Che Underground: The Blog

Nostradamus, I’m not. Part 2: The Cold War

December 16, 2017December 12, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(In which Manual Scan/Lemons Are Yellow vet Paul Kaufman finds himself back in the USSR.)

Here’s Part Two in a short series of examples of how my young self was Dead Wrong on some major issues of our time.

A defining event for our generation is that we were the last to come to adulthood during the Cold War. Remember the Cold War, kids? Soul-crushing, Gulag-filling Soviet dictatorship on one side, anyone-against-them-is-our-friend (nevermind the atrocities) NATO on the other, both armed to the teeth. This lead to deadly, pointless quagmires on both sides (Afghanistan for them, Vietnam for us). For all the vile waste of life and resources this arrangement created, it was a form of stability.

So, did anyone here think the Soviet Union would just sort of melt away like a wet witch, without nuclear holocaust, bloody civil war, or even hardly a shot fired? I didn’t.

Old Dogs, new tricks

December 31, 2010December 10, 2008 by admin

Lori Stalnaker-Bevilacqua continues to enrich our historical understanding of the Rockin’ Dogs with priceless artifacts. Here’s a pre-Jane Bunting photograph of the Dogs — ca. 1982 — when Scott Harber was the bassist.

“I loved this shot from the series,” Lori writes. “I love the fact that you got two lookin’ at the camera and two turned to the side. I don’t think I directed them to that, just spontaneous. Nevertheless, it works!

“That is one good-lookin’ band! ;)”

“I remember the photo, but I don’t remember much about it other than the fact that the red plaid scarf belonged to a girl I was dating,” writes Dave Ellison. “Scott didn’t play with the band for very long. I remember he was planning a long trip somewhere … to another country, I think … so he was more or less filling in for a while.”

Nostradamus, I’m not. Part 1: The Final Frontier

December 31, 2010December 8, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(In which Manual Scan/Lemons Are Yellow vet Paul Kaufman re-evaluates his prospects for space tourism.)

Here’s the first in a short series of examples of how my young self was Dead Wrong on some major issues of our time.

If you had asked me as a 15-year-old what I wanted to be, I would have had no firm idea. But as a five-year-old, the answer was certain: an astronaut! It was 1969, and when I wasn’t listening to my well-worn copy of Yellow Submarine, I was reading about the Apollo missions and constructing home-made Command Modules out of cardboard boxes.

The future seemed obvious to me — we were just beginning to travel to space, and in the future, this would steadily become more and more of our daily lives, as had air travel, electricity, telephones, TV, et al., right? Soon we’d be booking commercial flights to distant planets, choosing among the tasty, reconstituted, colorful foods from the hip flight attendant, just like in 2001: A Space Odyssey. This would be the new frontier, and Americans are always drawn to frontiers.

Monday, December 8

January 6, 2011December 8, 2008 by admin

Toby Gibson reminds us it’s been 28 years since John Lennon’s death. We’ve already discussed at length that very dark moment just before the Reagan era, but it was an event that affected many of us deeply, provoking black humor and profound sorrow and coloring our attitudes about peace, love and understanding. (I can still recall every detail of that other Monday night.)

How about if we change gears, though, and talk a little more about what Lennon and the Beatles meant to us? For me, they were the original touchstone for what being in a rock-‘n’-roll band was supposed to be. How about you?

Pictures through the past, darkly

December 31, 2010December 6, 2008 by admin

(A plaintive cry for ephemera from Darren Grealish.)

Hey, I don’t have any pictures from my youth at all. A crazy girlfriend I had in the late ’80s threw all my photo albums away, and sadly, all my pics are gone forever.

If you have pictures from the good old days with all of us please post ’em up! Maybe if we get enough of them after time we can get a groovy slide-show movie that people can watch on the site. Maybe we can have Jerry Cornelius be the narrator!

Come on and sock it to me! I would like some visual memories to look back on. As it is now I have only memories and this site!!!!! If you got em’ put em’ up! Let’s see the gold!

— Darren Grealish

[Editor’s note: All vintage Grealish beefcake welcome at Che Underground HQ: cheunderground@gmail.com. We will ensure Darren receives your contributions posthaste.]

The Wallflowers: “TV Eye”

December 31, 2010December 4, 2008 by admin

The night I met the Wallflowers, the Stooges’ “TV Eye” was playing on the stereo. I know it was the summer of 1983, when I met so many of you, and I believe my introduction was brokered via Rockin’ Dog Dave Ellison.

