Our family tree, revisited

sd bands -  family tree2Thanks to the Cardiac Kidz’s Jim Ryan, Che Underground: The Blog has a fresh supply of artifacts from his band and other early participants in the San Diego punk scene.

Among Jim’s contributions is this chart from early 1980 composed by Dan McLain. It testifies to Dan’s role as underground historian and adds new fuel to the longstanding discussion of our family tree.

Jim writes, “The ‘Family Tree’ by Dan was found in an issue of ‘Kicks’ magazine that I have (can’t remember if it was the issue that the Cardiac Kidz interview was in or one that we put an ad for the EP release in I’ll check for you if it is important to which issue it was … ) which was put out by Tom Arnold. Don’t know if you are familiar with that name He put out a pre- “City Beat” type magazine back in the early ’80s.

“The ‘Family Tree’ was scanned at actual size. It originally was split across two pages (had to ‘photo paste’ them together). … It was used to supplement the main article by Steve Thorn that appeared in Kicks magazine (March 1980). The list of contributors might help in your networking efforts to gather more information on the music scene back then.”

Stay tuned for more contributions from the Ryan Collection! (Oh, and please tell me if this chart is legible on your screen … There’s a lot of info crammed in there.)

15 thoughts on “Our family tree, revisited

  1. Jim: Thanks for doing that. An ad for your EP is indeed in that issue. And Steve Thorn’s five-part history (that issue had the last instalment) of San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll is an invaluable guide to even earlier times….

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  2. >>And Steve Thorn’s five-part history (that issue had the last instalment) of San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll is an invaluable guide to even earlier times….

    Mikel: God, what a great thing to have! Would you be able to share that??

    I wish I knew all the last names that went with the names on Dan’s chart! I know all the bands but the Roadrunners — but I didn’t know a lot of these connections.

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  3. I’m missing part two, for some reason, but it shouldn’t be any problem to OCR the rest (Kicks used legitimate-size type, unlike our penny-wise zines…).

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  4. Russell, affectionately known as “Scuzz,” is Ron’s little brother. He, Ron and Potterf played in a junior high school band called Zinc, and Russell often sat in with Ron’s projects when another drummer was unavailable. He played with the Hedgehogs on at least one occasion I can remember. A real nice guy--he had a huge paper route for years, and then became a mail carrier.

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  5. >>Russell, affectionately known as “Scuzz,” is Ron’s little brother.

    When I first started at MacWEEK, I learned that a slightly older colleague (the age difference seemed bigger then!) hailed from San Diego but had left years earlier with nary a backward glance.

    I bet him I could find a common connection despite his skepticism — and (since he was a Point Loma HS grad) managed to establish the Silvas as a Rosetta Stone.

    He recalled there being many Silvas. Were his eyes crossing?

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  6. Pt Loma is Tuna town, home to many Portuguese descendants. Ron and family all all have that in common. To do this day Pt. Loma still does a Portuguese style Festa. There is even a Portuguese women’s hall near Shelter Island.

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  7. That’s right, I remember hearing that PL had a large Portuguese fishing community, and Mission Hills had an Italian one.

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  8. >>To do this day Pt. Loma still does a Portuguese style Festa. There is even a Portuguese women’s hall near Shelter Island.

    C’mon, c’mon … Restaurant recommendations! Out with it, for god’s sake … As Dave Rinck noted a while back, Portuguese cuisine is outstanding.

    Actually, I’ve gotten very intrigued about Point Loma since we started hanging out here … I b’lieve back in the day, I just made a beeline to the Syndicate and nowhere else. Seems like a lot of happening peeps hailed from that ‘hood.

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  9. ALL the happening people I first met in the SD scene were from Pt. Loma/OB.

    Used to eat at Rayads Falafel all the time.

    Navy guys used to die out there annually, partying on the cliffs.

    Last time I visited SD, mid -90s, I stayed with DT Exterminator at a little house on Pt. Loma.

    Providence has a HUGE Portuguese population…often typified by chain-link fences, statues of MARY, and the best seafood and Chourico!!!

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  10. >To do this day Pt. Loma still does a Portuguese style Festa.

    Oh, wow, by the Portugese Fishing Hall/Parish Hall for St. Agnes. The first wedding reception I went to was there. And most midnight masses. Is Ron related to any of the Silvas in the photos on display there?

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  11. I completely forgot that Juan from the Nucleoids went on to play with the Exerminators, does anyone else remember them doing shows calling themselves the Nucleoids after I left…I don’t remember that happening. Is DT still around?

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  12. Hey Gary,

    I spoke to Jerry Flack and formally invited him to this posting. He asked me if I knew where he could get a copy of the song “Vengence” by the Penetrators. Can you let me know which vinyl that was released on and I’ll pass that info on to him. Even better would be a MP3 file sent to me.

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  13. Hi there,

    currently i am researching rock n roll genealogies. that’s how i found yours. great work. pretty inspiring.
    its pretty local. do you have a bigger tree too?

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  14. Hello, it’s “Electro-Phonic” Brian Phillips, here. I remember Kicks Magazine and this article as well. I am waiting for part three, which, I believe, will mention “The Outcasts”, a band that featured Gary Puckett before he ran into a horn section at full speed.

    While this article was well researched, I wondered about the magazine itself. One of the letters to the editor was a very disgruntled reader who ended his screed with saying “We don’t need people like you”. This was met with an equally mature answer by the editorial staff:

    “F*** off.”

    I don’t know how many issues it ran, but there was a benefit to save the magazine called, “Save Kicks’ A**”.

    Thank you for reposting this, I am glad to see someone else remembers this little-known mag. While the article makes a good case for the long history of bands from the SD area, the mag’s quick demise made the case for the perfidy of the SD rock scene. For example, The Crawdaddys (aka briefly, “The Howling Men”), played some, but didn’t get their due until years later and there were bands who, as far as I can tell, denied mentioning San Diego in their resumes, because L.A. was SUCH a hipper place, at least to label executives. Unless my mind is playing tricks on me, Ratt, were originally Mickey Ratt, then briefly Secret Service and then Ratt, but quite a few write-ups did NOT mention S_n D___o.

    Also, here is a trivia question: which band had to cancel their San Diego appearances TWICE due to lack of interest?

    The Talking Heads!

    I collect records and play many obscure goodies on my show (check the URL in my .sig), but, truth be told, there weren’t a lot of bands that made it nationally out of San Diego:

    Rosie and the Originals (1 hit)
    The Cascades (1 hit)
    Ratt (several hits and as a weird aside, Milton Berle was in one of their videos)
    The Monroes (1 hit)

    There are more, but not many. The obscurities are the more interesting bands.

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