Reviving San Diego's Rock Renaissance
Hi dear friends. I’m glad you all made it out of the eucalyptus grove alive. Here’s a funny flyer evolution: 1982 and I am the singer of 5051, a scrappy little SD punk band at the height of our success, opening for The Cramps at the Adams Ave. Theater.
Four years later, and I am the drummer of the Tell Tale Hearts, at the height of our success, opening for The Cramps at The California Theater. Both of those bands and theaters are now ancient history.
Two quick housekeeping hints:
By popular demand, here’s an official thread to geek out on the equipment we boasted back in the day. What axes and amps did you lug to shows? And while we’re at it, how’d you get them there?
I’m the guitar-tech Luddite of the group: Series IV blonde Guild Starfire (much coveted and emulated by the far superior Noise 292 guitarist Dave Rives, to my eternal pride); turquoise Fender Musicmaster bass; and the much-discussed Vox Essex bass amp. I don’t think I even owned a guitar amp during Noise 292’s run!
I drove the gear in my folks’ red Dodge van, which popped a hose and leaked gasoline all over the Headquarters parking lot the night we opened for the Pandoras and the Answers. I came out to find firetrucks everywhere. (Later, we lined this van with aluminum foil to film the abortive late-phase Noise 292 feature movie, a “Let It Be”-worthy spectacle that resulted in a group of us being detained by the police outside the House of Naugahyde.)
Spooky coincidence: Dave Fleminger just discovered this flyer on the 25th anniversary of the gig it advertised! Manual Scan and the Answers teamed up at the Che Cafe on March 8, 1983, and shook the sleepy co-op to its rafters.
I believe this was about 10 minutes before I met the Answers, but it’s likely the night Noise 292 guitarist David Rives first encountered the band. I remember the moment he told me he’d discovered the great musicians/crazy scene I’d been theorizing about while listening to Barrett and the Velvets in darkest Encinitas. And then of course it turned out Noise 292 vocalist/guitarist Kristin Martin knew the whole crowd and had even played with the redoubtable Mr. Fleminger (and fellow Manual Scan expat Paul Kaufman) in the legendary Lemons Are Yellow. Pure kismet as far as I was concerned; I never looked back, and finding folks like Hair Theatre in Carlsbad and the Rockin’ Dogs in Poway just confirmed that we were onto something. (Or on something. Often both at once.)
Whacky…yeah we had a lot of parties. Most of you got laid or arrested there.
Pretty quickly we learned that most of our friends were cool, some were knuckleheads, and then we knew a few named Dave. Dave Rinck was our inspiration here…so rather than castigate them we decided to celebrate them…hence the 3 different parties called Dave Fest.
The first was The Wallflowers, Manual Scan, and the Tell Tale Hearts. That was the Hearts’ first gig if I remember correctly. That one was broken up when Arturo of SDSH used a Mission Hills mod I had a feud with as a battering ram and broke the toilet…whence we learned the rule “always put the keg outside.”
Dave Fest 2 was promoted quite a bit more widely, finally resulting in radio DJs in SF and LA announcing in for a week, bands from LA calling asking to be allowed to play…and yeah…that was broken up too when the guy we brought in to do security told all his friends to come and a couple of them had just got out of jail that day…they kinda ran amok, but they were not Red and White. Just SDSH associates.
That one was the Wallflowers, and the Hearts again, the Answers, and The Pandoras (they never got to play but they got paid)
I called the cops on that one myself. It was out of hand.
Dave Fest 3 was 10 bands for $10 at Che Cafe…get the keg out of the bathroom, and take it to the other end of town! Too many bands to name, but we had Noise, Hair, Hearts, Flowers, and on and on. I left town after that one.
Door policy at the house parties was as follows:
$3 admission, $2 if you wore your sunglasses after dark, and FREE if your name was Dave.
We had a lot of great times at 2866 E St. Many of our friends came to live there for extended periods of time. My mom (the much loved Linda) and I sat down and counted all the kids who at one time or other actually lived there (not just staying for the weekend) and it was over 26 names. You know who you are and are still loved.
Ironically after all the wild times I had with all of you, my little brother’s friends moved in after I left for SF and they ended up looting the house. Nobody would believe that this was my brother’s friends doing…it had to be me. Funny.
BTW I am throwing another party March 13 here in Watsonville to open my new studio. I mailed out 400 invitations and personally invited another 200 people. You are all invited too. Drop me a note and I’ll give you directions.
I still have the bug…heheheheheheheheh The local chamber of commerce actually sent me a flyer on “how to throw a successful party”. LOL
BEZEEYINGYOU
Pay dirt! In Nairobi, intrepid African correspondent and Wallflowers vocalist David Rinck received a mysterious metal box. Inside he found a motherlode of vintage Wallflowers flyers and photos documenting the three phases of this incandescent band. Here’s a small sampling of Phase One, with Dave’s color notes … More to come!
“This was The Wallflowers’ first line-up: David Rinck on vocals, Tommy Clarke on guitar, Paul Howland on bass, Aaron Daniels on drums
“Also, me at the pinball machine – pinball was quite important to the original Wallflowers. We hung out in arcades a lot (especially Funland downtown, which inspired a song of the same name), and at one point I even acquired a pinball machine, which we played for 24-hour marathons.
“Tommy on his motorcycle – a fallback plan for the original Wallflowers, if the music thing didn’t work out, was starting a motorcycle gang.”
Journey-is-the-reward department: Our Che Underground reclamation project is proving an amazing opportunity to exercise the phone chops I honed back in the day as an investigative tech reporter. Plus, I get the chance to interact with an assortment of fascinating characters old and new. Here are a few I encountered this week:
And it’s only Tuesday! Let’s see who else turns up.
Thanks to Bruce Haemmerle, Cole Smithey and Eric Rife, among others, we’re starting to compile a good sampling of flyers from our scene. Here are a couple that resonate for me; tell me what you’ve got and what you’d like to see.
The first show here took place July 29, 1983, and featured the Answers and Noise 292. I’m pretty sure the “special guest” referred to on the flyer was Hair Theatre, making their Che debut. (Lacking the graphics skills of a Jerry Cornelius, a Dave Fleminger or a Sergio, I created this flyer by Xeroxing my shirt!)
The second performance happened Halloween 1984 at Greenwich Village West, with the Morlocks, Cindy Lee Berryhill, the Wallflowers and Noise 292. It was the last performance of Noise 292 (and the first time Dave West joined us on guitar, poor guy!) I tried to organize a scheme to have us dress like Buffalo Springfield for Halloween and do “For What It’s Worth,” but I don’t think it came off very well.
(Help! I need some HTML pointers on how to build a tabular gallery of flyers in this blog format.)
Remember this issue of MRR? I remember its cover, but I didn’t recall that it advertised the aforementioned Mystic sampler with the Wallflowers.
Thanks to Wallflowers front man Dave Rinck for sending the file all this way from his current post in Nairobi, Kenya. He’s promised to scan and send the contents of a mysterious metal box containing a variety of Wallflowers artifacts … A scenario worthy of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”! I’m excited to share the denouement.
We didn’t spring from the San Diego soil sui generis, and I’m finding plenty of resources online to gather the musical fringes we latched onto:
Where else were we before we were what we were?