Hey! Let’s talk about music, and San Diego, and San Diego music …
A long, long time ago, Che Underground: The Blog hosted a thread about our musicians’ first times on stage. Let’s reach even further back into the collective memory banks and talk a bit about those formative shows that made you feel like part of a scene of interesting people listening to interesting sounds.
We’ve talked about many local bands and a slew of notable visitors at venues ranging from the Skeleton Club to the Zebra Club to the International Blend/Kings Road Cafe … Adams Ave. Theater to the North Park Lions Club et al.
Now, which ones came first for you, and why?
The London Tavern shows Summer 1981 blew my little mind…
First (?) gig as Manual Scan in a groovy downtown Victorian building that was decorated like an English pub, serving Watneys and kidney pie, playing to a packed room of dancing mods ’till the walls ran with sweat and the windows steamed up. We opened for The Roosters and I still have my recording of the Manual Scan set. Other shows that Summer at the ‘Tavern included the then 5-piece Answers (still called The Physical Jerks) in our first club performance. Altho I’ve always had an issue with any club that would have me as a member that definitely made me feel part of a scene.
Was that a Control opener as well, or did you guys play there every week?
Nice photo, Dave. I still have that guitar, but the neck is jacked up. Not repairable without lots of expensive work, sez Fred. (For those of you guitarists and bassists who do not know Fred, hie thee to The Repair Zone in Kearny Mesa for some of the best luthiery on the west coast.)
Those gigs (we either played two weeks in a row or there was an open week in-between, and the Chula Vista Lion’s Club somehow fit in around that time, too — another story in that) were definitely important turning points for me. Was one of them on July 4? I remember having, for a very long time (though it’s now gone missing), the piece of cardboard or paper that you wrote your name and phone number on when we (Bart and I) first met you at a gig at . . . was it The New Wizard? We were in The Pedestrians then. But it wasn’t until those first Scan gigs that it all came together for me.
Ok, check this out. My first gig with Matthew at his Bat Mitsvah blew my mind, even though I’d been hanging out with him and his Beat poet Dad and avant Mom, bless their hearts, it went to the next level for my suburban young mind that day, I knew I could never pretend to fit the mold. Oblah Di oblah Da was one of our triumphs back then…
Control played with Manual Scan at the London Tavern at least once, and I recall a Control set also being outside in the courtyard (or was that at another venue?).
The Tavern Answers show (I was wrong earlier in the thread, we were no longer The Physical Jerks by then) had Manual Scan and The Roosters billed on the flyers, and at least one of those bands did not actually do the show, so there were some pissed-off mods who had to settle for an Answers set…rather belated apologies if I was part of any sort of false-advertising ploy..or merely engaged in incomplete planning communication…no $2 refunds at this late date however.
Manual Scan gigged with Control (was there a third band?) at the Chula Vista Lions Club too. I recorded Manual Scan and Control’s sets at that show btw at glorious 1-7/8 ips…more archive goodies.
Who is control?
Bat Mitzvah?! Matthew: ANything you want to tell us?
Ray--86, 99, the Chief, Hymie. They were Control. As opposed to KAOS, i.e. Siegfried and the gang.
I had a performance-art bar mitzvah, featuring appearances by most of the UCSD art department and other offbeat souls.
I learned my first Beatles songs from my pretty Hebrew teacher. I believe experimental composer Pauline Oliveros taught me to tune the guitar a few months later.
Kavika and I played “Obla-Di, Obla-Da” as well as a couple of parody numbers accusing our vice principal of cross-dressing. (Hey, it was junior high.)
The event also featured the debut of pioneering klezmer revivalists The Big Jewish Band, which at this outing included the late Jef Raskin, who would go on to create and name the Macintosh computer.
The Big Jewish Band….GENIUS! Did you have to be big to be in it, like over 6 feet or over 250 pounds? That would be a great side-show at the Casbah this weekend.
I kept coming back for the cute boys.
megan, amen. there was no shortage of those, was there?
I was a total hormone.
or girls. 🙂
Hey Ray, Chanel here. Control was an early Chula band, c 1979. It started as myself, Bret Webb (later of Six-Legged Beast and Screaming Silence), later-Men Of Clay drummer Keith Richardson, and…wait for it…Bart Mendoza.
i think Bart lasted to a second practice before he returned to the confines of 1966.
I can’t believe there is a tape recording of the CV Lions Club gig (did I hear that right?)
The other band to play that night was The Puppies.
Like most young men of 15 I had a huge crush on the drummer Irene. She eventually found out.
Hi Kevin, great to hear the backround story on Control, I really dug your band!
And yes I did record your set at the CV Lions Club gig, I need to get the tape baked as it is one of those faulty-formulation Ampex 80’s reels that will shed oxide all over the heads if it isn’t heated in a convection oven first at a specific temp and time. I believe I did try to make a transfer of it some years back with limited success (will try to find that DAT), need to do it right however to save what’s still on the tape. I’d be thrilled to get you a copy of that after all these years! That was a great show.
The Puppies…of course. I do remember they had a song about dog food…or was it cat food?
The Puppies songs was “Cat Food, not fit for a dog…” I’ve been in contact with Dane Conover a bit in recent years, he has worked with Mark DeCerbo on various releases. As for the much missed Control, I definitely played at least one gig, though I can’t remember much beyond that -- the ticket for the CVLC show can be found at http://www.theshambles.net/posters__flyers1.htm --
just scroll down and check the left hand side, all the bands on the bill are on it.
the gig that hooked me way back when was when i got a ride with john dollard and jeff thomas to the savage republic / community fk gig at the backdoor theater around 82 or so?. I think I went to every punk show I could after that for many years. Funny thing looking at these posts, I was friends with the guys from the Front (Hey Kevin , send my chin music shirt) way back then and went to all of their gigs and my band played on the bill with them a couple times, and then all these years later, i’ve seen some of bart m’s bands (of which they are many) and shared the bill with Bart at the Leucadian bar in Encinitas with the band i’ve been playing with the last 10 years.
what a long strange trip its been
billy
Dane Conover…he produced an album called ‘Trees’, right? I remember really enjoying that LP’s synth-pop landscapes. Wonder if I still have that amongst the platters of vinyl..
Hey Kevin, Didn’t Control play a song or two at a talent show at the CVHS SCPA Theatre in the very early 80s?? I have a memory of something like that….