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.
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 photographer Sean McMullen is a true friend of Che Underground: The Blog and of most of the participants featured here. He’s also a friend to anyone who cares about preserving gorgeous images of the town’s most exciting gigs.
Sean McMullen, Dave Doyle talk photography
I’m very grateful to him for his latest contribution: this wonderful set of photos from our recent showcase at the Casbah, which ran Sept. 2 and 3 and featured the 30-year San Diego reunions of the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns, supported by a galaxy of local stars.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks for video and audio from Labor Day Weekend 2011!
Here are the acts, in chronological order:
Read moreCrawdaddys/Unknowns Labor Day
showcase from the McMullen Collection
It may be a new band on the block, but the Sidewalk Scene represents a veritable Murderer’s Row of San Diego musical talent. (Don’t miss your chance to see the band open for the Unknowns along with the Comeuppance on Sept. 3 at the Casbah — Day Two of a Labor Day weekend blowout that also features an evening comprising the Crawdaddys, the Amandas and the Baja Bugs.)
Buy your tickets now for the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns at San Diego’s Casbah, Sept. 2-3!
This video clip (accompanied by photos shot by Unknowns bassist Dave Doyle) portrays the Sidewalk Scene tearing into Paul Simon’s “Richard Cory” at Lestat’s July 30, when they headlined “Che Underground present Sounds of the Sunset Strip.” A great band with hundreds of years of San Diego history among them, delivering with the passion we’ve come to expect from these consummate musicians!
(To celebrate Labor Day weekend’s 30-year reunions of the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns at San Diego’s Casbah, longtime graphic artist and Che Underground blog contributor Kristen Tobiason has prepared a striking pair of flyers to feature each night’s lineup. Here’s the story behind the art and a glimpse of the sociology of music flyering.)
It seems like yesterday I was drawing a flyer for the Wallflowers’ first gig with a black Sharpie.
Twenty years later, here I am putting together a poster for the Unknowns, while listening to one of their songs on YouTube.
I still sketch my preliminary ideas on paper, but my medium has evolved, becoming less primitive and infinitely more digitized.
Buy your tickets now for the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns at San Diego’s Casbah, Sept. 2-3!
Some girls love shoes, I love color and typography. I was never patient enough to learn guitar, but drawing came naturally. I loved record albums as a kid, and some of my earliest memories are of studying the covers from my dad’s collection. As a teenager in the San Diego music scene, flyering was a way that I could contribute to the music without having to actually be in a band. When I was 16 I got my first box of rapidograph inking pens, which I had seen Jerry Cornelius use for his illustrations. Jerry’s art was intimidating, but inspiring too. I learned by emulating his style, and used to sit and copy Tennielle’s drawings from “Alice in Wonderland,” or the covers of H.P. Lovecraft, to learn how to do the crosshatching/shading.
Read moreCrawdaddys/Unknowns reunion flyers
from Kristen Tobiason
(From across the Atlantic, here’s a graphical gift to celebrate the 30-year San Diego reunions of the Unknowns and the Crawdaddys. Ray Brandes sets the scene.)
This beautiful poster is a gift from artist Marc Argenter to the Che Underground. Marc, who lives in Barcelona, Spain, is also an accomplished musician and has played guitar and recorded with bands such as the Flashback Five and Els Trons for more than 20 years.
Marc jumped at the chance to design a poster for a show featuring the Crawdaddys, whom he first heard at the tender age of 16. He is well known in Spain as a graphic designer, and has an impressive portfolio of work, some of which can be seen here: http://argenter.blogspot.com/
(Last chance to see: Ray Brandes reviews why this San Diego reunion of the band’s classic lineup is a very big deal indeed.)
Labor Day Weekend is approaching fast, and tickets are selling briskly for the Che Underground’s long-awaited showcase featuring historic reunions by San Diego hometown heroes the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns.
The Crawdaddys have received some recent critical acclaim in both the domestic and international press for their shows in Los Angeles, Toledo and Madrid, while interest in the Unknowns reunion is heating up quickly.
The Unknowns’ reunion will mark the first time Bruce Joyner has sung with the group in 21 years, and the first time all the members of the group’s classic lineup have played together in nearly three decades! I spoke to the members of the band about the historical significance of the show and what it means to them personally.
What could be hotter than the triumphant return after 30 years of two famed San Diego bands? The tickets to the event, which just went on sale on the Casbah Web site!
Here are those details again of this can’t-miss event:
Read moreCrawdaddys/Unknowns Labor Day gigs:
Buy your tickets now!
Where were you 30 years ago? If you were hanging with San Diego’s cool kids, chances are a gig featuring the Crawdaddys and/or the Unknowns was on your social calendar. And since a few decades hardly matter among friends, Che Underground: The Blog is proud to present a Labor Day weekend featuring both these legendary bands at San Diego’s Casbah!
Here are the deets:
What, when: Che Underground presents the Crawdaddys (Friday, Sept. 2) and the Unknowns (Saturday, Sept. 3)
Where: The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd. San Diego, CA 92101
How much: $20 per night, $35 for a two-night package (on sale soon via the Casbah site)
Here’s what’s cooking with our headliners:
Good news for fans of San Diego music in particular and local music scenes in general: Eric Rife’s epic film project “Garageland” is approaching release in 2012, and Eric has posted a short preview of the film on YouTube.
Readers of Che Underground: The Blog as well as veterans of San Diego music are familiar with Eric’s work as a photographer and videographer. Indeed, his years of work pulling together archival and current footage for “Garageland” was an inspiration for me to start this blog in the first place.