The Dinettes in the spotlight

(You asked for it, you got it! Che Underground: The Blog is proud to add San Diego female rock pioneers the Dinettes to its lineup. Doriot Negrette provides the narrative, with audio and visual artifacts contributed by Joyce Rooks.)

Disclaimer: Of course you understand that by daring to disturb the XX* Ark of the Covenant, all must pay by listening to the demanding sounds of San Diego’s own Dinettes. No longer satisfied and blissfully ignorant, the history camel has now gone and pushed its nasty nose under the tent and into the den of wild female rhythm. Lo, what a cavalcade of late-’70s sonic value those first recordings were…you’ll see. Left in a state of utter incomprehension and curious disbelief, any listener will be changed, forever.

*That’s chromosome, to you. Nothing more.

Read moreThe Dinettes in the spotlight

Remember the Monroes?
Behind a one-hit wonder

(How the other half lived: Jay Allen Sanford takes us briefly out of the underground to revisit a San Diego band’s dip into mainstream success.)

The Monroes
“Could you be the one I’m thinking of?
Could you be the girl I really love?
All the people tell me so,
but what do all the people know!”

(The Monroes, “What Do All The People Know”)

“To me, my whole life was just destiny,” says Eric Denton, one-time keyboardist for ’80s pop faves The Monroes. “I just felt I was destined to be a rock star, and there was just no doubt about it. And it all kind of came to a crushing end when The Monroes basically fell apart.”

Read moreRemember the Monroes?
Behind a one-hit wonder

The Che Underground