Chuck Cole

(After collecting a lifetime achievement award at last week’s San Diego Music Awards, the Penetrators performed Saturday at the Casbah Club, supported by fellow music veterans the Bedbreakers and Manual Scan. Che Underground: The Blog presents accounts of the evening by Sean McMullen, Gary Heffern and Kevin Donaker-Ring as well as a luminous selection of photos by Mr. McMullen.)

It was a full moon, I remember, and I was already sweating and thirsty after walking down from Banker’s Hill to the club, but couldn’t seem to get past the patio to the bar for a bubbly cold Tecate due to the onslaught of embracing and handshakes and stories that followed. Every one of these nights serves to reinforce the depth of this bizarre alter-family I have collected since I was a wild-eyed runt getting dropped off at Golden Hall for a Penetrators show, amongst others, full circle.

Indeed there are few things in my life as gratifying as seeing people who used to revolt and butt heads like rams getting along with so much love and joy and pride. And the sheer fact that we remain so devoted to our music, to this town and each other, speaks volumes of the magnitude of our youth, and how we carry it forward incessantly with age.

(Calling all readers: Take a simple, painless test to save a life.)

Roger Pinnell started his first band in San Diego when he was 19. Throughout 1981 and ’82, he sang in Violation 5 and later The Brood, with bass player Chuck Cole and other friends. The Brood’s most memorable show was at the North Park Lions Club, where they opened for The Misfits.

When he moved to San Francisco in 1985, Roger formed Piglatin with bass player Donnie Diaz, another veteran of the early San Diego underground. The band released two records, and Roger briefly led a lineup of Piglatin in New York City. For the last several years he has concentrated on writing fiction and lives in San Francisco.

Since the summer of 2008, Roger has been battling a rare blood cancer, mantle cell lymphoma. He recently had a relapse and needs a bone-marrow transplant in order to beat this. His doctors at UCSF Medical Center are still searching for a donor. Roger is asking anyone who is willing and able to explore this link for the National Marrow Donor Registry and follow the steps to “Join The Registry.”

All that’s required to join is a simple cheek swab, which the Registry will send to your home in a kit.

The Penetrators, the Bedbreakers
and Manual Scan at the Casbah

From the Brood to the bloodstream