Reviving San Diego's Rock Renaissance
Thanks to the Cardiac Kidz’s Jim Ryan, Che Underground: The Blog has a fresh supply of artifacts from his band and other early participants in the San Diego punk scene.
Among Jim’s contributions is this chart from early 1980 composed by Dan McLain. It testifies to Dan’s role as underground historian and adds new fuel to the longstanding discussion of our family tree.
Ray Brandes is not only a San Diego musical treasure in his own right; he’s also established himself as a remarkable curator of our musical history.
Ray’s recent biographies of the Penetrators, the Unknowns, the Crawdaddys and the Zeros, among others, are unprecedented for their depth, narrative clarity, and comprehensive work with the original musicians and other key sources.
Other contributors to Che Underground: The Blog have added more pieces to the puzzle, with posts on formative bands such as 5051, Claude Coma and the IVs, and the Injections.
(Dean Curtis hails the return of a favorite Bay area band with deep San Diego roots.)
When I moved to the Bay area in ’92, I was pretty out of touch with the local music scene. One night, I was browsing through the Bay Guardian’s music listings, and I saw “Ron Silva & The Monarchs” listed.
“Naw, it can’t be the same Ron Silva from The Crawdaddys!” I thought. I went and checked it out anyway. Sure enough, it was the same Ron, fronting a new band of hip R&B cats from San Francisco, put together in ’93 by ex-Loved One Nick Rossi. Ron’s voice sounded better than ever, and the band was top notch!
(Tell-Tale Heart/Town Crier Ray Brandes applies his narrative skills to documenting an influential early band from his own back pages. Read the full version in Che Underground’s Related Bands section.)
At the beginning of the summer of 1981, the Ideals (comprising 18-year-old Ray Brandes on lead vocals, 17-year-old Tony Paulerio on lead guitar, 20-year-old Maure Silverman on rhythm guitar, 17-year-old Paul Carsola on drums, and led by 14-year-old prodigy Carl Rusk on bass) were gearing up for a summer of Point Loma keg parties at $50 a performance.
The band, whose short career had reached a pinnacle opening for the Penetrators at Mission Bay High School’s prom, played mostly rockabilly and early rock and roll, with Eddie Cochran’s songs making up about 50 percent of our set list!
At the end of May, with Paul away on a summer vacation, Carl called up the Crawdaddys’ Ron Silva to sit in on drums. Ron knew Carl from years of Skeleton Club shows and had recently seen the Ideals play at the Zebra Club, so he was more than happy to oblige. The gig was to be a massive block party in Crown Point, but it never materialized because the set by the opening band, Stonehenge, resulted in several noise complaints.
Read moreLend Me Your Comb: A short history of the Hedgehogs
(Bart Mendoza of Manual Scan and the Shambles — San Diego music historian extraordinaire — shares some highlights from his stacks.)
Some call it being a pack rat; I prefer the tag “archivist”! The dream is to put together a DVD/book with the rooms full of stuff I’ve accumulated in 30 years of collecting San Diego music memorabilia.
But in the meantime, in honor of the recent Che Underground reunion shows, here are 20 relevant vintage photos from my archive. For this fifth picture post, I’ve included a little bit of everything: random photos from 1982-1990 (+1), including bandmates and other friends.
1) Dean Curtis at Club Zu. You know it’s a good show if Dean is in attendance.
(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.
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!
As the Titans of the Che Underground suit up for their 25-year reunion at Che Games for May (May 29-31, 2009, in San Diego), vocalist Dave Rinck and bassist Paul Howland of San Diego’s original Wallflowers took time out to videotape their personal invitations to the event.
Be sure to catch the Wallflowers along with the Answers; the Gay Dennys (featuring members of the Tell-Tale Hearts and the Crawdaddys); Hair Theatre; Manual Scan; and Noise 292 at the Casbah May 30, 2009!
Got Che? Check out David Rinck, Dave Fleminger and Paul Kaufman’s musical promo!
(Excerpts from Tell-Tale Heart/Town Crier Ray Brandes’ groundbreaking history of San Diego’s original retro-visionaries. Read the full version in Che Underground’s Related Bands section.)
The Crawdaddys have been called one of the most influential bands ever to come out of San Diego. When one looks at the groups its members have spawned, as well as the recurring popularity of ‘60s-style punk and rhythm and blues over the past 30 years, it’s hard to dispute that assertion. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of music history, an uncompromising commitment to artistic integrity, and a roster of musicians with unparalleled talents and distinct individual styles, the Crawdaddys single-handedly gave birth to the revival of garage music in the late 1970s in the United States. The reverberations of the first few chords they played are still being felt today.
The Crawdaddys’ story begins and ends with lifelong Beatles fanatic Ron Silva, who grew up on Del Monte Avenue in Point Loma. He and his neighbor Steve Potterf started listening to records together in the ninth grade, and while Silva would barely tolerate Potterf’s love for Kiss, Aerosmith, Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin, he gradually convinced his friend to appreciate his own tastes. “After a while Steve started getting into the music I liked — Beatles, early Stones. I remember sitting in his room playing guitars along to my dad’s Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley 45s,” says Silva.
Read moreLet the Good Times Roll: The untold story of the Crawdaddys
Jason Seibert’s generous donation of early-’80s San Diego flyers offers a prime opportunity to open discussion of the Kings Road Cafe (née the International Blend), a small venue that played an enormous role in fostering and showcasing an eclectic mix of bands.
The Seibert Collection represents a slice of life at Kings Road in the summer of 1982, starting in June when the club morphed from the I-Blend under the management of Peter “English” Verbrugge. Other artifacts, including a July 1982 calendar (with membership card offer!), highlight the variety of performers that visited 4034 30th St. that summer, both San Diego regulars and up-and-coming out-of-towners.
