Reviving San Diego's Rock Renaissance
Important new additions to the visual record of San Diego’s mod movement, turn of the ’80s!
“Dean Curtis e-mailed me to inform me that you would like to use some of my mod pics that I have posted on Flickr,” writes San Diego mod pioneer Kirk Murray. “I am not sure how to upload them onto the Che Underground site, which, by the way, is very cool.
“Hi, Matt,” writes Che Underground contributor and veteran San Diego scenester Mathias Kuo to the Che Underground hotline. “Here are some scooter pics from the hallowed halls of SD history — taken from a South Bay perspective.”
“Set #1 — Chula, Bonita and Coronado mods before a rally.”
(Dean Curtis hails the return of a favorite Bay area band with deep San Diego roots.)
When I moved to the Bay area in ’92, I was pretty out of touch with the local music scene. One night, I was browsing through the Bay Guardian’s music listings, and I saw “Ron Silva & The Monarchs” listed.
“Naw, it can’t be the same Ron Silva from The Crawdaddys!” I thought. I went and checked it out anyway. Sure enough, it was the same Ron, fronting a new band of hip R&B cats from San Francisco, put together in ’93 by ex-Loved One Nick Rossi. Ron’s voice sounded better than ever, and the band was top notch!
Especially in honor of Bastille Day, here’s an eternal question inspired by an absolutely charming 1966 performance Dean Curtis surfaced by a French combo dubbed Antoine et les Problèmes. “Les élucubrations” is delivered with élan, esprit and a ton of other wonderful French nouns … However, I still find it extremely difficult to listen to.
(It actually reminds me of a small child Robert Labbe, Paul Kaufman and I watched working cafe tables in Belgium, frantically wheezing into a harmonica until he was paid to leave.)
But — mon Dieu! — Che Underground: The Blog is here to smash stereotypes, not to perpetuate them! An unrepentant francophile myself (with a healthy appreciation for other Gallic art forms), I need guidance: Where are the French rockers?
(Bart Mendoza of Manual Scan and the Shambles — San Diego music historian extraordinaire — shares some highlights from his stacks.)
Some call it being a pack rat; I prefer the tag “archivist”! The dream is to put together a DVD/book with the rooms full of stuff I’ve accumulated in 30 years of collecting San Diego music memorabilia.
But in the meantime, in honor of the recent Che Underground reunion shows, here are 20 relevant vintage photos from my archive. For this fifth picture post, I’ve included a little bit of everything: random photos from 1982-1990 (+1), including bandmates and other friends.
1) Dean Curtis at Club Zu. You know it’s a good show if Dean is in attendance.
Having known most of you best during one little window of our lives, in a scene focused on music, I really cherish the opportunity to learn about the before, after and sideways.
Over the past year, we’ve heard a lot of passing mentions of folks’ extracurricular activities — the stuff they loved as kids and the things they like to do now. I discovered that I wasn’t the only aspiring magician on the blog, we’ve learned about Patrick Works’ fascination with Russian in general and Rasputin in particular, Dean Curtis (and others) have shared their epicurean enthusiasms, Toby Gibson (and others) have cited their affinity for matters aquatic … The list goes on.
So, open question: Besides listening to and playing music, what did you like to do then? What do you like to do now? Do the dots connect, or would the kid you were then be surprised at the activities that amuse the grownup you’ve become?
(Dean Curtis hails a major anniversary for a San Diego institution.)
In 1988, I finally got serious about a higher education. I previously tried college at SDSU in 1980/81 but it interfered with my social life and record-buying fund, so I dropped out. (I hated SDSU anyway.) But in 1988 I packed up the 1967 VW van, and me and my girlfriend Michelle headed off for Humboldt State University, after a fine summer living in the van and beach-combing up the California coast.
Soon after I left San Diego, the Casbah was opened by legendary San Diego show promoter Tim Mays (who with Laura Frasier operated the Skeleton Club in the late ’70s, and with Peter Verbrugge and Bob Bennett opened the Pink Panther in 1986).
Since he started the Casbah in 1989 (before moving it in 1994 down the street to its current location on Kettner and Laurel), Mays has also opened some great restaurants, including the Turf Club and Starlite.
If you were there, the Che Underground blog is your story, too. We’d love to hear and see your side of it.
Like PBS, we run on donations from viewers like you. This site is built on flyers, photos, audio and video from collectors including Kristen Tobiason, Toby Gibson, Cyndie Jaynes, Kristi Maddocks, Tom Goddard, Jason Seibert, Bruce Haemmerle, Mike McCarthy, Dean Curtis, Mark Mullen, Jeff Lucas, David Klowden, Cole Smithey, Bart Mendoza and Paul Allen. What rock-‘n’-roll treasures are growing crispy in your attic, your basement or your mom’s house?
If you can scan them or digitize them, great! If you need some help, operators are standing by … We’ll find you someone who can. Either way, raise a virtual hand here or drop a line to cheunderground@gmail.com, and we’ll get you started.
(San Diego mod pioneer Dean Curtis recalls the impact of this seminal band’s 1982 California visit.)
It was in the spring of 1982 when I realized the Southern California mod scene was growing by leaps and bounds. Many of us in San Diego made the day-long trek up Highway 1 to see The Jam at Perkins Palace in Pasadena. Few of us had highway-legal scooters (mine was a 125cc Lambretta), so we had to take the scenic route along the beaches. We were harassed a bit by the Marines in Camp Pendleton for not wearing proper footwear for motorcycle riding, but they eventually let us through.
Our asses were aching by the time we got to Long Beach, and the drive along PCH through all the South Bay beach towns seemed endless. But it was all worth it, as we showed up at the theater the next day on a rumor and got to see the band run through their sound check.
Another pillar of SD punk’s plastic arts (along with music, tattoos and flyers) were ‘zines, the samizdat publications created by luminaries such as Marc Rude, Harold Gee, Terry Marine and Clayton Colgin.
Over in the Che Underground forum (separate registration required), Dean Curtis and Toby Gibson, among others, have been bringing these treasures to light. One of Dean’s first contributions was Issue 2 of Quasi-Substitute, dating from 1980 and featuring the Crawdaddys on the cover.
Its reappearance prompted this wonderful response from David Klowden: “Seeing this issue of Q-Sub triggered an intense emotional stew of white hot longing for that place and time, deep black terror at the passage of the years & a kind of fatherly love for my younger self that is beyond description.