Rock Palace | The Che Underground

Steve Griggs: A life well lived

September 4, 2011May 28, 2011 by Mmrothenberg

(Tony Suarez offers photos and memories of another San Diego stalwart gone too soon.)

We lost another good guy recently in San Diego. Stephen Griggs passed away on May 17, 2011.

Steve didn’t play in a band. He was the guy that got all of us to go see the bands, and got people up front and dancing. If it weren’t for guys like Steve, most of us playing music would not have had an audience. He was a ringleader, and got people together to go to shows. His involvement with the Secret Society Scooter club led to many shows at Club Zu, Rock Palace and most of the New Sounds of the 6ts, and many of the early SD scooter rallies (I got Dogged, the rallies to Bad Manners, the Who show, et al.).

I hope these photos attest to his far-reaching love and friendship … not only in the mod and scooter communities, but to his love of Little League (he was an umpire for many years) and the the SD rockabilly scene through most of the late ’90s. I look at his Facebook, and Steve had more friends than most bands and celebrities!

The Front flyers (Waxon Collection)

March 27, 2019August 29, 2009 by Mmrothenberg

In another selection from her collection of vintage San Diego flyers, Dawn Hill Waxon focuses on the Front, the mid-’80s post-punk outfit that featured Morgan Smith, Mark Baez, Kevin Chanel and Dan Mehlos.

These flyers date from 1984 and include the earliest show we’ve encountered so far at the short-lived but influential Rock Palace (a gig with the Tell-Tale Hearts to usher in 1985).

‘I was a Shambles drummer’

January 1, 2011May 22, 2009 by Mmrothenberg

(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 Mmrothenberg

(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).

A decade of Hair Theatre from the Allen Collection

January 1, 2011March 7, 2009 by Mmrothenberg

Of all the bands launched by the Che Underground diaspora, Hair Theatre was easily the most consistently active, gigging on the West Coast well into the 1990s.

This set of flyers from the collection of Hair Theatre lead guitarist Paul Allen spans a full decade, from 1984 to 1994. In the intervening years, the band underwent some personnel changes — most notably in the lead-guitar position — but they never stopped working.

Warning: Flyer #4 below is most likely Not Safe for Work (unless you work in a specialty bookstore or urologist’s office).

Then and now: Rock Palace

December 14, 2017September 9, 2008 by Mmrothenberg

(Roving correspondent/photographer Kristen Tobiason surveys the remains of Rock Palace, which enjoyed a brief mid-’80s run of all-ages fun. “The stretch of El Cajon Boulevard sandwiched between I-805 and the I-15 is a desert of boarded-up, abandoned buildings dotted with a few small neighborhood repair shops or used-car lots. The Rock Palace structure has been dead since the ’80s, when completion of I-15 isolated the neighborhood.” Wallflowers frontman Dave Rinck recalls its heyday.)

Someone, somehow, sometime about 1984 or 1985 discovered what must have been an old ballroom above some dingy retail shops on El Cajon Boulevard. [Editor’s note: Contemporary flyers tell us the address was 3465 El Cajon Blvd.] In its day, it must have been a grand olde place, for it had a really high ceiling; wonderful wooden floors; and this really huge, creaky old stage at one end.

Detail: Rock Palace exterior, early ’80s (collection Jeff Benet) And what? Yes, we also noticed that a couple of guys were starting to promote rock-‘n’-roll concerts there in that grand old ballroom. Dubious? Yes, it reeked of money laundering. Manuel Noriega, the Cali Cartel, some Burmese generals, and the Taliban were probably running the place jointly. Of course before you could say “Lose sleep, baby, and stay away from bed,” these dudes had demo tapes of various Che Underground bands in their hot little hands, and the era of the Rock Palace was on!!!