Che Underground: The Blog

Dream Sequence: The history of the Unknowns

December 11, 2017January 18, 2009 by admin

(Excerpts from Ray Brandes’ epic account of San Diego’s first major-label band since Iron Butterfly. Read the full version in Che Underground’s Related Bands section.)

Anyone who had the opportunity to see the Unknowns play had an unforgettable experience. Crisp, staccato drumming and the dripping-wet reverberation of Mosrite guitars through Fender amplifiers was punctuated by the yips and howls of the legendary melodramatic lead singer, Bruce Joyner, who sang from a chair or aided by a cane, looking every bit like a down-home Barnabas Collins in search of fresh blood.

Their tight and powerful act upstaged every band with whom they played, including the Go-Gos, Madness, the Blasters, the Plimsouls, Wall Of Voodoo, the Romantics, Joe King Carrasco, Romeo Void, the Textones, the Suburban Lawns, Missing Persons and scores of others.

At times the band members themselves have lamented that their place amongst their peers seems to have been forgotten over the years, yet they were the first San Diego band signed to a major label since the Iron Butterfly in 1967. They were named one of the top four bands in California by the Los Angeles Times in the early ‘80s. They were the first band from the San Diego scene to perform live on a major syndicated television show, Peter Ivers’ “New Wave Theater,” which was picked up by Armed Forces Television and the USA Network’s “Night Flight.” And their Sire album “Dream Sequence” has sold nearly 100,000 copies to date.

Kick out the jams, open your doors

March 29, 2019January 14, 2009 by admin

(A quick Che Underground public-service announcement: Manual Scan/Shambles guitarist Kevin Donaker-Ring files an update on a very rewarding career and issues a call to action for a worthy cause.)

What I have been doing, lo, these many years: high school student exchange. In late 1982, I got a job running the copy machine and performing odd jobs at a high school exchange program located in La Jolla, Calif. I devoted almost my entire adult life to that organization, learning most everything there is to know about student exchange at the high-school level. Yet after 21 years, everyone at our head office was suddenly out. The Board of Directors had decided to move operations to one of the satellite offices. In Arkansas.

After a day or so of panic, I realized that I had the opportunity to start my own program and founded AFICE, the Academic Foundation for International Cultural Exchange, in December 2003. We are a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization. (Yes, donations are tax-deductible, so if you’re feeling generous, please think of us.) We operate all across the country, with local representatives from California to Maine, from Washington to Florida, and we even added a rep in Alaska recently.

Right now (and always, it seems), we are in serious need of host families. Our deadline (imposed by the US Department of State) is almost here and two of our families backed out at the last minute. Two kids from Poland, a girl and a boy, are suddenly without a place to stay.

Tracing Structural Fracture

January 1, 2011January 13, 2009 by admin

(Co-founder Stefan Helmreich discusses Structural Fracture’s San Diego roots and national branches.)

Structural Fracture was a psychedelically minded garage-punk trio from San Diego’s North County, active from 1984 to 1986. Stefan Helmreich, Chris Henry and David Derrick played house parties in Encinitas (once with Noise 292) and often offered themselves as guinea pigs to budding recording engineers at Mira Costa College in Oceanside.

In 1985, Structural Fracture won San Dieguito High School’s Battle of the Bands in a performance many remember for the band’s bent rendition of “Puff the Magic Dragon” and for the moment when Stefan used a blender to mangle a microphone.

“Delirium” was recorded in June 1985 at Mira Costa and features Stefan Helmreich on bass and vocals, Chris Henry on guitar and David Derrick on drums. Simon Cheffins, of future Crash Worship fame, engineered the recording.

Report from The Front

June 30, 2009January 11, 2009 by admin

(Morgan Smith describes the birth of The Front and the growth of the San Diego scene.)

Many moons ago I started a band in San Diego called The Front with Mark Baez. I guess you could say we were surfer dudes from Coronado bored with the beach and inspired by the raw energy of the new rock and roll.

The next thing I knew, we had a band with a virtuoso bass player (Kevin Chanel) and a speedster drummer (Dan Mehlos, who also played with Personal Conflict); formed our own record label (Scheming Intelligentsia); recorded an album (Man, You Gotta Move); and were playing shows with Battalion of Saints, Black Flag, Misfits, Social Distortion, TSOL, Stiff Little Fingers (fill in your favorite punk band) and the coup de grace in my book, Johnny Thunders. We haunted the usual San Diego spaces: Fairmount Hall; North Park Lions Club; Adams Avenue Theater; and yes, the Che Cafe.

This We Dug: Laurie Partridge

March 29, 2019January 9, 2009 by admin

(Editor’s note: When asked whether guest columnist Patrick Works could add this submission to the “This We Dug” franchise, series founder Dave Rinck wrote, “Of course! Anything Pat says is automatically cool.” And so it is.)

