flyer art | The Che Underground

Crawdaddys/Unknowns reunion flyers
from Kristen Tobiason

December 11, 2017August 26, 2011 by Mmrothenberg

(To celebrate Labor Day weekend’s 30-year reunions of the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns at San Diego’s Casbah, longtime graphic artist and Che Underground blog contributor Kristen Tobiason has prepared a striking pair of flyers to feature each night’s lineup. Here’s the story behind the art and a glimpse of the sociology of music flyering.)

It seems like yesterday I was drawing a flyer for the Wallflowers’ first gig with a black Sharpie.

Twenty years later, here I am putting together a poster for the Unknowns, while listening to one of their songs on YouTube.
I still sketch my preliminary ideas on paper, but my medium has evolved, becoming less primitive and infinitely more digitized.

Buy your tickets now for the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns at San Diego’s Casbah, Sept. 2-3!

Some girls love shoes, I love color and typography. I was never patient enough to learn guitar, but drawing came naturally. I loved record albums as a kid, and some of my earliest memories are of studying the covers from my dad’s collection. As a teenager in the San Diego music scene, flyering was a way that I could contribute to the music without having to actually be in a band. When I was 16 I got my first box of rapidograph inking pens, which I had seen Jerry Cornelius use for his illustrations. Jerry’s art was intimidating, but inspiring too. I learned by emulating his style, and used to sit and copy Tennielle’s drawings from “Alice in Wonderland,” or the covers of H.P. Lovecraft, to learn how to do the crosshatching/shading.

Darren Grealish in Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

December 14, 2017February 20, 2011 by Mmrothenberg

(On the heels of Mark Neill’s Grammy win, more news of national recognition for an old friend. Poster artist extraordinaire Darren Grealish describes his inclusion in the forthcoming Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s Library and Archives.)

I have been selected to join the permanent display with other rock artists, album artists and rock literature/book authors who made an important impact on rock-‘n’-roll history. I will have my own permanent exhibit that includes tons of my art framed in all its glory, along with a detailed biography, interviews, personal photos, and an in-depth look at my career with influential artists and performers.

Punk flyer blow out from the Seibert Collection

January 1, 2011January 4, 2009 by Mmrothenberg

You asked for it, we’ve got it: The recent success of the PDF set of mod-themed flyers from the Ken Fugate Collection prompts a 31-page volume of punk classics from early ’80s San Diego, courtesy of our beloved Jason Seibert.

The Seibert flyers reference a variety of venues, including Fairmount Hall, North Park Lions Club and the Adams Avenue Theater (many of them organized by Marc Rude’s Dead or Alive). San Diego acts include Personal Conflict, Men of Clay, No Age Limit, the Skullbusters, Social Spit, Manifest Destiny, Catch-22, Moral Majority, V-5, 5051, the Nutrons, the Middle Class, Battalion of Saints, District Tradition, the Front, Sacred Lies, the Injections and Black Tango.

Read morePunk flyer blow out from the Seibert Collection

When Garris met Cornelius

March 27, 2019October 1, 2008 by Mmrothenberg

I find the pedigree of this flyer in the Tom Goddard Collection colorful enough to stand on its own: an advertisement for the Tell-Tale Hearts’ April 28, 1984, appearance with Manual Scan and the Trebles at Point Loma’s Syndicate that appears to bear the imprint of two of San Diego’s most intriguing flyer artists and raconteurs.

The side-by-side signatures at the lower right of the flyer indicate the piece was signed by “SFG 84” as well as the protean Jerry Cornelius. While “SFG” and the style of the Edward Gorey/Alice in Wonderland imagery point to Steve “Fuckin’ ” Garris, Tell-Tale Heart Ray Brandes expresses certainty that the band never commissioned San Diego’s self-proclaimed “King of the Punks” to create a flyer on its behalf.

Saving Bobby Lane

January 1, 2011July 8, 2008 by Mmrothenberg

The Che Underground flyer collection is overdue in giving credit to Bobby Lane, one of the greats of San Diego rock-‘n’-roll graphics. While I hope we can open a complete (and pristine) Bobby Lane Wing in our online gallery, I like the personal history behind these two well-loved examples, courtesy of Kristen Tobiasen.

“What flyer gallery would be complete without the art of Bobby Lane?” Kristen writes. “Probably the most ‘iconic’ of San Diego punk flyer artists, definitely the most prolific. Years before I ever met him, I remember seeing his flyers posted around.

Pictures in an exhibition

January 1, 2011July 6, 2008 by Mmrothenberg

Aside from rock-‘n’-roll music and tattoos, flyer art was one of the highest forms of expression in our circle. Today, the Che Underground flyer gallery welcomes new show pieces from the collection of Dave Fleminger.

“The Greenwich Village West one is a Kristen Tobiason work (including initials),” Dave writes, “the Che is Kristin Martin’s (initials again), the Pandoras gobble is mine, and the Rain Parade/Tell-Tale Hearts is certainly one of the most inscrutable of Jerry Cornelius’ flyers.”

New flyers! New fun!

January 1, 2011April 13, 2008 by Mmrothenberg

As the Che Underground history tour gains speed, I keep getting the greatest stuff from all you wonderful people! Thank you for every beautiful audiovisual scrap of it — my biggest challenge is finding the time to move it all online and the technique to present it to its best advantage, but it’s all appreciated and will ultimately have a happy home here.

Our flyer gallery is picking up steam, as is our performance history page. (To create a nice frame of historical reference while keeping things manageable, I’m concentrating on the years 1981 through 1985 … But I want to hear about what years and what assets are important to you.) The related bands section is also slowly gaining traction; authors and bands welcome. Please visit — and please help fill in the many gaps that still exist!