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.
(Bart Mendoza invites you out for an evening of free music to celebrate the debut of “String Theory.”)
On Friday, Dec. 30, Wendy Bailey & True Stories will celebrate the release of their new album, “String Theory,” with an event at Bar Pink, 3829 30th St., in San Diego’s North Park.
For this special show, the band will perform two sets. In the first, the quartet will play the new album in its entirety, plus a few old favorites. In the second, Wendy Bailey & True Stories will be joined by special guest musicians for a run through of a dozen choice R&B and rock-‘n’-roll classics — a different guest for each song.
“String Theory” is the debut album from Wendy Bailey & True Stories, featuring lead guitarist and vocalist Wendy Bailey; bassist Billy Fritz; guitarist Bart Mendoza (Manual Scan, the Shambles et al.); and drummer Danny Cress (the Coyote Problem, Skid Roper and more).
Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of the Che Underground blogging adventure has been the opportunity not only to revive longstanding friendships but to revisit old acquaintances and find new kinship there.
Case in point: Ray Brandes, the vastly talented veteran of the Hedgehogs, the Mystery Machine, the Tell-Tale Hearts, the Town Criers, the Shambles and a variety of superb solo projects, who celebrates another solar orbit today.
Thanks to my day job, I’m currently on a whirlwind tour of bookstores across the country: from New York to points south, through Texas, up California and ending up in Chicago. I’m riding trains, I’m taking planes, I’m doing interviews and grabbing naps where I can find them. The next week or so should be a blur (and I’m hoping to see many of you along the route)!
But it also reminds me that I never actually had the stress and pleasure of touring with a band (besides a few forays to Los Angeles and of course our recent San Diego reunions). It’s a dynamic that’s always fascinated me: how creative types function move in a group from town to town and get up in front of a new audience each night.
(Bart Mendoza offers an appreciation of this San Diego bass phenom.)
Although I had seen the Crawdaddys numerous times by that point and had probably even been at some of the same parties, I was first introduced to Mark Zadarnowski (a k a Mark Z.) by Carl Rusk. Mark was living behind the Kings Road Café at the time and while I’m sure he was less than thrilled to have his house invaded just prior to a show, it was cool formally to meet a member of one of my favorite bands.
One of the bedrocks of the San Diego music scene, the roll call of bands Mark’s recorded with would rank him as a music legend, even if he had stopped after the first one.
A founding member of the Crawdaddys, he can be heard on the legendary 1979 Crawdaddy Express LP, as well as the 5X4 EP and “There She Goes Again” 45. He’s not on another release for a few years, but when he next pops up, once again, it’s on a winner: the short-lived Mystery Machine’s “She’s Not Mine.” Included on the seminal 1983 compilation, Battle of The Garages Vol. 3, the tune has appeared on several other compilations since.
(Bart Mendoza describes the arc of an important San Diego music festival he co-founded.)
Helmed by myself and, at first, Ron Friedman, and later Matt Fidelibus (with huge help from Secret Society Scooter Club, Dimitri Callian and many others), there were seven New Sounds Festivals in all, always one big blowout event surrounded by a week of gigs by the touring acts.
I had been bringing groups to town for awhile anyway, so the idea of focusing efforts appealed; the chance to do these events as a benefit for SDSU’s student-run radio station, KCR, was even better. The motive for the New Sounds Festivals was simply to promote and showcase music influenced by Mod / ’60s/ Garage, in particular local groups like the Tell-Tale Hearts, the Nashville Ramblers, Donkey Show, the Trebels and the Event. With short sets and a backline, it was like a really, really cool jukebox.
There’s “friends” and then there’s friends. Although the specifics of how Kevin and I met have been muddied by time, I’m now thinking it was early 1976, at a La Jolla Shores beach party.
My memory stems from the fact that I had wanted Kevin to go to Wings with me and that was June (rescheduled from May) 1976. He already had a guitar and amp and was taking lessons, but a lot of the connection was over a shared love of music, starting with The Beatles and later Cheap Trick, The Zombies and many others. Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” was always a particular favorite. He didn’t make it to Wings, but we did manage to catch Queen with Thin Lizzy soon after.
From almost the moment we began hanging out, we talked about starting a band.
And we did.
(Bart Mendoza of Manual Scan and the Shambles contributes a selection of flyers from his capacious archives.)
1. One of my infamous paste-&-cut flyers, this one for Julie at 2581, when I helped promote a batch of shows in 1983 1988 — you can probably tell the numbers are from an old calendar.
I collected photos, and friends gave me old magazines to cannibalize into quick flyers, though this one is from my collection of vintage TV-show stills. That’s a pretty diverse calendar, from the Event to Claude Coma, with stops at the Nephews; Outriders (with Rick Wilkins); and Berkeley combo the Birminghams; as well as lots of others.
(A quick Che Underground public-service announcement: Manual Scan/Shambles guitarist Kevin Donaker-Ring files an update on a very rewarding career and issues a call to action for a worthy cause.)
What I have been doing, lo, these many years: high school student exchange. In late 1982, I got a job running the copy machine and performing odd jobs at a high school exchange program located in La Jolla, Calif. I devoted almost my entire adult life to that organization, learning most everything there is to know about student exchange at the high-school level. Yet after 21 years, everyone at our head office was suddenly out. The Board of Directors had decided to move operations to one of the satellite offices. In Arkansas.
After a day or so of panic, I realized that I had the opportunity to start my own program and founded AFICE, the Academic Foundation for International Cultural Exchange, in December 2003. We are a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization. (Yes, donations are tax-deductible, so if you’re feeling generous, please think of us.) We operate all across the country, with local representatives from California to Maine, from Washington to Florida, and we even added a rep in Alaska recently.
Right now (and always, it seems), we are in serious need of host families. Our deadline (imposed by the US Department of State) is almost here and two of our families backed out at the last minute. Two kids from Poland, a girl and a boy, are suddenly without a place to stay.
Ray Brandes hardly needs a where-are-we-now introduction, considering the critical and popular acclaim his music has garnered over the years. But in the spirit of bringing our creative efforts into the 21st century, Ray has generously agreed to let me post a catchy and touching track from 2007’s smashing greatest-hits album, “A Matter of Time.”
“‘Welcome to the World’ was written after the birth of our son, and recorded a year or so later, in 2005,” Ray writes. “I wanted to write a song like “Kooks” from “Hunky Dory” that he could listen to when he got older. I stole some of the lyrics from William Blake’s ‘Auguries of Innocence’ and ‘Infant Sorrow.’ “