Here’s a conversation-starter, or -killer: Most music historians would agree that the Che Underground era came to an end when a substantial percentage of its key participants decamped to San Francisco. Beginning in 1985 with the departures of Jerry Cornelius, Dave Fleminger and the Morlocks, a steady stream of San Diego expats made its way up to the Bay area through the 1990s.
I joined the throng in August 1987, met my wife and had two kids there, and stayed almost 14 years in San Francisco. It’s still my favorite American city; I had two great bands there, of which the majority of the members were beloved old friends from Slow Death; and I never once regretted the move.
And yet … the sense of a music scene just never happened for me in SF the way it did in SD.
Was it our age? Was it the era? A shared sense of adversity that San Francisco lacked? I’m still not sure why the big bang I’d expected didn’t happen when we poured all that San Diego talent into an exciting new container.
Am I just a bitter old malcontent? Do any other riders on the SD-SF underground railroad have thoughts on this phenomenon, pro or con?
Matthew, we were talking about this a little when we met up. I think that a small city like San Diego was just really the perfect type of place for a music scene… and I didn’t realize how much until I’d lived in L.A. for a few years. It was big enough that you had enough like-minded creative kids from different parts of the city coming together to start bands and play shows together…but small enough for musicians and bands to have a sense of community. Also, the city is set up in a way that makes it easy and fast to get around with equipment, and had plenty of cheap space for practicing and putting on shows. It’s not surprising to me that there were vital music scenes in places like Athens, Georgia and Seattle since they have a similar scale to S.D.
I once read someone answering the question “How come there are so many garage bands from Southern CA?” …his answer was, “Because there are so many garages!” I think it’s true.
I think you hit a few nails with that post, Dave!
It did seem kind of poignant that I spent years in SD dreaming of juxtaposing all this creative ferment against a cool urban environment like SF, only to find that the urgency sort of … dissipated … once I’d made it up there.
In fairness, I do think the late ’80s through the ’90s comprised a rather spartan period for guitar bands in the Bay area. Younger folks who work for me in NY now say they can get gigs like we used to back in SD: by simply calling a club or dropping off a rough demo. When I was trying to get booked in San Francisco, a lot of the clubs had switched to DJs and lounge kinda stuff, and the handful that were booking bands made you jump through hoops (arms full of expensive PR materials and slick studio demos). Bottom line, I ended up playing way, way too many Tuesday nights to empty clubs paired up with faceless Dave Matthews wannabes!
(Or maybe I just sucked! LOL)
We’ve got a few Che Undergrounders playing out in San Francisco nowadays. I have a sense that performance opportunities gained a bit of steam since I left in ’01 … Yes? No?
I would answer “no” to your question, compared to the 1990s. I moved to the Bay Area in ’92 and then we had far more clubs with good bands playing (Purple Onion, Kilowatt, Ivy Room, Paradise Lounge) and plenty of talented bands. It sort of reached a peak for me in the late 90s when there were good rockabilly shows almost every night of the week and lots of good DJ nights with 60s music (In ‘n Out). By 2000 and for a few years we still had the Ivy Room, Bottom of the Hill, and Thee Parkside (that club had an amazing heyday for about 3 years). But now the Ivy Room is no more (as a live music venue). There are occasional good shows at the Bottom of the Hill, the Hemlock, and the Stork Club in Oakland but that’s about it. I wasn’t here in the 80s so I can’t compare that era to the 90s, but for me the 90s were much better for live music in the Bay Area than recent years.
Thanks for the reality check, Dean!
This really is an open-ended question, and I don’t want to lay my own lack of connection to a music scene in SF on the city’s doorstep, ring the bell and run away. 🙂
By the time I got around to forming bands up there, I was already married, home-owning and makin’ babies. It was a very different time in my life from college, especially when it comes to that all-important hanging-out factor that was so crucial to Che Underground and other SD circles I participated in.
Sergio Castillo, aka Little Sergio, tells me there is an affinity between Portland and Bay Area rock bands. He was aware of the Stork Club and wanted to check it out on his way through. In the last year I’ve seen a few good shows at the Starry Plough in Berkeley. I saw Isabella, a funky jam band, play with Brasshopper, a brass cover band. I’ve seen Mushroom, psychedelic jazz, play with the ubiquitous Bart Davenport doing his solo act.
So there’s stuff going on at the local level, but if there’s a scene I probably wouldn’t know about it.
I can’t believe I forgot to mention Annie’s Social Club (the old Covered Wagon). It’s a great venue for live music with a good variety of bands from the Bay Area and from elsewhere. I guess they have been going for about 2 years now.
Matthew, I used to really enjoy your gigs in SF…even if they were more often than not on Tuesdays! The HoHo’s and The Amazons were awesome bands with loads of personality and truly great songs….. the town was just a bigger shuffle to get lost in. So instead of a handful of familiar places to play, you could factor in the randomness of the loud floor-to-ceiling window environment in the Brainwash, the ludicrous downstairs load-in at The Purple Onion, various rivalries within clubs on the same block, the millions of happenings happening on any given night…endless et cetera.
The ‘exodus’ period was a confusing period of attitude adjustment, the sense of adventure and unknown was nearly enough to overcome misgivings over leaving the hometown, friends and family…and I was blown away by the amount of live music in SF…and places like Barrington Hall and other institutions that never woulda flown in San Diego!! But because SD had so many limitations in the early 80’s regarding live music (especially for underage audiences), and the sense that your musical rug could get pulled out from under you at any moment, that might have contributed to a more profound sense of community
— but I know what you mean, as I too saw the scene..and in San Fran it wasn’t the Same…for good and not-as-good.
