The Dinettes in the spotlight

(You asked for it, you got it! Che Underground: The Blog is proud to add San Diego female rock pioneers the Dinettes to its lineup. Doriot Negrette provides the narrative, with audio and visual artifacts contributed by Joyce Rooks.)

Disclaimer: Of course you understand that by daring to disturb the XX* Ark of the Covenant, all must pay by listening to the demanding sounds of San Diego’s own Dinettes. No longer satisfied and blissfully ignorant, the history camel has now gone and pushed its nasty nose under the tent and into the den of wild female rhythm. Lo, what a cavalcade of late-’70s sonic value those first recordings were…you’ll see. Left in a state of utter incomprehension and curious disbelief, any listener will be changed, forever.

*That’s chromosome, to you. Nothing more.

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Have you ‘zine me? San Diego’s indy music mags

Detail: Quasi-Substitute #2, 1980 (collection Dean Curtis)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.

Detail: Snare #1 (collection Dean Curtis)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.

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