Greenwich Village West | The Che Underground

Birth of the Nephews!

December 25, 2021December 25, 2021 by Mmrothenberg

A Che Underground exclusive: San Diego legends The Nephews revisit four decades of music ahead of their Feb. 18 appearance at The Casbah San Diego for A Che Underground Midwinter Masque. Book your tickets early and often!

The Nephews began as a comedy act in middle school around 1980. The original name was Ceilings and Floors, but we changed it to The Nephews (which has the same amount of meaning as “Ceilings and Floors”) around 7th grade.

We were very heavily into music, started playing as a rock band in high school, and were able to start playing club shows fairly quickly. Actually, our very first show outside of inland North County where we grew up was at the Che Cafe in 1984. We supported Manual Scan at Club Zu pretty early on.

Eric Cullen (Nephews keyboardist, 1989): “The first memory I have of The Nephews is of them playing during lunchtime at Poway High School. The
thing that immediately hit me about their music was how sophisticated their sound was, considering this was high school and all. Their harmonic language was dense, their chord progressions rather abstract, the lyrics obtuse. The Nephews’ music seemed advanced and not really belonging to the time, which was 1984 or ‘85. They were mining their own sound, and to this 17-year-old it sounded great. They had an air of ’60s psychedelia but were in touch with current underground bands like R.E.M., Minutemen and Pere Ubu. They also had a slight Zappa/Beefheart side about them, as well.”

There to Here: Mark Stern, Soup Nation

March 28, 2012March 13, 2012 by Mmrothenberg

(In the first installment of a series, Che Underground: The Blog considers how a young San Diego show promoter became a Eugene, Ore., soup titan. Plus: a bonus after-party recipe from Mark! If you’d like your story told, e-mail cheunderground@gmail.com!)

The last time we were in the same town, you were playing in the Frame and promoting gigs in SD and Orange County at spots like Greenwich Village West, Big John’s and Club Cult. How did you move from there to the culinary arts?

I started at a steak-and-seafood joint as a dishwasher in Mira Mesa when I was in 10th grade, moved into doing salad station. There were all these “college” girl waitresses who would flirt with the new kid.

After that I got a job across the street at Chuck E. Cheese, doing pizza, and I would go out and do promos as the rat. My favorite was when they had me do an event for kids with Daryl Strawberry, then a Padre, who took me aside roughly when he thought I was upstaging him and whispered, “Take it easy, Chucky.”

Che echoes from the Alps

December 14, 2017September 15, 2010 by Mmrothenberg

(Rolf “Ray” Rieben of Feathered Apple Records describes how the San Diego underground reached Basel, Switzerland, and shares his cache of memorabilia from the Che Cafe and other points southwest. Stay tuned for much more of Ray’s trove from the Tell-Tale Hearts, Crawdaddys, Howling Men and more!)

I was working as a record salesman in Switzerland when the first Crawdaddys LP (“Crawdaddy Express”) on the German Line label had hit the market. Most of the Bomp! catalog was licensed to Line Records from Germany. Line Records had the best possible distribution, since because they were connected to a major label. They’ve helped to make The Crawdaddys and some of the other bands from Greg Shaw’s Bomp label famous over here in Europe.

“Crawdaddy Express” rates as the first modern ’60s garage LP ever made (after probably The Flamin’ Groovies). It was first advertised on the back cover of the July 1979 issue of Goldmine magazine. The sound was very British: wild raving rnb like the early Kinks, Downliners Sect, or the The Pretty Things, but undoubtedly influenced by Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and the likes. There’s even a few cool northern soul ballads featured on both of their LPs, too. These four fine young lads from San Diego knew what they were doing, they had the right spirits, and they could deliver in authentic ca. ’64 – ’65 style, too. It was exactly the type of brand-new LP that I was hoping for.

Back to the Gaslamp!

December 13, 2017March 15, 2010 by Mmrothenberg

A 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?

Then and now: Greenwich Village West

April 23, 2012August 6, 2008 by Mmrothenberg

(Roving correspondent/ photographer Kristen Tobiason revisits and documents the scenes of our youth. Today, Greenwich Village West learns Tagalog.)

Time has reduced my memory of the Greenwich Village basement to a hot cement pit: the flickering yellow light and a stairwell descending to a gully that had possibly the worst acoustics I’ve ever experienced!

I remember Morlocks guitarist Ted Friedman’s reverb hitting the wall — flat and nowhere to go, just like the smoke from our cigarettes. But we all had a good time. … Everybody who was anybody was there, right? (Maybe I’m harboring band-girlfriend resentment from schlepping equipment up and down those stairs.)

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.”

Great San Diego hangouts

January 1, 2011April 7, 2008 by Mmrothenberg

Essential ingredients in our recipe for adolescent hijinx were the houses, apartments, nooks and crannies where we gathered to play and hang around and talk and commit a variety of small indiscretions at odd hours. We’ve talked about Patrick Works’ house, about Gay Denny’s and its ilk, about Presidio Park and Balboa Park … What were some other notable hangouts?

The Morlocks’ basement in Golden Hill;
The Hair Theatre shack in Carlsbad;
Greenwich Village West.

That’s three to start, but there were many more. Where else did we hang our hats?