Upon entering San Francisco impermanence wasn’t an issue anymore, it wasn’t a scene I had grown up with and neither did it feel tenuous…more like a big stream of continuum as there were and are a TON of great bands in the Bay Area and in spite of many many venues there will always be more bands than places to play — except now there’s online-land where all a band needs is bandwidth..
“Exciting new container”…heh…and it was a great new shiny bin with a flip-out lid, however the Big Bang had banged, er, happened, and we were (and are) part of the expanding universe.
This is a difficult thread…and it’s all too tempting within this context to simply spin it into a microcosmic yarn centered on that provocative flyer pictured above…I can still see it on the fridge in that incredibly crowded apartment in The Haight…The Farm was a livestock auction hall, right?
I think what Matthew refers to as “a shared sense of adversity” is a big key to the puzzle. Can’t fault SF for having too many possibilities, but it can lead to what a friend of mine refers to as “option anxiety”…
I think “shared” may be the crux of my question … And SF may be a red herring, if not a Purple Onion!
Simply put, the Che Underground era was the one time in my life when I could readily look to a set of other bands as “my scene” — and that even includes later excursions in SD with 3 Guys Called Jesus, where we actually played larger venues but the connective tissue with the other local acts was not so strong.
SF certainly had estimable bands, but I never forged any special alliances with any of ’em. And that could have much, much more to do with my domesticated state than with the Golden Gate. 🙂
Does anyone remember the Beat Nazis?
Sorry, that’s the Peace Nazis.
Paul: Of course! Kenneth Laddish and Kyle Chan were among my first roommates (with Mr. Fleminger) when I arrived in San Francisco. Amazing people!
I sublet a room from Dave F. for a short time with them. That was the second place I lived in S.F. after a rather grim hostel in the Tenderloin. I’m remembering with laughter the Nazi uniforms they made that had the peace symbol on the arm band instead of the swastika. That was over the top.
Parsons House was an incredible spot to end up! I loved that apartment … We all got free kittens, plus actual Nazi skinheads in the breakfast nook.
Look who I found! DJ Blackstone.
or his Nomme de Vie, Bart Cheever. Looks like he’s been busy, too!
He was Werner Cooke’s buddy in the North Park Lyons Club and Fairmont Carpenter’s Hall days. He was also involved in some harebrained scheme to impose a party at Monica Sullivan’s house, while her parents were out of town. 🙂
In response to the original thread: Oddly enough although my family in the US are largely from Oakland (and later my dad and his sister spawned a small tribe of nuts like myself in San Diego and Long Beach.) Even so I never got to spend as much time in SF as I would have liked to (my family there became fragmented and moved to the various suburbs, and I really didn’t have a lot in common with them so I ventured to the bay area at 16 on my own, unconnected, a fondly remembered hunter-gatherer punk foray.) I was in SF in 82 for a time though, and at that time (in the short time I was there) there were shows pretty much every night- some big and national and some small and local- and there were a lot of parties and there was a really active network of punks. But all in all I think it reminded me a lot of L.A. and San Diego- very similar- which shouldn’t be surprising, given the time and place.
From 81-late 82 and even into 83, I really didn’t think San Diego was that much different from SF. Of course I bailed San Diego for North County in late 82, and only ventured back down to SD for select shows for several years, ultimately leaving the entire place behind me in 89.
I all of the time run across kids online complaining about the cops and the fire marshal shutting down their illegal, under 21 venues with a venomous and righteous indignance, and I just have to laugh. There really is nothing new under the sun.
And yeah- while of course I don’t wish for any of them to be harmed in some substandard venue in a fire or whatever, I would really like to see what the kids could do today, with the internet and other cool modern stuff, (fantasy here) unbridled by the ridiculous constraints our society forces on small venues trying to do the non-profit thing.
Toby: There were some pretty fun warehouse parties I remember from early in my tenure in San Francisco. The invasion of SF’s SoMA neighborhood by tech money really cracked down on the rock ‘n’ roll events, clandestine or otherwise.
I was up in SF on a mini-tour and took a nap in Golden Gate Park. Murmurs of music over the hill and I decided to investigate only to almost collide with David F. and many of the Morlocks crew after, apparently a performance on th polo fields. David, as startled as I was, handed me his pass and I walked backstage to hang with the likes of Paul Kantner and Jack Cassady etc. Strange moment that I will always remember. Bought a Morlocks record (New Rose release) while in France a few years later and regret losing track of it. Great to see this blog!
B
I really think that a great deal of the difference between SD and SF has to do with the logistics. Here is SD people have garages, and, we used to play in those garages until the police came etc. People have cars … you know it isn’t as easy in the city. You have to rent space. Believe me I was the guy that got The Morlocks to gigs with all the stuff …
The Morlocks move to SF … well Jeff our bassist ran off with our guitarist Tommy’s girlfriend Kristin to SF. Hmmmm … We were fairly committed to the group. I mean as much as this may have broken up another band. At first I was pretty pissed off. Having just recorded with The Gravedigger V, and, then leaving because Leighton wanted to quit and start The Morlocks, and, having just recorded Emerge, and, spent my hard earned money paying to have the graphics work done etc. Jeff left his bass at my mom’s house. He wanted it back, so I smashed it into pieces big enough to fit in a shoe box and mailed it to him. The Morlocks were tight musically. We kicked ass. At least I thought so. There was something there, and, being young and strung out we all decided to move to SF. So I rented an old piece of crap station wagon from some beer bellied hillbilly’s front yard and packed the whole band in. We had no place to stay. We stayed in some girls garage out in the Sunset and would surface when her roommates went off to work. Where we met Paul Renna, and, the rest is of course History, or trivia.
