Reviving San Diego's Rock Renaissance
(Ray Brandes provides a brief history of a new band with a long San Diego history.)
The Secret Squares: pleased to make your acquaintance!
The Secret Squares is a musical project that has its origins in Gary’s Kids, a band assembled to back Gary Heffern on a solo performance at the Casbah in January 2019, and The Wrecktangle, which performed once at the Che Underground’s Leap Year show at the Riviera Supper Club, mere days before the world went into quarantine in March 2020.
A Che Underground exclusive: San Diego legends The Nephews revisit four decades of music ahead of their Feb. 18 appearance at The Casbah San Diego for A Che Underground Midwinter Masque. Book your tickets early and often!
The Nephews began as a comedy act in middle school around 1980. The original name was Ceilings and Floors, but we changed it to The Nephews (which has the same amount of meaning as “Ceilings and Floors”) around 7th grade.
We were very heavily into music, started playing as a rock band in high school, and were able to start playing club shows fairly quickly. Actually, our very first show outside of inland North County where we grew up was at the Che Cafe in 1984. We supported Manual Scan at Club Zu pretty early on.
Eric Cullen (Nephews keyboardist, 1989): “The first memory I have of The Nephews is of them playing during lunchtime at Poway High School. The
thing that immediately hit me about their music was how sophisticated their sound was, considering this was high school and all. Their harmonic language was dense, their chord progressions rather abstract, the lyrics obtuse. The Nephews’ music seemed advanced and not really belonging to the time, which was 1984 or ‘85. They were mining their own sound, and to this 17-year-old it sounded great. They had an air of ’60s psychedelia but were in touch with current underground bands like R.E.M., Minutemen and Pere Ubu. They also had a slight Zappa/Beefheart side about them, as well.”
A fabulous gift arrived just arrived for Che Underground: The Blog, and ultimately the San Diego Punk Archive!
Skeleton Club founder Laura Devlin (née Fraser) sent along a trove of photos, flyers, ‘zines and other ephemera of the San Diego punk scene in the late ’70s.
Her contribution comprises many posts’ worth of seminal rock-‘n’-roll history. Today, we’ll start with Laura’s own account of the rise and fall of the Skeleton Club (which operated from 1978 to 1980 at 202 Market St., then 921 Fourth Ave.). Her tale illustrates the resistance, corruption and downright brutality San Diego music pioneers faced from the authorities at the turn of the ’80s.
Were you there for the Skeleton Club’s last night — or at the subsequent trial? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Laura Devlin writes: A little bit of my personal history: In 1977, I was a nursing student at San Diego State, living with my boyfriend Greg Willis, bass player for the beloved Glory band. Greg was a wonderful man and helped me with the Skeleton Club, along with many other people.
In the mostly male redoubt of San Diego punk bands in the ’70s, The Dinettes were double-X pioneers when they formed in 1978 (originally under the name The Cockpits). Before they disbanded in 1980, The Dinettes appeared at local venues and even undertook two cross-country tours (the latter leading to their dissolution in Atlanta).
A 2017 reunion re-energized the band and the brand — and now a couple of videos offer new documentary evidence of The Dinettes at the turn of the ’80s.
Keyboardist Sue Delguidice reports, “I was fortunate to locate the Target Video film after years of searching, as I remember the video crew being there at the Deaf Club.”
Those of us who came up in the San Diego scene at the turn of the ’80s were privileged to witness Tim Mays’ emergence as a promoter and club owner. Over the ensuing decades, it’s hard to think of anyone who’s done more to keep San Diego on the musical map.
To reboot our Then and Now feature, Tim has provided Che Underground: The Blog with an exclusive history of his career — and his insights about the future of live music in San Diego as we all contend with the challenges of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
From there to here
I put on my first show in Barstow, the town I grew up in, in 1979. It featured a hard rock band from Orange County and a friend’s band from Barstow — smashing success.
After that, a friend and I decided to put on a show in East Hollywood at Baces Hall, which, unbeknownst to us, had been the site of a show a couple years earlier that ended in a riot. This show was Weirdos, the Plugz, Suburban Lawns, and San Diego’s Penetrators.