That moment forged a lasting connection in my mind between the Wallflowers and the Stooges, an impression that was reified by the Wallflowers’ blistering interpretations of the older band’s oeuvre — including “TV Eye,” presented here in all its synapse-rattling glory.

Per vocalist Dave Rinck, “‘Walldrugs’ and ‘TV Eye’ were recorded in a ‘studio’ at Music Power; ‘Raw Power’ was, too, but not until a little later than the other two.”

Then and now: Saigon Palace

June 30, 2009December 2, 2008 by admin

(Roving correspondent/photographer Kristen Tobiason revisits the scenes of our past glories. Today, the Zebra Club/Saigon Palace becomes a meat market.)

I’d never gone to the Zebra Club, later Saigon Palace, at 560 Fifth Avenue in San Diego. I look forward to hearing others’ tales of it.

One time, after a Wallflowers gig (two doors down at Greenwich Village West), we stopped by so [Wallflowers vocalist] Dave Rinck could pop in and visit so-and-so, who I don’t recall. But I do remember hearing a rumor that Tom Waits played there.

[Editor’s note: While no one else has mentioned Tom Waits, many of our colleagues remember the club’s plumbing. “The Saigon Palace was a very small, dive bar in downtown San Diego with sewage problems and sleazy cocktail waitresses,” writes Dave Ellison. And Ray Brandes recalls, “The Town Criers had their debut at the Saigon Palace in 1987, summer. What I remember most is that there was a leaky sewer pipe that ran across the length of the bar, and it smelled awful.”]

The Tell-Tale Hearts vs. Joe Meek

June 30, 2009December 1, 2008 by admin

(Exclusive to Che Underground: The Blog, Ray Brandes unearths a Tell-Tale Hearts single with a rich pedigree.)

Heinz Burt was discovered slicing bacon in a Southampton market at age 19. In 1962, he played bass on the Tornados’ smash single “Telstar,” produced by the brilliant but misunderstood Joe Meek, Britain’s first independent pop producer.

Heinz soon became a pet project of Meek’s. Inspired by the movie “Village Of The Damned,” Meek encouraged the young Heinz to bleach his hair white and release a single, “Just Like Eddie,” a tribute to the recently dead Eddie Cochran which reached number 5 on the British pop charts.

Heinz never returned to that altitude on the charts but did record a series of bizarre singles including “Big Fat Spider,” “Country Boy” and “I Get Up in the Morning.” Heinz was sent on tour with Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis. Meek envisaged Heinz’s audience as teenage girls, but young British audiences booed him and showered him with beans.

This We Dug: K.C. and the Sunshine Band

December 13, 2017November 28, 2008 by admin

(In this installment, Wallflower Dave Rinck revisits the bouncy side of the ’70s.)

We used to have a great Halloween tradition in San Diego, which I am frankly surprised hasn’t been covered here yet. Anyway, I’m sure someone will get around to this one soon enough. Of course I’m talking about the Pink Panther Halloween Ball. Man, that was fun!

The deal is, one year I was attending this event, and I ran into Darren Grealish and Burt Huerta, and these guys had on these leisure suits with lapels out to their shoulders. (I think I was dressed as a gerbil or something equally stupid.) I mean, they looked great, almost as if they had just stepped out of Studio 54 in about 1978. And Darren says to me, “People think I’m dressed up for Halloween, but this is how I like to dress every day!”

And who wouldn’t? I mean, come on get real: Black leather biker jackets and torn jeans every day? How much of that stuff can you really stand before you need to cut your jive talkin’ and lighten up a bit? Yes, if punk rock can be summed up as the Mister Hyde of our angry rebellious youth, then Disco would be the happy Doctor Jekyll.

Read moreThis We Dug: K.C. and the Sunshine Band

Thanks!

January 1, 2011November 27, 2008 by admin

As well-worn editorial conventions go, the thanks-on-Thanksgiving formula ranks up there with rewrites of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” come Dec. 24. Nevertheless, it seems an apt way to ask our growing ranks what debts they owe our youth and the history we share.

Months ago, we had an interesting discussion about how our early days informed our adult careers. We’ve also explored what the person you were in 1983 would make of the 2008 model.

I’ll say it again: Collaborating creatively with all of you … making do on the cheap and despite official disapproval … taught me at least as many skills I use today as I ever got from my (fine) formal education. For better or worse — and I say “better” — I’m the person I am today because of the all-too-brief time we spent together. Thanks!

All these years later, who or what makes you thankful about those times?