I just discovered this site through the mention in Wired. I was intrigued by this thread on the SD bands that moved to SF. I was in a band called Some Philharmonic that formed in 1980 for a gig at the Che Cafe. We played and attended the usual clubs in SD for the next few years, while going to school at UCSD. When we graduated, the founding members moved to the SF Bay Area as well. For us, it was 1983, but I find it fascinating that this was true for many of the bands.
Will see if I can find some flyers and such from the SD days. I know we played the Zebra Club a ton, and the Spirit Club some. The Skeleton Club also sounds familiar, but I am not certain that we played there.
Tom: I remember Some Philharmonic! You guys were cool — I liked the unusual instrumentation.
Do you recall Guy Goode and the Decentones? They were an interesting SD band that featured a tuba and won a small but enthusiastic following.
I definitely remember Guy Goode and the Decentones. We were big fans of theirs. Coincidentally, I worked with Wiley Evans (tuba for Guy Goode) a few years ago and am in loose contact with him still.
Perhaps you might also remember Solid State, another SD band. Their sax player, Ed Summerfield, later joined Some Phil up in SF. He and I are back in touch after many years and are actually recording tonight. We are reworking a song we recorded back in 1984 for his band, Secret Sons of the Pope. Once we finish that, we plan to start work on some new material.
One of the other bands in SD that we hung out with were Some Ambulants. Lead singer, Carmen Borgia also recorded with Some Phil in SD and was a member of Secret Sons in SF. Their drummer, Dave Blackburn, also played with Some Phil.
Some Phil completed an LP before moving to SF, which has recently been prepped for CD. Hopefully, it will be available before the end of the year at somephil.com. There is a brief history of the band at:
http://somephil.com/artists/phil.html
Thanks to all of you who were involved in starting this site.
Guy Goode.
As under-appreciated as The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, or Captain Beefheart.
Tom Rettig: Please extend a warm welcome to your extended musical circle … We need more horns! 🙂
I was among those who migrated to San Francisco.
In the beginning, I left San Diego for Baltimore and Washington DC. It was a bit of a culture shock at the time, because not only, as a young guy, was I moving to the East, but I was now among the non-punk civilian population, out of an insane and extreme punk subculture that I have become comfortable and accustomed.
I later, almost arbitrarily, moved to San Francisco, where I was surprised to eventually reunite with a lot of punks and old neighborhood friends.
I eventually changed my focus from punk music to old books, where I became a kind of coffeehouse bibliophile. At the time, a Post-Punk scene began to develop. A lot of people began to read James Joyce and Continental European Philosophy.
I arrived around 1985 and left about eleven years later. I love that city, but I eventually became frustrated by the expense and the austerity that the city demands.
David H
My girlfriend Lori and I moved up to SF on January first of 1985 (I think) and stayed with Jerry in an old house on Central (I think) for about a month. I remember going down on Divisidaro to get free Guiness with Jerry at a bar where he was friends with the bartender.
The Sea Hags were the best thing going in SF at the time, and it seemed like the music scene would take off. But it never did. Everybody knows SF is built on an ancient Indian burial ground and as such is cursed. I never had much money when I lived there no matter how many jobs I had. It’s a nice place to visit, but I squandered 12 years of my life there. Like SD, it was a good place to leave.
Cole: Hmmm … I arrived in SF a directionless mess and left 14 years later with a pretty great life. A lot of it was thanks to my wife and kids, a lot of it was simply growing up — but San Francisco gets some major credit in my karmic scorebook. 🙂
(If I were scoring my personal success on commercial traction in the music industry, though, SF was indeed a complete bust for me as well.)
Matthew: A “directionless mess” pretty much sums up my personal adventures in the Bay Area (’85 -- ’88).
I ran off from San Diego, heading northbound, on a Bonnie and Clyde worthy mission that was fun but against better judgement. My relationship with that city is much like its climate, cold and blustery, spinning wreckage, taking hostages. In the end I ran back down to San Diego to get healthy again. It’s only taken a couple of decades but I can say now that I radiate healthy living!
I have some pozitive memories among the ones that make me shudder -- Page street with Pat, Johnny, Buddy, Heiko and Todd. Sometimes Andy G. Dave West and Soquel. Sometimes a Morlock or two. Tommy of course. Heiko was a gem of a person I’d love to either catch up with or make amends to. I remember we’d all cluster together late afternoon to watch Star Trek on a small screen black and white tv. One morning we were drinking coffee, watching the news and saw the Challenger explode… It was one of those moments suspended in time.
Across the street there was a fabulous witch potion shop and Haight Street had such wonderful used book and clothing boutiques.
That house was a couple of blocks from Golden Gate park. Spent a lot of time there…wandering aimlessly…..thru the bat cave, past the spitting frog, over and under hippie hill is a field of lawn bowlers and a carossel with dragons…..
The path from SD to SF is pretty well worn as folks seem to have had the penchant to get out of the little pond.
I left SD in 85 and didn’t miss too much other than the mexican food but found that the music scene there wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. There were clubs that came and went, the Vis, I-Beam, Chatterbox, Covered Wagon, Hotel Utah the Farm, Zeitgeist etc. but these seemed to all slowly be closing and there really weren’t the bands and followings, other than the Sea Hags. I played in a few outfits, namely Housecoat Project and the The Scavengers, but it did seem like a lot more work to get things moving. Maybe I was getting older and had less fervor for it but practice space on Turk or in Hunters Point was a pain.
Like a lot of people who moved there, after about a year I found SF to be full of self-righteous wankers who were very very interested in themselves.
