Ray Brandes | The Che Underground

‘I was a Shambles drummer’

January 1, 2011May 22, 2009 by admin

(Bart Mendoza of Manual Scan and the Shambles counts off drummers he’s worked with.)

No doubt about it: Kevin Donaker-Ring and I have worked with a lot of drummers over the decades, keeping in mind that we first began our team-up in 1976.

Here are a few of the incredible musicians who have spent time behind a drum kit with Manual Scan or the Shambles over the past 30-plus years. Not pictured: Paul Brewin, Morgan Young, Terry Moore, Rob Wilson, Trace Smith, Brad Kiser. … There’s a future post there.

1) “I was a Shambles drummer” pin. People have sat in with the band for one song to obtain one of these.

From Scan to the Shambles

January 1, 2011May 16, 2009 by admin

(Bart Mendoza of Manual Scan and the Shambles talks about how he got from there to here.)

Of course the various members of the Shambles knew each other for years before the band’s formation, but I can put down the beginnings of the band to two events.

In the late ’80s, Kevin Donaker-Ring co-produced Manual Scan’s “Days & Maybes” EP with Ray Brandes (side note: humorous liners by Mike Stax), and we were all part of a group of musicians that frequented Megalopolis on Fairmount Ave., often playing round-robin style — David Moye and Jon Kanis amongst the round-robiners who didn’t end up in the band (though we did back up Kanis on a compilation-album track).

You Never Give Me Your Money: IOUs and the Ché Underground

March 27, 2019April 30, 2009 by admin

(Tell-Tale Heart/Town Crier Ray Brandes takes up a karmic collection with 25 years’ interest.)

In the cafés of Madrid, in the outdoor flea markets of Barcelona, and along the beaches of the southern coast of Spain, everyone is talking about “La Crisis.” The Spanish economy is now faltering badly, on the edge of a recession brought on by the collapse of a building boom; an average household debt 120 percent above the gross domestic product; and an unemployment rate of over 10 percent, the highest in Europe.

One company, however, which employs a curious and uniquely Spanish trade, has seen its business surge in this environment of unpaid bills. El Cobrador del Frac, the “debt collector in top hat and tails,” exists to humiliate debtors, playing on their sense of public shame. For a percentage of the collection, you can have your debtor’s footsteps dogged by a man conspicuously dressed like Fred Astaire and carrying a briefcase emblazoned with his trade. It is a shrewd and imaginative premise: that people are quick to repay the money they owe when their indebtedness is paraded in public.

Let the games begin!

March 27, 2019April 26, 2009 by admin

(Tell-Tale Heart/Town Crier Ray Brandes lays the table for May’s audio feast.)

The Che Underground Weekend Showcase:
Celebrating more than 25 years of San Diego’s underground music history

An incredible opportunity to reconnect, reminisce and rediscover will unfold as 25 years and thousands of miles of distance disappear in a single weekend — May 29 and 30 at the Casbah in San Diego.

The lineups have been set, the bands are rehearsing, and the drinks are on ice. Here’s what to expect:

Who’s next? Bands that mattered

March 30, 2019March 31, 2009 by admin

I’ve likened Che Underground: The Blog to one of those God’s eyes many of us made in the groovy ’70s: While the original effort has been focused on a small set of bands playing together in San Diego in the early ’80s, much of the beauty has come from the warp and weft of wider connections.

Along the way, we’ve talked about many local bands that influenced us and some later bands that shared members or aesthetics with the scenes and sub-scenes at the tight core of the site.

A few examples: Ray Brandes has done unprecedented historical research on the Crawdaddys, the Zeros and the Unknowns, and participants themselves have told us tales about Claude Coma and the IVs, the Injections, 5051, the Front, the Frame, Atrocity Exhibition and Structural Fracture, among others.

So, whose story should we tell next? Let’s discuss local bands you’d like to learn more about!

‘I saw a film today, oh boy’: A Che Underground feature film

October 18, 2014March 14, 2009 by admin

(Ray Brandes brings the casting couch to your browser.)

director's chair The characters and events of our youth, it has often been suggested, would make excellent material for a big budget, Hollywood drama. Imagine having $100 million to re-create a show at the Che Cafe, a late-night Presidio Park gathering, a line of scooters outside the Ken Cinema for a showing of “Quadrophenia,” or a fight behind the North Park Lions Club, for example, using some of the top names in the business today.

Earlier threads, back in the days of the Che Underground blog’s infancy, floated names like Christopher Walken, Shia LaBeouf, Johnny Depp and Daniel Radcliff (of Harry Potter fame) to play Steve Garris, Matthew Rothenberg, Jerry Cornelius and Bart Mendoza, respectively.

‘Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza, and Count the Head Lice on the Highway’

January 1, 2011March 5, 2009 by admin

(Ray Brandes offers a brief history of misheard lyrics in rock ‘n’ roll.)

Music fans have long been thwarted by misinterpretations of lyrics mumbled by rock ‘n’ rollers, with often hilarious results called “mondegreens.” Numerous such misinterpretations were to be found in the Kingsmen’s 1963 version of Richard Berry’s “Louie, Louie,” and led to an FBI obscenity investigation after a parent wrote of her disgust with the lyrics to then Attorney General Robert Kennedy. In his book about “Louie, Louie” Richard Marsh describes the phenomenon:

Back in 1963, everyone who knew anything about rock ‘n’ roll knew that the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” concealed dirty words that could be unveiled only by playing the 45 rpm single at 33-1/3. This preposterous fable bore no scrutiny even at the time, but kids used to pretend it did, in order to panic parents, teachers, and other authority figures.

Sympathy for the ’70s

March 29, 2019November 13, 2008 by admin

“Perhaps another thread for ’70s appreciation is in order, too,” writes Ray Brandes of yesterday’s post focused on the darkest aspects of our formative years.

Toby Gibson concurs: “While my dark, apocalyptic views of the ’70s (and my gritty black-and-white memories) seem negative, I wish I could go back for so many things that are gone now, and to get away from so many things that are just WAY worse.”

Let’s accentuate the positive! Many of us idolized the ’60s, but most of us spent the majority of our minority in the ’70s. What memories of the era warm you up when the modern world seems cold?

When Garris met Cornelius

March 27, 2019October 1, 2008 by admin

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.

Ray Brandes: “Monkey Planet”

March 27, 2019September 25, 2008 by admin

(Tell-Tale Heart/Town Crier Ray Brandes channels his simian muse with the story behind the song.)

I wrote “Monkey Planet” in 1996 after watching a complete “Planet of the Apes” marathon on late-night cable. I originally saw the film in a theater when I was five years old, and the image of the Statue of Liberty on the beach stayed with me a long time afterward, even if I didn’t fully understand it at the time. I later saw all of the films in the series multiple times. One of my favorites is “Escape from the Planet of the Apes,” the one in which Cornelius and Zira return to the Earth in the early ’70s, and from which the picture on the sleeve was taken.

Read moreRay Brandes: “Monkey Planet”