The original SD Wallflowers: ‘Funland’

Wallflower lead singer Dave Rinck playing pinball, early '80sBy popular demand, another Wallflowers classic from the recent Canadian airlift joins the Che Underground play list. Wallflowers lead singer Dave Rinck has famously referred to “Funland” as the “anthem” of the first Wallflowers lineup, and bassist Paul Howland writes of “Funland”: “That one is probably my single favorite Wallflowers tune. That one and ‘Rubber Room’ kind of cover the whole Wallflowers sound for me.”

“Pinball was quite important to the original Wallflowers,” Rinck writes. “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.”

Listen to it now!

Back to the Gaslamp!

Gaslamp signA quick one, while he’s away: I’m blogging from the Hilton in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, where I’ve arrived for a very short conference. In all my years of business travel, this is my first event in San Diego … And I do believe this is my first time in this part of SD since moving away in February 1987!

Thanks to Kristen Tobiason’s documentary efforts via her “Then and Now” series, we’ve virtually revisited sites of past glories before this neighborhood was cleaned up and relabeled the Gaslamp: the Zebra Club/Saigon Palace, Greenwich Village West, Studio 517, Funland

My time is short and packed with grown-up business, but I’m hoping for a few minutes to stroll the old ‘hood. What do you think I’d see, if I could walk away from me?

The Wallflowers: “Funland” at the Casbah

The Wallflowers’ David Rinck at the Casbah, May 30, 2009 (photo by Dave Doyle)For those who missed Che Games for May in San Diego May 29-30 or just want to relive the magic: Good news! Thanks to modern technology, the event was captured from every angle in photographs, audio and video.

Exhibit A: The original San Diego Wallflowers raise the roof of San Diego’s Casbah with “Funland,” the band’s hypnotic paean to the city’s seamy underbelly, now lost to gentrification. (For memories of the original Funland, check out Kristen Tobiason’s “Then and now” feature.)

The May 30 performance marks the Wallflowers debut of Rockin’ Dog Dave Ellison and features original Wallflowers David Rinck on vocals, Paul Howland on bass and Matt Johnson on drums. (Che Underground jack-of-all-trades Dave Fleminger added keyboard stylings to the set.)

Read moreThe Wallflowers: “Funland” at the Casbah

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