But this may be a colored view as I was on a ramen budget and that town was not cheap. I was on Fillmore and Fulton where there was projects 2 blocks away in 3 directions. Good and funky. Hector E? was on the other side on Webster and we were a crew of folks that went up from KCR at SDSU.
I worked at Last Gasp comics and lived the SF co-opted counter culture thing to the hilt but……..
After 5 or so years there I went to south east asia and never wanted to live in SF again.
It’s a great town to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there-just a little too precious for my taste.
Also in 86 or so Jerry Garcia went into a coma which sent me and my anit-hippie SF punk types into a gleeful fit as SF seemed to be full of Journey loving mulleted city-necks reading BAM. Really horrid.
But I loved going and getting the “How’s Jerry today” conversation going and then I could get my hate on. Good times.
I moved to San Francisco in Dec. of 1989 because I had no other place to go. My brother and good friend Justin had just moved there, they were working in Yosmite when a huge wild fire broke out and they had to grab there shit and go.
They thumed to the city and with whatever money they had got a flat on 22nd and Harrison in the Mission.
Sam called me and said come on up and sleep in our basement. It was ruff jobs were hard to find, lines down the street for a dishwashing job.
back then there just old shitty broken down cars everywere, boarded up building
and junkies, junkies junkies. I once saw a hooker beating on the window of a powder blue firebird on Capp St., her dead pimp inside, he was the same colouer as the car. That was the first O.D. death I had ever seen but not my last.
San Francisco was a working class town and outsiders paradise back then, not the yuppie play ground it is today.
That basement I slept in also was venue for bands. We would have partys and garage punk bands would play. The scene in the city then was fun everyone was welcome did not matter how you dressed just as long as you dug good fun crappy music. This has changed in the city also.
I love San francisco….. but it will never be the place I fell in love with ever again.
I left San Diego for Baltimore and Washington DC in 1985. I later migrated to San Francisco around late 1986.
It was great to leave San Diego for an urban environment. Back in those days, the USA had become very suburban. Nobody really wanted to live in the city. Cities had gone through a period of decay, but, by the mid-1980s, an urban renewal model had been successfully developed in Baltimore. Other cities imitated it through out the 1980s and 1990s.
So, you could go to Baltimore, Washington DC (among other places) and you could live in a cool historic building for a great price; you could go to great restaurants, coffeehouses, lounges, and nightclubs. The punk and post-punk style was everywhere and it took on a more bohemian feel. I was in heaven.
Eventually, word got out within the Yuppie crowd and cities across the country became ultra expensive, generic, crowded, hectic, and stressful: the magic disappeared. That is what it has become to the present day.
Eventually, the Yuppies would start their families, where they would bring the best of the cities, in a hyper generic form, back to the suburbs: Starbucks, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Williams Sonoma, Buca di Beppo, Barnes & Noble, Borders Books, Lifestyle Communities, etc.
In regard to San Francisco, as the city began to go through its commercial transformation, I underwent a real heartbreak. Leaving San Francisco was like going through an ugly divorce with someone you still love.
Dave Hobbs: The whole battle between new condo owners and established music clubs in SF’s SoMa district really epitomized the march of yuppification — a term Ted Friedman tells me is totally ’80s, but I don’t know a better one!
It is financially tough to be a U.S. city-dweller nowadays. I simply can’t understand how some of the youngsters I work with make ends meet.
I dunno, BOogie … I got a lot more out of San Francisco than I did San Diego — but I concede it had more than a little to do with what I was prepared to put in!
I used to be a lot more of a snob about location — actually, I used to be a lot more of a snob about a lot of stuff. (Although I never liked that quality in myself, it was always a danger growing up the cub of a literary lion). Now I honestly know better: There are interesting things to do and smart people to meet all over the place — definitely including San Diego. (Overall, I actually like Americans very much, our messy imperial strivings notwithstanding.)
But call me a rube: I still enjoyed every day of my 14 years in San Francisco. 🙂
BOogie: San Diego and San Francisco are so very different, but I hear what your saying.
People move to places like San Francisco from San Diego for romantic reasons, such as dreaming of being a beat poet(not me),not a surfer…. and it’s very nice to see what else is out there.
Yes white folks are wierd, so it’s nice to live in cities with neighborhoods that have a good mix of people so you don’t fill like your the crust of a loaf of wonder bread.
Perhaps San Francisco is a little overrated, but its appeal is obvious. San Francisco is the closest thing to a cosmopolitan city we have out west. There are many things to love about it. Among many other things it has got a long and glorious history, scores of beautiful buildings, and one doesn’t need a car to go to the laundromat. It has fewer stucco strip malls per square mile than either LA or San Diego. The major attraction for me, though, has always been its liberal attitude. Living in the midst of Camp Pendleton, MCRD, NTC and Coronado to the west and Santee, Lakeside and El Cajon to the east can be more than a little oppressive to those who march to the beat of a different drummer. San Francisco, to its credit, has always welcomed the tired, the poor, the homeless and tempest-tossed, while San Diego tends to shoot them from the passenger seat of a raised truck with a paintball gun.
Nonetheless, it can be pompous, pretentious and insufferable at times. Its contributions to rock and roll are vastly overestimated, the Flamin’ Groovies, Dead Kennedys and Swingin’ Utters notwithstanding. The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish, etc.: one great big yawn.