We turned away people at the door, and the next thing I know, I’m getting a call from Laura Fraser asking if I would be interested in becoming her partner in the Skeleton Club. This was early 1980. I gave her a check for $1,000 and became her partner. This was the second incarnation of the Skeleton Club and was located at the corner of Market Street and 2nd Ave, two blocks from the police station at the time. We got hassled constantly by SDPD and had to close down in May 1980 over permit issues.
San Diego music legend and former Penetrators front man Gary Heffern has met with misadventure, and he needs our financial help to set things straight.
Heffern, now living in Finland, in May suffered a burst appendix that forced him to cancel a July Penetrators reunion in San Diego and postponed his work on a new CD, not to mention his day job. With bills coming due, Gary is reaching out to his network for support.
Here are a couple of opportunities to help this San Diego legend in his hour of need:
(After collecting a lifetime achievement award at last week’s San Diego Music Awards, the Penetrators performed Saturday at the Casbah Club, supported by fellow music veterans the Bedbreakers and Manual Scan. Che Underground: The Blog presents accounts of the evening by Sean McMullen, Gary Heffern and Kevin Donaker-Ring as well as a luminous selection of photos by Mr. McMullen.)
It was a full moon, I remember, and I was already sweating and thirsty after walking down from Banker’s Hill to the club, but couldn’t seem to get past the patio to the bar for a bubbly cold Tecate due to the onslaught of embracing and handshakes and stories that followed. Every one of these nights serves to reinforce the depth of this bizarre alter-family I have collected since I was a wild-eyed runt getting dropped off at Golden Hall for a Penetrators show, amongst others, full circle.
Indeed there are few things in my life as gratifying as seeing people who used to revolt and butt heads like rams getting along with so much love and joy and pride. And the sheer fact that we remain so devoted to our music, to this town and each other, speaks volumes of the magnitude of our youth, and how we carry it forward incessantly with age.
Read moreThe Penetrators, the Bedbreakers
and Manual Scan at the Casbah
Thanks to documentarian Eric Rife, those of us far from Southern California can enjoy video of the Penetrators performing at the 2011 San Diego Music Awards at Humphrey’s by the Bay August 8, when the band received a lifetime achievement award for its contributions to local music. (Vocalist Gary Heffern in June shared his thoughts on the honor with Che Underground: The Blog.)
If these performances of “Walk the Beat” and “Sensitive Boy” put you in the mood for more stimulation, don’t forget: The Penetrators will hold another reunion performance at the Casbah August 13!
August 2011 is a momentous month for San Diego hometown heroes the Penetrators, when lead singer Gary Heffern returns from Finland in time for the band to receive a recognition for lifetime achievement at the 2011 San Diego Music Awards August 8! The event will also occasion another Penetrators reunion performance at the Casbah August 13.
“As a child, I was told, ‘You will never amount to anything,’ ” Heff recalls. “Still that voice in the back of my head repeats that over and over again. It’s a mantra I fight against on a daily basis.
“When I first heard the Ramones’ ‘Beat on the Brat,’ the New York Dolls’ ‘Trash’ and the Sex Pistols’ ‘No Future,’ they weren’t just words but anthems to me, something that was personal, and all mine … People who understood those songs and what they meant to me became instant friends … It was us against the world …
Read moreThe Penetrators in August:
SDMA lifetime kudos, Casbah gig
(The Cardiac Kidz’s Jim Ryan recounts his band’s recent performance to support Gary Heffern’s return to San Diego, including new collaborators and material.)
After a Penetrators reunion show the Sunday before, Gary Heffern appeared once again at the Casbah for his CD release show to debut “Gary Heffern & Beautiful People” and his San Diego all-star band “Blood on Fire.” Those of us who came prepared were able to take not only the show home but the CD from this consummate artist, now living in Finland.
Sean McMullen’s words and images from the Penetrators reunion!
Here I am over 30 years later, remembering my last performance with Gary when the Penetrators, the Cardiac Kidz and the Standbys played the Spirit night club in 1980.
After getting the call from Gary that he would like the Cardiac Kidz to open the show, I was on the move. The boys digging the opportunity and me looking forward to seeing Gary again, I knew this show had to be special. Gary is a special guy.