Reviving San Diego's Rock Renaissance
More video from the original Morlocks has emerged on YouTube, including covers of songs by the 13th Floor Elevators, Q65 and the Count Five.
Exhibit A is a video by Eric Predoehl of the Morlocks performing the 13th Floor Elevators’ “You Don’t Know.” According to the post, it’s from an event produced by KFJC Radio and I.B.S. at the Works Gallery in San Jose, Calif., on Nov. 22, 1985:
While our conjoined roots are in San Diego, Saturday marks a significant anniversary for the Che Underground contingent that relocated to the San Francisco Bay area in the mid-’80s: the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake that rocked the region at 5:04 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1989.
The 7.1-magnitude quake — which received live national exposure courtesy of the 1989 World Series — killed more than 60 people, tore the region’s infrastructure and knocked some of our internal gyroscopes askew.
Here’s another video sequence from the Morlocks’ 1986 performance at the Stone in San Francisco that included the version of “My Friend the Bird” previously aired on Che Underground: The Blog.
“I’m not sure who wrote it,” says drummer Mark Mullen. “All I remember is that it was written for Brother Ed from The Brotherhood of Light. He did our liquid light show, and his biker pals did security.
“‘Two Wheels Go’ was for the bikers, Hells Angels I believe.”
Another Jeff Lucas composition for this mid-’90s San Francisco ensemble of San Diego expats.
Besides prompting me to write many songs I still like a great deal, the Ho Hos offered a great opportunity to sing new originals written by other songwriters. Both Jeff and Steve Lam came through with some amazing material.
I’ve always been crazy about “Judas Twist,” which I believe was recorded live at Hanno’s in the Alley with engineering help from the indefatigable Jason Brownell. It’s got more hooks than a bait shop, and the band blasts through it with trademark panache.
Matthew Rothenberg (vocals, guitar); Jeff Lucas (bass); Robert Labbe (drums); and Steve Lam (lead guitar).
(Morlocks drummer Mark Mullen comes through with the video goods.)
This was a show we did at The Stone on Broadway in San Francisco in 1986 with Jordan Tarlow from the Fuzztones on rhythm guitar. It’s a 23-year-old VHS tape, so no complaining. I believe we did a real wild show somewhere the night before, so this was a little lackluster for The Morlocks.
The Morlocks are really a myth, cult, fantasy and intrigue to a lot of people across the US and around the world. I wish they all could have experienced the many great shows we put on, but that’s not the case. I wish I had excellent video footage of these times for everyone to see. This was a wild, wild time, and not much survived from the era. (I challenge anyone out there to cough up any footage if you have it.)
(Hair Theatre guitarist Paul Allen describes one photograph’s journey.)
This is one of 4 photos, as I recall, that [Hair Theatre vocalist] Sergio had given me before I moved to San Francisco in February 1989. I think Laura Swapp took them. I couldn’t tell you where we were playing. Like most of the clubs back then, the predominant color is black.
In the spring of 1992 I moved on a whim (the morning after the night I decided to go, after staying up all night) to New Orleans. Having prepared little, I ended up in an apartment with no furniture, stove or fridge. I’d turn on the light at night to find a virtual colony of roaches, beetles and crickets all scurrying for this giant hole in the closet floor. At this point I was so broke I was living on peanut butter & jelly and Thunderbird (a fifth chilled for $2.59!).
I entrusted a friend back in S.F. to sell my amp, stereo, books and records. The deal was he would keep 40 percent and send me 60 percent.
(Jeremiah Cornelius describes the genesis of one of the great lost collaborations of post-Che Underground San Francisco.)
“Sister Heat is on slow drip — Someone blew her fuses”
A critical, high-concept description of my input to “Sister Heat” is “The Damned cover Bauhaus” — both of which were inspirations and targets for satire. The resulting style is a sub-genre of Glam that I call “Mock Bombastic” – A hallmark of both Romulus Johnson’s Deep Six and King Therapy, which were to follow in the next years.
The words for this song were written during a whirlwind of confusion that seems temporally located in the first half of 1985. It was conceived of as one of a dozen or so songs that I’d penned for a vaguely imagined power-trio. The ingredients for this concoction were a rooted in my revulsion at the general idea of intravenous entertainment — and a specific dismay at the introduction of a couple of young ladies to the pastime. Add large doses of imagery from Michael Moorcock books, half-digested Nietzsche and a steady diet of histrionic rock performers, and you get the kind of song that Dave Rinck hates!
We were all connected by music back in the day, but I hope our musical adventures aren’t all retrospective. Time to look beyond the Reagan Administration for inspiration!
What have you created since 1985 that we can share here on Che Underground: The Blog?
Putting my MP3s where my mouth is, I’ll go first. Here are two tracks that live on a nascent site dedicated to the Amazons, my aforementioned San Francisco-based acoustic trio. “Tales of Brave Procrustes” and “Roll Like Sisyphus,” recorded at the Amazons’ farewell gig March 2001 (with the fabulous Lemons Are Yellow), are two installments of an unfinished triptych (Greek mythology-themed, in keeping with the Amazonian imagery). The unwritten Icarus song has been percolating for nearly a decade, and maybe sharing these tracks will shake it loose at last.