Har! I just noticed (and fixed) my comment above about Americans’ “messy empirical strivings” (sic). I actually meant “imperial strivings,” but I’m kind of tickled by the image of a bunch of Americans sloppily attempting to test stuff quantitatively — preferably over a case of Budweisers and some chili dogs. LOL
PS: Ray, I agree with everything you just said, except … boy, here goes my last vestige of that much-vaunted “punk cred”! … I’ve recently discovered I actually kind of like some Grateful Dead. :-/
I must add one of the great thing about San Francisco is a lot of people move there from the all over the place. Some of my closest friend are from Ohio, met them in Frisco.
Ray, that paintball gun image is going to stay with me for days. Perfectly said!
Yes, it is really impossible to live in San Francisco, or any other major urban environment, without seriously undermining your future.
I really don’t know how people doing it. I hear about San Francisco rents, the housing values, the overall cost of living, and I do the math: I cannot figure out how people are making it work. You read the papers and you hear about the foreclosures, the bankruptcies, the state austerity measures, etc., but I really have not heard any of the stories that I am sure are out there about trying to make ends meet.
Towards a criticism of San Francisco: after leaving San Francisco, I immediately moved to Juneau, AK, then, to Charlotte Amalie in the Virgin Islands. Over that period, I traveled to Rome, Florence, and Venice; as well as, Paris. I also hung around New York a lot during that period.
Juneau and Charlotte Amalie really lacked to bohemian aesthetic that I liked, but it was really overfull with a sense of ideas, literature, and dialogue, but without all of the pretense that you find all over California. Los Angeles was filled to the brim with poseurs, but there was a painful degree of pretense all over San Francisco. When I went to Paris, all over Paris, but, especially, the Left Bank, along Boulevard St Germaine, I really thought to myself: “this is what I was looking for all along”. I would, actually, rather work as a waiter, live in a small apartment, and live paycheck to paycheck, with very little prospects for the future, except a timely death, than live anywhere in the United States. The day to day drift through the streets, good food, good wine, charming women, and good conversations about books and everyday life seemed perfect to me.
That was the plan but, almost immediately after my return, got married and had a kid. I could not be happier with my family, but, if you are not going to start a family, get your ass to Paris!
Ray wrote:
>San Francisco, to its credit, has always welcomed the tired, the poor, the homeless and tempest-tossed, while San Diego tends to shoot them from the passenger seat of a raised truck with a paintball gun.
I disagree with you a bit. There have been many attempts to eliminate the homeless with police harrassment, especially under mayors Feinstein and Brown. Feinstein tossed poor people out in the street to raze old low-income housing and build new skyscrapers (butt-ugly ones I might add) in the pro-development 80s . We lost a lot of historic buildings then and during the dot-com boom. LA has a much stronger historic preservation policy (and more activists for historic preservation)
It is a liberal city, which I like, but it can be annoying the way people are so politically correct and are always “preaching to the choir”. Pretentious indeed! And unfriendly compared to many cities I have visited, especially in the South and upper Midwest (Milwaukee). I think New Yorkers are more friendly than San Franciscans! LA is also very liberal within the city itself, as are most large cities (NY, Chicago, Seattle), and many smaller ones (Portland, Milwaukee, Madison).
But compared to San Diego I can see how much better it seems on these issues.
Dave H, I totally agree with you on European cities and how livable they are. After I went to Spain I wanted to move there, and I felt that same way after visiting the Netherlands.
Dean: Yay, Milwaukee! I lived there two years, in fifth and sixth grades, and went back to visit for many years. I retained great friends from my time there (including Jason Brownell, who played bass in the Amazons and is the hidden technical hand behind this blog).
Milwaukee is a great example of a really swingin’ smallish U.S. city. And while I haven’t run the numbers, I assume property’s a lot cheaper there than it is in SF or NY!
i love Milwaukee! i’ve visited three times. Friendly people, a great art museum, cheap records and vintage stuff, and fun bars like the amazing bar called At Random. And l love the frozen custard and ethnic eateries (German and Eastern European). I still have to made it to Madison but it’s on my list of places to visit. Milwaukee has a similar feel to Portland and Memphis.
I guess I’m a little spoiled. My family spends at least two months a year in Spain, so I get to keep a balance. Economies are cyclical, and Europe’s having a tough time now, too. Everywhere I went in Spain last year, the talk was of “la crisis.” (I guess that adage that when the United States sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold is true.) One thing is for certain though, and that is much of what I initially fell in love with about the country is still intact, despite the European continent’s rapid Americanization. (US style malls are popping up all over the place and the twin scourges of Starbucks and McDonalds have taken root.) Once my wife and I get out from under our current educational and economic burdens, it will be nice to raise our son in a place he can play outside like we did when we were kids.
Dean Curtis,
It is interesting that you should mention it. San Francisco, in a social sense, always seemed a bit cold. I am not quite sure why. You would not think that it would be that way, but it seems to be that it really is.
Is it the busyness that the city tends to promote?
Is it the paradox that the more people the less social?
Is it the austerity?
I sometimes thought that in San Francisco people are treated as disposable, because you are always meeting new people. Any thoughts?
>>San Francisco, in a social sense, always seemed a bit cold.
Dave Hobbs: I actually always felt the same about San Diego — that under the sunny veneer, there’s a layer of permafrost.
I think that any community that makes a lot of money off tourism and attracts a lot of migration can seem a bit brittle. The New Jersey town I live in is extremely friendly and interactive, and it took me years to get used to … I think SF and SD trained some of that casual social affect out of me.
BTW, I don’t think it’s the quality of the people … These same friendly neighbors definitely put their game faces on when they commute in to NY!
The San Diego De Aspora.
I still miss you guys. As far as friendly goes, San Fransisco and San Diego and New York and London have friendly people. But the friendship that builds over generations can’t be found in any new town you move to.
