Reviving San Diego's Rock Renaissance
Lou Skum reminds us that we’ve yet to include a post on an early San Diego punk band that holds more questions for me than answers.
Considering I can’t even figure out what the band was named — the 7″ release says “Xterminators,” but most of the flyers I’ve seen for gigs at the Skeleton Club and elsewhere refer to “the Exterminators,” with a definite article and a capital “e” — I’d like to set the record straight on this early contributor to the San Diego punk scene.
(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.
Going on three years since the launch of this blog, we’ve come a long way: We’ve posted all kinds of wonderful treasures from our musical youth, reunited with hundreds of old friends, started new collaborations — and in October alone, drew more than 15,000 visitors here.
That means we’re in a great position to locate just about any surviving sounds, images and accounts from our past … or to re-create anything we want to revisit.
So where do you want to dig next? What recordings, flyers, photos, bands, events and people have you missed all these years? Working together, there’s a great chance we can find them.
(David Rinck offers a performer’s-eye view of a recent night of musical eclecticism in San Diego.)
On the evening of Thurs., Nov. 4, we again converged on the little theater at Lestat’s Coffee House on Adams Ave. in Kensington, which is beginning to feel like home for some of us here.
Lestat’s most recently hosted the first night of the Che Underground Rock and Roll Weekend on July 30 and 31, and the Nov. 4 show was an exciting follow-up to that event. Some of San Diego’s finest underground musicians offered up an eclectic array of sounds from a range of genres. At the same time, the visual arts were represented by terrific graphics, photography and video recording, some of which is available here.
(Abortive record mogul Kevin Chanel heralds the post-Internet return of his label with two releases into the brave new world of online media.)
“Why now?”
Been asking that myself. After 15 years of somewhat complete dormancy, Scheming Intelligentsia Records is back with a line of retro classics and unfinished tchotchkes of historical whatnot.
“But why?”
If you recall, back in ’95 we didn’t have no MP3 technology or iZunes being given away with a ten-pak of ramen. You wanted music, you had to buy it on cassette, vinyl or CD. For us instant-gratification enthusiasts, this is a great time to be human.
We are celebrating with the first two releases in our exhumation process: 1987’s PERSONAL CONFLICT album “Rest In Peace” and the previously unreleased, half-baked SOUL BROTHERS masterwerk, “Find My Keys And We’ll Drive Out Of Here.”
More highlights from the Che Underground Rock-‘n’-Roll Weekend July 30 and 31, 2010, in San Diego: Che Underground supergroup the DaveFest Four performs the Dead Kennedys’ “Let’s Lynch the Landlord” and “Richie Dagger’s Crime” by the Germs.
The DaveFest Four plays “Richie Dagger’s Crime”: Listen now!
“Dave Rinck came up with the idea to do an all-Dave set of our favorite punk anthems with a semi-acoustic roots sensibility,” writes Dave Fleminger.
Read moreDaveFest Four: ‘Richie Dagger’s Crime’
b/w ‘Let’s Lynch the Landlord’
(David Rinck freaks out to a Moon Age daydream.)
NOTE: This post works best if you slip on Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album and cue up the tune “Soul Love” as you read it.
That tune, “Soul Love,” always takes my mind to a hip London of the very early ’70s, a sleepy, happy, self-contented London where hippies happily ate organic alfalfa sprouts in little cafes, and men wore frocks, complacently proud of having created and survived the ’60s, and looking forward to wallowing in their achievements spreading peace and love ad infinitum. The war was protested, the pot was plentiful, and everybody’s hair was down to his or her ass.
But it’s actually an unsuspecting London, on the eve of the explosion that was Glam, and then the firestorm of punk rock.
Read moreDIY: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
and the Punk Rockers from San Diego
Here’s another chance to compare notes a few decades down the road.
After a slightly meandering start, my adult career has proceeded quite nicely. I get to do interesting work, and (in the big picture) I’ve progressively been given more authority over it. My employers trust me to lead teams of people and try new ideas.
Learning about what you’ve been up to over the past couple of decades, it sounds like a lot of you have found jobs you like and are good at — and a disproportionate number have started your own businesses, from restaurants to barber shops.
For myself, it’s not just hyperbole to say I gained more fundamental career skills playing music with you folks than I did in the classroom. Here are a few lessons I picked up:
(Paul Kaufman flew in from Massachusetts to taste the fury of the Che Underground Rock-‘n’-Roll Weekend July 30 and 31. Here are Paul’s impressions, accompanied by photos from Sean McMullen and Kymri Wilt.)
After an early-morning cross-country flight, I was somewhat worse for wear by the time 9pm rolled around on Friday, July 30, but I didn’t want to miss this!
It had probably been around 20 years since I had been down Adams Avenue. Normal Heights is heavily transformed from the residential neighborhood I remembered, with many new restaurants and shops. The center of the action is Lestat’s gallery, coffee shop and nightclub. A big marquee announces the Che Underground show! In addition to the musicians themselves, lots of blog stars are there: Kristen Tobiason; Chris Mathis; and of course tonight’s MC, Lou Damian.
It’s always fun to see a piece of our mutual history surface in an unexpected location. Viz. this video compilation from “stev1963hit,” an old-school British audiophile who included an illustrated version of “Prison Walls” from San Diego punk pioneers the Injections in a series of YouTube posts dubbed “Anarchy in the U.K.”
“Prison Walls” is the first in a trio of songs in this edition, along with “Cold Eyes” by the Reactors and “No Passion” by the Vice Creems.
