Che Underground: The Blog

Christopher Duane Mathes

September 11, 2009September 11, 2009 by admin

(An appreciation by Patrick Works.)

Christopher Duane Mathes is my brother.

Most of you know him as Chris Negro, and as much as he’s been conflicted about that name, and the legacy of his race and how that placed him amongst us, he’d be the first to proudly tell you …

“I was born in Monroe, Louisiana, and I HAVE picked cotton!”

Rumor has it that he’s died. I don’t know. I’ve heard so many damned rumors and stories about Chris over the years that I’ve long ago given up taking any to heart. I never stopped telling those stories that I’ve either created from whole cloth or witnessed myself and embellished to positive effect (I believe) on his legend. He’s too good a character.

Beatles: Rock Band … The missing buttons

December 11, 2017September 9, 2009 by Paul Kaufman

(Paul Kaufman contemplates exciting new hacks for the Beatles simulation game.)

VH1 is in full promotional mode for the release of the The Beatles: Rock Band game. I’m an unabashed fan of the band, and I’m generationally marked as one who never tires of hearing these tunes and seeing the film footage. Seth Schiesel of the New York Times raves that “by reinterpreting an essential symbol of one generation in the medium and technology of another, The Beatles: Rock Band provides a transformative entertainment experience.”

I like that idea in concept, and teaching a new generation about this music via today’s electronic vernacular is a great idea. But somehow, hitting color-coded buttons in time to the music strikes me as a rather limited goal. As the technology grows, these are the buttons I’d like to be able to push:

The Penetrators: Walking the Beat

September 9, 2009September 5, 2009 by admin

(Excerpts from Ray Brandes’ definitive history of a band that shaped San Diego music. Read the full version in Che Underground’s Related Bands section.)

On October 8, 1977, Santana and Journey played to a sold-out crowd at the San Diego Sports Arena. That same night, across town at the Adams Avenue Theater, a decrepit former cinema, the Zeros, Dils and Hitmakers were making history by playing what has since come to be considered a milestone San Diego concert: the first big punk show.

The audience was full of artists, musicians and poets, future movers and shakers who would go on to form bands, create fanzines, open independent record stores, and promote shows and galleries for decades to come. Among those in attendance were several young misfits who were drawn together by their love for early rock and roll and beat music and who would eventually change the local musical landscape as the Penetrators.

Surfacing the Gravedigger V

March 30, 2019September 2, 2009 by admin

A recent comment by Kristen Tobiason has me puzzling over how best to focus conversation on the Gravedigger V, a youthful San Diego band whose brief existence in 1983-1984 has inspired a quarter-century of notoriety.

There are plenty of online references to the band and its album “All Black and Hairy,” but many pieces are of questionable accuracy. What can we do to set the record straight?

‘You just keep me hanging on … ‘

December 11, 2017September 1, 2009 by admin

Group consciousness in action? In the weeks after so many of us got back together for May’s Che Games at the Casbah (and the lovely Graveyard Park picnic that followed), I was struck by the number of references to Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” dropped by attendees.

Never mind its post-“Trainspotting” ubiquity: “Perfect Day” remains a haunting paean to love and loss, as the narrator muses about a perfect day with a companion who made him feel like “someone else … Someone good.”

It’s also makes me think about the “perfect days” of our youth … And days that approach perfection now.

The Front flyers (Waxon Collection)

March 27, 2019August 29, 2009 by admin

In another selection from her collection of vintage San Diego flyers, Dawn Hill Waxon focuses on the Front, the mid-’80s post-punk outfit that featured Morgan Smith, Mark Baez, Kevin Chanel and Dan Mehlos.

These flyers date from 1984 and include the earliest show we’ve encountered so far at the short-lived but influential Rock Palace (a gig with the Tell-Tale Hearts to usher in 1985).

The quirky bits: Scribbles we love

February 7, 2018August 26, 2009 by admin

(Toby Gibson asks after our favorite filler.)

It’s fairly easy to guess that pretty much everyone who comes through this site is some pedigree of audiophile — many have already confirmed themselves as walking archives of music history and have shared some fantastic personal details and trivia.

It’s also fairly easy to imagine that I’m not the only person who keys in on tiny personal fragments (or funny quirks, or just neat bits) of songs that I wait for every time I hear them — someone talking in the background, either by design or unintentionally, funny melodic idiosyncrasies that stick in the mind to become that moment that you wait for.

Gone fishin’ …

September 14, 2009August 24, 2009 by admin

Well, not exactly — but a family vacation (and a petition by the family members who comprise it that I unplug a while) has slowed our regular programming cycle. Che Underground: The Blog has a wealth of archival treasures and challenging conversations waiting in the wings, but it may be a day or two before I can get the gears turning again.

What are you up to this summer?

… Which in itself suggests a topic I’d like to hear about! In this networked world of 2009, how do you balance the digital and the analog parts of your lives? I feel very lucky to share the former with all of you (and the latter with many of you), but how do you make time for each?

Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen

December 16, 2017August 21, 2009 by admin

I’ve belatedly read “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell’s marvelous little book on the critical mass required to create an epidemic — whether a literal, biological one or the adoption of ideas or products.

I’ve been comparing Gladwell’s ideas to the intense little scene we experienced in late ’70s/early ’80s San Diego. In particular, I’ve been thinking about the people that played the three key roles Gladwell describes as necessary for a movement to take off. Check out the definitions, and then think about the folks we hung around with back when we were young:

Photos from the Coleman Collection

December 31, 2010August 18, 2009 by admin

Carol Coleman (née Anderson), Encinitas Pannikin manager extraordinaire and all-around rockin’ scenester, recently digitized some photographs that include shots tracking paths we took from Hair Theatre and Noise 292.

These pictures include Hair Theatre vocalist Sergio, Noise 292 guitarist David Rives (and Answers guitarist Dave Fleminger) at one of the occasions when the former drummed for us at the Che Cafe; several shows by 3 Guys Called Jesus, the band I formed with bassist Steve Duke and drummer Robert Labbe in 1985; and 1995 photos of Joy Bomb, San Diego’s successor to Hair Theatre.