I lived in San Diego age 1-18 (1966-1985), Frisco (yes, Frisco!) ’85-2000, and stupidly back to SD 2000-2008. I now live in a town of 200 people in the Rockies above Boulder CO. I can say without a doubt that the folks here are the best I’ve ever met in my adopted home towns. Some grew up here, most are transplants but have been here a long time. People are just nicer, and almost everyone plays music, writes plays, builds shit in their backyard (no, not jungle gyms) and values general weirdness, which you can’t say about Slow Death.
Blake, were you in a power pop band in the 90s in the bay area? What was the name of that band? Or is that a different guy named Blake?
Dean, You’re probably thinking of Blake Ricks of the band Helium Angel. Damn, they were good.
Yep, that’s who I was thinking of. Thanks Kevin.
Wow, this is a great thread.
I’m a 4th generation native San Diegan (Mission Bay High School Class of ’82) who left in ’85. I moved to Santa Barbara, where I am to this day. Talk about expensive! Sheeeesh! I’ll never own a home here unless I win the lottery. This is a small elitist little town and I’ve made a wonderful life here, but it’s a bubble and I want to pop it.
Back in the day, I remember Penetrators and Mojo Nixon shows that completely knocked my high school punk rock socks off!
I’m thinking of moving to San Francisco right now, actually, and reading this has been interesting. There are some really terrific comparisons and insights here.
I love some of the phrasing too, “Can’t fault SF for having too many possibilities, but it can lead to what a friend of mine refers to as ‘option anxiety’…” HA HA! Too true.
THANK YOU, for a great topic.
O.K., to shed some light to the early times of the S.F. Morlock days I have decided to (agains better judgment) interject a bit of thought or perhaps I am compelled to as for therapy. I was on the receiving end of this S.D. Exodus, it was (good god) nearly 25 years ago somtime in 1984 or 1985. I had already fallen from the scooter world when introduced to the garage/psych sound through records purchased from John Silva when he worked in a “hole in the ground” record shop on (I believe) 9th Ave @ Irving and had sold my 2nd scooter in order to pay rent as the thought of working was an abstrct one, I was young and had not yet learned about the cruelty or yet fathomed the necessitys of life. Ah, I digress. Well, as fate had cast its eye upon my bordom somtime in (I believe it WAS 1985) my then room mate and mother figure to me (Liz Peppin) told us we would be having some friends from S.D. come stay with us. This was not unussual as Liz let numerous bands and various folk come crash the pad for a few days or so. I was excited about the fact because I was already a fan of the GDV and Crawdaddys records and had much respect for the talent that came from down south ways. Plus, I had been dropping substances and tripping over them various places for a few years now, or lets just say “turned on”.
At this point I must make reference to other posts (or threads are they called?), some points made, that stuck me in the gut and summond me to type this out one finger at a time. You see, it seems to me that most of you (S.D. folks) have a close connection to S.F. either from having spent time here casually or relocating altogether for whatever amount of time it may be or had been. And to call it (S.F. or its people) a “cold city” is I feel, a very unfair statment. Actually it goes both ways because much of the of the sceen was developed in the late 1970s and very early 1980s via many S.F. folk moving first to S.D. and L.A. in order to attend schools there. It seems to me most if not all of you (us) have a symbiotic (spelling?)association with both citys in relation to the “sceen”. By slagging off one you are only holding a mirror to the other.
Now, for the meat course of this evening. When the Morlocks drove up to the house in some kind of run down vehicle with all their kit in tow I can admit (now) I was as excited as an 6 year old anticipating the arrival of a favorite uncle but deigned not then to show it. I was after all 17 or 18 and had to be cool, keep it together man. I think I was more excited about breaking up the monotony of bordom that came from living in the suburbs of the city (25th Ave.) but it all faded as quickly as it started. We spent , what seemed to be , endless weeks being bord together. It was nice though to be bord with someone else in company. Leighton and I hit it off pretty fast and he became my best friend (the brother I never had) untill his “death” and spend time tripping out at art oppenings and such (mainly to eat free food). We road the Muni bus filled with pig-people once back from a show and got stuck in the tunnel for what felt like -well, you know where I am going with that. No more Tab, only Coke from then on. It must have been weeks before they landed a “first show” (since arrival) and I am unclear as to where and when. But if it was not at the VIS (back then and originally called the VIS THE VIS, a run down Reggea Dance hall slash barfly hangout on Divisadero St. that had what was claimed to be a soundboard with ties to the early Rolling Stones. True or not, in our minds it had to be true and made that club that much Cooler). It was the Vis and manager of the club, English Paul (Renna) who spawned the beginnings of what were to be the (true) Morlocks. You see as much as people would like to think, the Morlocks were not an S.D band. The may have had their roots there but the growth, infulance, and shaping of the song writing was all S.F.. THE MORLOCKS WERE A SAN FRANCISCO BAND. This went on for a while and the Morlocks had become the house band at the Vis. By the time the Swedish Am Hall shows happend that was the beginning of the end. Do not get me wrong, the band still grew in poplarity and strengh and there where huge infulences developing, meeting Bro. Ed (R.I.P.) and rag tag Angles (those who were cast out form the brotherhood because of a no needle rule) These where all deep and incredible people with stories to tell. One just needed to say, Hey! Once in a while some of the Bros. would show up in “Colors” to hang with their ousted friends, This felt good and gave some kind of crediblity to the band in some wierd way. But, back to the story. The light shows that Ed put on, WOW! MY god! a flash back in time? Hell, no! we were where it was at. The band had been playing now on a regular basis and making a sceen. By this time alot of the S.D. folks had turned up is S.F., Pat , Jerry, Dave, Kristen etc. (I do not mean to leave anyone out, if not mentioned I apologize). There were numerous shows in Berkeley (were Mark met his long time Girl friend. I remember Mark Saying somting to the effect of “Man, that chick it beautiful”. I told him I knew her. He asked me I if I was O.K. with that since we had had histroy. Mark, if you are reading this, Thanks for that. Shows some people still have class / honor and manners were not lost on youth). But aside from Berkeley, SF and other outerlying clubs, The Morlocks played some strange and off the wall places such as an “animal house” frat in Berkeley called the Barrington hall. The contract to play there consisted of money, drugs and and list of satellite phone #’ers (remember those, we are talking pay phone era, real pre-turn of the century). I think after that show we realized we had spent two days there. Also the G.G Park gigs. There were many shows with the Sea Hags, But also with bands like Barbara Manning, Shiva Dancing etc.. (all need to be credited) The momentum was building to the point of national recognition. I was there when the Boston globe (newspaper, also archaic) called on the phone to interview about what psych music and psych poster art was all about. I really did not know what to say and must have come off as idiotic because I was never quoted except for maybe a line (Where was Jerry then, could have used that great wit and gift of gab). Also TIME MAGAZINE, Yes, thee TIME magazine did a photo shoot and interview with the Morlocks behind the Fab Mab and or On Broadway nightclub in anticipation of them breaking out. I mean there was a huge Buzz and it was all happening.
