It’s At” ——

“Passin’ the dutchie from coast to coast/ like my man Gary Wilson rocks the most.”

When an e-mail from Wilson mentioned “Don’t you remember lending me that article you wrote about [TV show] Thriller?” I realized that I’d known and hung out with Gary Wilson for years.

Wilson was employed at the same local strip club where my housemate at the time (“Savannah”) worked. I used to hang around the place to talk with him about music and vintage TV shows we both loved, particularly the aforementioned Thriller series. He may have mentioned he used to be in a band.

But I didn’t know he was THE Gary Wilson, whose homemade ’70s records are being reissued to such acclaim.

Birth of the Che Cafe

January 6, 2011February 18, 2010 by admin

I love learning about the origins of our old haunts — those rare places in the San Diego construction boom of the ’70s and ’80s that actually pre-dated us! Case in point: the Che Cafe itself, which is profiled starting on Page 16 of this virtual version of the latest UCSD alumni magazine.

N.b.: While I appreciate the attention, the article gives me disproportionate credit for bringing rock ‘n’ roll to this hippie haven. (Considering I first saw the Answers at the Che and Noise 292 made our debut there as the Answers’ guests, it’s hard to paint me or my band as lone pioneers!) And it doesn’t quote some people I hoped.

That said, I really enjoyed learning about how that rickety old place got its start: “The three wooden structures … that today house the Che Cafe were accumulating grunge long before UCSD was even founded.