Or were you secretly in love with Keith? Or perhaps you were a wannabe Reuben Kincaid just like me?

For some strange reason amidst the caca-phone of 60s/70s TV the Monkees begat all kinds of media attempts at duplicating pop super-stardom, and the rest is of course TV history.

The Frame gets in the picture

June 30, 2009January 8, 2009 by admin

(Veteran San Diego musician and promoter Mark Stern adds another band to the extended family.)

“I used to write, I used to draw, my name was once in print. Now I just can’t remember where all the promise went … ” — The Frame, “In the Streets”

To be clear, The Frame were not cool, nor especially well received when we played live. As three-chord wonders (sometimes two, sometimes one on “Triumph of the Will”) we were not mod, nor punk, despite hanging out within “the scene.”

We could not play our instruments well, were musically all over the map, didn’t have any semblance of a cohesive look, and co-ordinated/booked all our own shows. We invited other bands who could draw a crowd to play with us in order to get heard. Being broke, we would break into chem lecture halls at UCSD to practice. Sometimes we would just play outside on some UCSD loading dock that had a plug.

We would bug the college station there to play our demo, and would eventually book shows at the Che. We met through an ad in the Reader, and came together at this god-awful rehearsal space on University Ave. near 45th St.

RIP: The legendary Ron Asheton

December 13, 2017January 7, 2009 by admin

(Wallflower David Rinck remembers the man who pulled the Stooges’ strings.)

Everyone who grew up rocking to “T.V. Eye” and “No Fun” should pause for a moment of silence tonight: Legendary Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton was found dead in his Ann Arbor home. Another sad day for underground music. This guy was seriously one of its real giants, possibly the greatest underground guitarist of all time…

Okay, on second thought, forget the silence! Silence and Ronny Asheton do not go together. Instead, throw that dog-eared old copy of the first Stooges album on and reverently play “1969” with the volume turned up to 11!!! I think that’s way he’d want to be remembered.

Every flyer tells a story

March 27, 2019January 5, 2009 by admin

This flyer from the Jason Seibert Collection is evocative enough of the era and the roots of the Che Underground to merit its own post.

This gig at the Adams Avenue Theater features 5051, the Injections “& some others”; an early photo of Wallflowers vocalist Dave Rinck; and a design by David “GI” Klowden, 5051 vocalist and future Tell-Tale Hearts drummer. Note the instruction to “be there between 9:30-10:00 if you want to miss the mod bands.”

“I don’t know who the bands were,” Klowden says 26 years later, “but I am pretty sure I enjoyed them more than I did my own band that night.”

Punk flyer blow out from the Seibert Collection

January 1, 2011January 4, 2009 by admin

You asked for it, we’ve got it: The recent success of the PDF set of mod-themed flyers from the Ken Fugate Collection prompts a 31-page volume of punk classics from early ’80s San Diego, courtesy of our beloved Jason Seibert.

The Seibert flyers reference a variety of venues, including Fairmount Hall, North Park Lions Club and the Adams Avenue Theater (many of them organized by Marc Rude’s Dead or Alive). San Diego acts include Personal Conflict, Men of Clay, No Age Limit, the Skullbusters, Social Spit, Manifest Destiny, Catch-22, Moral Majority, V-5, 5051, the Nutrons, the Middle Class, Battalion of Saints, District Tradition, the Front, Sacred Lies, the Injections and Black Tango.

Read morePunk flyer blow out from the Seibert Collection

Claude Coma and the IVs, resuscitated

January 23, 2018January 2, 2009 by admin

(Angelo Victor Mercure salutes a true son — and daughter — of the San Diego underground.)

Claude Christensen-Coma is/was a San Diego native whose initial interest in music was sparked by the early 1960s British Invasion.

At age 13, Claude purchased his first guitar. By 1979 (at age 27) he put together his most influential band: Claude Coma and the IVs. The lineup consisted of Claude (mainly on vocals, sometimes on rhythm guitar); Don Story (lead guitar); John Gunderson (bass guitar); David Davenport (keyboards); and Terry Micalizio (drums).

This band played all-original music at a time when disco still ruled the airwaves.

Claude was sole songwriter, and his titles and lyrics were a bit salacious, to say the least: “Suzy Slut”; “Babies In Convent Walls”; “Rock and Roll Derelict”; “Let’s Go to Hell”; well, you get the idea. Despite the weirdness of such titles and lyrics, Claude’s wording was always interesting, his melodies and harmonies true to the ear, and – for the era (the deeply grim Carterite recession and the grudgingly successful Reaganite “recovery”), Claude’s music somehow seemed so appropriate.