So what happened? If I were to inject my thought of when the exact moment the Morlocks took a turn (even if it did not show right away) it would have to be the Swed. Am. era, the firing of Ted from the band. The band may have grown since that point and became known enough to be invited to play the park where you were mingling with folks like Kantner and Garcia, you know, the heavy weights from back in the day. Wether we love to hate the hippie shit or not (I have acually come to like some of the old Sf sound, check out Country Joe and Quicksilver again, you might find something you missed the first time and Tripsichord Musicbox is about as heavy as it gets anywhere) it has an underlying influence and can not be disregaurded for music or style. But this was the crowd and level it was going to, playing at the (just reopened) Fillmore club with the Cult (man, the food and drinks in the dressing room was like superstardom), I think it was just to much to comprehend to fast, you see, back then the music sceen was still “who you know” not so much what you know and you had to let things go and grow with it as it came, or die. Firing Ted may have had to happen. But, you just do not do that to a friend without setting into motion a chain of events that can enevitably be called a curse. Look at Leighton now, I was just told he still has the band. He still carrys this albatros and is in a purgatory that can only be known as Morlockmania. I mean, listen to what Jeff is doing WoW! its great, a little monotanus for me personally but I respect his growth in music, and Ted, man you are bearing you soul. Hey, sounds like you are doing well, man. So, Leighton, WAKE UP! brother I know you still must have a spark of creativity in you. Find some people equal in creative influance and start a new project! You can still “cash in” with the Morlocks and play Japan but do the two to three week tour with the “originals” so they can all reap some rewards. After all give credit due. And get the hell out of L.A. (I know, I am a hipocrate)
O.K. that is harsh. After all I have not seen or heard from leighton in a long time. What have I been up to since then? Well, As I stated, Leighton and I were close (for about 3 years solid), at least he was to me and when I had heard he died I was down, and then found out a year later it was a hoax. Then I was angry, apparently I did not mean as much to him as a friend or otherwise or maybe it was just the drugs. In hindsight I must admit it bent me more than I thought it did. Then after I was laid-off my long time record store job I built a ’49 Panhead and went nomad for about 8 years, probably needed to get the drugwebbs out of my head rather then anything else. but I am now living on the hill in S.F. and still love Frisco. but must admit the city came into a harsh focus of reality when the whole Tech shit went down. And it is still now in the absence of personallity for the most part. But I love the cleansing properties of the fog and the small clusters of villages and neighbourhoods that make up this entity (yes they can still be found). The food is the best and the chicks are great.
Overall, This was just a bit of insight packed into a very small nut shell. I could go on for days about people and what they ment to me, the (TWO HOUSES), yes there were two houses of importance in this, what was kingdom. 1) The Caroline Terry house on (I forgot the name of the street) and 2) the Page Street house that spawned from people departing from the Terry house. Carroline’s connection was through me, we were dating, we meet at Espree were we both were working ( Holy shit! shoot me now before I begin to think about it). I still hold her dear to my heart and what came of it is what it is. God, I can still hear Jerry going on for weeks singing Iggy pop (is it, LOW, “I’ve been hurt, and I dont care” at he top of his lungs (and we can all fathom that volume) in the hall way at the Fillmore House (this is past Morlock days) this is the power this Girl had on us, and everything would have been (for better or worse) a different dynamic without her. She is were it really all began but is a story of its own and or maybe some things are better left unspoken.
You can all thank or condem Dave Fleminger for this as I recently ran into him at the flea market (my new home) and he turned me on to this site. Should not make it such a S.D. entity as I almost did not come out for fear of “not belonging”. I am sure others might be hesitant as well.
Before I split I must say a howdy to all who or is it whom may remember me. Pat with the hat, i will never forget rides back on the Guzziano, the very level headed man that new what to do when johnny tore the ceiling out of the Page st. house. I still have not been sued for $37,000.00. (jesus, that could only be described as a laugh). Jerry Cornillus, my nemmisus, fellow poster artist, the one person I respected and admired with as much passion as I loved to hate him. I want my “rules of dueling ” book back. Jeff, I could not get close to you, most likely because I am a guy and you had’nt any designs on me. At least I hope not. If I remember right we had one good sit down talk at the NOC NOC Club, kinda vegue on remembering the subject. Tommy, you were the most real person of the crew and wish we could have “one on oned” back in the day. Mark, you where to preocupied with your chick to hang out but your humor was the best of all of us. And Ted, hey Bro., I still tast that toilet water you droped the tabs into by mistake, or was it? K.T., rock on girl, your kids are beautifull and you are healthy. No need to make amends, we are all good.
Please excuse the spelling erorrs as I am not computer savy and do not know how to turn on the “SPEEL CHECK”, Hey, I just got off dial-up two months ago.
P.S. I still have a bag of various photos and flyers I feel should make its way back to leighton. If anyone has the address? It won’t explode.
Signing out with the love and light, your true(th) bleeding heart. Rev. H. Arnold Adler The church of Rock & Roll can still set you free.
>>when johnny tore the ceiling out of the Page st. house
LOL! That happened just before my arrival but was legend.
>>You see as much as people would like to think, the Morlocks were not an S.D band.
Hmmmmm … I understand your point, but that’s approximately as true as any of us transplants weren’t San Diegan. (A little more, perhaps, because they actually made some popular headway, for better or worse, in SF.) I actually lived in SF longer than I did in SD … And I’m happy I joined the crowd and made the move to San Francisco. But … I watched those guys’ prehistory in San Diego, and their formation in San Diego … San Francisco may have annealed the Morlocks, but it didn’t create them.
uh,,,wow
Heiko, I miss you brudder.
I am too damned punch drunk from work right now to read all this, but I love you for recording your end of it.
I think if you and I put together our heads (and got ahold of Aaron for a collaborator) we could make a pretty damned good screenplay of the Page St. Palace.
Don’t forget the Gt. Dane that shit on the roof, or the skinheads downstairs…or the time Johnny kidnapped the witches’ cat from across the street.
Sputnik. Buddy’s drummer pal Bennet (still for my money one of the best drummers I’ve ever known.)
I personally relive the moment you caught me destroying a lava lamp at least once a week when I catch one of my kids doing something stupid.
BTW Central St. was Caroline’s place.
BTW I’m your other brother you never had.
Patrick Works
Still collects lost cat flyers.
Hey Pat, thanks for that! As long as you are on this earth I’m with you, man.
I like the idea of the screenplay, but I think we both know down deep it could not be received well…… O.K., here we go.
SCENE, SETTING. Looking right into the livingroom from the end of the hallway. hardwood flooring, sparse furniture. Two actors in the middle of the hardwood floor sitting around a makeshift alter.
O.K., I admit it was a SMALL bonfire.
TIME; After bar hours..somtime between 2:30-3:00 o:clock AM
Third actor enters…….
BUDDY} enters and with an expression of a mixture between being dumbfounded and horror stricken.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”
HEIKO} )
“What?
BUDDY} Now animated and turning somewhat comical with arms flailing.
“ARE YOU F***ING INSANE?
KRISTEN} calmly explaning in a tone as if trying to calm a young child.
“We opened the windows to let the smoke out”
Yeah, I could see it now. After opening nite the marquee reads (CLOSED UNTILL FURTHER NOTICE). I think it would come off a bit toooo.. abstract. But maybe if it was done in Black and White, you know, ART HOUSE style, real Cabinet of Dr. Caligari type of make up, heavy eyeliner..and setting. Then it might pull a crowd. Oh! hey! and if Jeff would do the music? yeah! Then it would work!
I remember Aaron well… hope everything finds him well.
I do not remember the great dane though. How did it get on to the roof?
PING!, HEIKO
The egyptian god Horus was having a chat with us and then he began playing with the incense/charcoal/flames….”
*grin*
Buddy was quite the responsible party pooper.
Who was Johnny’s roomy in Golden Hill? Seemed like he was constantly aghast at the latest hijinks …
Matthew: it was Pat.
I thought they were building a rooftop cafe where Johnny would serve espresso to the aliens.
The witch shop across the street was amazing. There was a variety of raw incense materials available, tinctures and oils. One in particular, a bright yellow sultry smelling flower called Asklepios, was intense, swoony. My tarot deck smelled like it for ten years after.
I remember the cat Sputnik. He was chocolate point siamese. He once caught a mouse in the kitchen (which I recall we weren’t even paying to live in that section of the house -- wasn’t Buddy only paying for his room and then the rest was a squat?). — and where most memories are a fuzzy hallucination, that “crunch” of Sputnik chewing the mouse’s skull still reverbs in my memory banks.
The skinheads downstairs stole my winnie the pooh doll. someone (aaron I think) in our house kidnapped, wrapped a noose around his neck and swung him down outside the window. Poor Pooh! What a fate.
Thanks for sticking up for me in the Page house Heiko. It wasn’t easy being the only female in a flat of what…six….seven male persons. Your friendship was a saving grace. that, and Star Trek.
Wasn’t there a guy named Randy — lived with Johnny in ’84, ’85 near the Morlocks’ basement in SD?
1964 A St btween 24th and 25th. That predated the Morlocks GH flat by a year or more…but yeah…same neighborhood…
my old neighborhood. Reason I remember the address is I delivered newspapers there when I was a sprout.
Randy Herr. Graphic artist. Still at it. I think he friended me lately on FB.
Patrick Works
Still owed major bucks by the SD Union Tribune Co.
This was a fun thread I’d like to exhume.
On my recent book tour, one personal regret was that we only got as far north as Mountain View, not San Francisco proper.
This blog and you all have helped me reclaim San Diego as a hometown, but SF is still a giant chunk of my life … Where I met my spouse and had my kids, home to many dear friends, and one of the most beautiful urban spots in the world.
I hope I’ll be back to visit soon!