Our antecedents
We didn’t spring from the San Diego soil sui generis, and I’m finding plenty of resources online to gather the musical fringes we latched onto:
- Toby Lifehater’s forum for early-’80s punk survivors. (Dave Ellison tells me there’s at least one shout-out in there to the Rockin’ Dogs as a cornerstone of that era’s Poway underground.)
- A guide to old-school San Diego punk bands with some useful links (including a link to the Social Spit site, where Mirrors/Answers co-founder Dave Fleminger is credited as the band’s first guitarist, and one to an online history of the Injections, pre-Noise 292 band of drummer Joanne Norris, a k a Madame Gargoyle).
- The official Web site for the current incarnation of Carlsbad’s Spent Idol, former band of original Hair Theatre drummer Howard Palmer and an erstwhile rallying point for the Carlsbad crowd I was to meet through Hair Theatre.
- And a recent release by a very old collaboration: Twenty years later, Dave Fleminger, Paul Kaufman and Kristin Martin reformed their early-’80s joint, Lemons Are Yellow, and released an amazing CD. (Buy this disc! Os Mutantes have nothing on LAY’s “Afuegal Pitu”!)
Where else were we before we were what we were?
Tags: Answers, Hair Theatre, Injections, Lemons Are Yellow, Mirrors, Noise 292, Rockin' Dogs, San Diego punk, Social Spit, Spent Idol
February 26th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Be sure to read the entire Injections history, including the part at the end that tells what became of the article’s author, Jim Woods (There’s a photo of Jim on Harold Gee’s flickr page).
Dave Flemenger,
Sam and I were at the Social Spit show at the Blind Center. I think that’s where you and I met! I was 15 at the time. Do you remember that I played bass at a few of your rehearsals when Scott Harber was away? Your singer drove to Poway to pick me up in a station wagon covered with spraypainted punk grafitti. Luckily, my parents weren’t home or they probably wouldnt have let me go with him…haha.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Dave…my mind is now thoroughly blown…I had forgotten you had played with the ‘Spit!!! Amazing..my mind is spinning round and round..like a laundry spin-cycle..WOW
And the Blind Center show..everybody else in the band got maced out in the parking lot after our set by the cops (somebody mouthed off to them) while I was busy in the bathroom trying to get my nose to stop bleeding (got punched in the ‘pit). Suddenly everybody ran in screaming and trying to wash their eyes out. Good times..
Bruce Atwell’s station wagon would have surely scared my parents as well!..I snuck off once to ride in the “we love our queen”-mobile to a show in LA once, and we only made it to the Oceanside border patrol drive-thru when the solenoid kicked out and we then went on to experience a truly scary hitch-hike ride back to downtown SD, but that’s another story..
February 27th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Here’s more sticky Spit for you:
Dave Ellison just received the disc of Rockin’ Dogs photos, including the one at left. Here’s how he describes it: “The two photos with the bass player with the blond Rickenbacker were taken in Cole’s backyard. The bass player is Scott Harber, who had played in Social Spit with Dave Fleminger, and then in 5051 with Dave Klowden on vocals. Zero degrees of separation in our scene!”
Speaking of which, Mr. Klowden sat in with Noise 292 for at least one early rehearsal at Kristin’s house … He was either drumming or trying the percussion spot. (Dave Klowden offers his own view of 1979-80 in this letter … I want to read his punk-rock crime thriller!)
February 27th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
YES! Scott H in the Rockin’ Dogs..! Completes the #%&$@-in circle!
I look forward to seeing the ‘tree’ chart for all this cross-pollination.
The branches are going to look like a Gordian or Celtic knot.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
That guy Bruce was a real character. I remember him telling me how mad he was that he’d tried to go to some punk show and was turned away at the door. Mainly though, he was mad that they’d confiscated the wrench he had in his pocket. I asked him why he was bringing a wrench with him to a show, and he looked at me like I was crazy and said, “To hit people with!”
March 7th, 2008 at 8:52 am
This is kind of tangential, but I remember being very young circa 1980, ‘81 and being exposed to some punk records at the home of a friend who had an older sister–yes, a kind-of sexy older sister. I heard that Circle Jerks “Fast cars, cheap thrills” tune. Pretty much all music was new to me. although I’d owned a radio, and bought a couple of phonograph records, like “the Red Album” and the Doors first record. Well, on the strength of this record-spinning hang-out at their house (their parents weren’t home), I bought the newer of the Rodney-On-the-Roq compilations, and the Sex Pistols. On a lighter note she also had a record by the Penetrators, which I understood (and sorta disdained) right away, as at age eleven or twelve in 1979 I had seen the B-52s on Saturday Night Live, and heard their hits. Most “regular” people didn’t seem to get this dichotomy of “punk rock” and “new wave”, it was all of a piece to them. They just knew that some people wore those skinny sunglasses, maybe a safety pin, and that was “punk”. Perhaps they knew Blondie and Devo…I had very little information, but just enough to almost know some tiny bit of what was going on. I knew that something was up in London and Los Angeles and New York–and had been for some time. I knew it didn’t really involve doing “the Pogo” anymore, but had persisted. I knew that in England it was sort-of dada-esque even though I barely knew what dada was, and that the American version was less so.
Soon I was looking at The Reader, and seeing names of local bands I wasn’t quite old enough to see. “There are those Penetrators that Dan Nelson’s sister likes! What is this Jack Mack & the Heart Attack? What can it be like to go to the Spring Valley Inn to hear Country Dick & the Snuggle Bunnies? What is this Spirit Club with this little blurb each week. Can this be cool? Or is this just some sort of tailgate party of the soul?” Meanwhile, riding the bus to junior high, there was an older kid who went mad for actual California hardcore and would-be Anarchist declarative statements, actually publishing a satirical ‘zine targeted at the faculty and students who annoyed him. It was impressive as a focused outburst, but also a total tempest in a teacup, targeting some fairly harmless adolescents and well-meaning teachers, and was pretty obviously some kind of acting-out of family issues of some kind. I remember being a bit baffled, as in, “are you requesting a firing squad? Your ‘zine will bring attention, but it is an un-funny rant that will just get you placed on some serious kind of probation.” This early exposure possibly cooled my interest in, I don’t know, Black Flag–and publishing more-or-less personal attacks on people. I guess I knew I was into aesthetics way back with ROTR when I realized I preferred Agent Orange instrumentals to others’ more raging vocals. Or maybe it was that I preferred a certain snideness, more like the Damned and other British stuff, the Sex Pistols not least. Pointed sarcasm seemed stronger than aggression. I liked things that had an implicit humor buried in it somewhere–as I hope this writing has….
Once I was old enough to (kind-of) hang out, my knowledge of punk rock and its peripheral manifestations increased exponentially within weeks, but I was pretty rapidly committing to a neo-1965 (plus or minus a few years) viewpoint, for better or worse. I liked not only garage band stuff, but also had a taste for the basslines in Soul music, like Atlantic Records stuff–and I still cared about the Beatles; I thought Stu Sutcliffe had a really charismatic look. I was easily distracted from punk rock; I liked all sorts of vintage obscurites, some of them on major labels: I liked commercial LA folk rock, the Beach Boys, and Memphis stuff like Booker T…Aretha Franklin…tried to learn the bassline from “Bernadette” by the Four Tops. Was partly formed by British stuff like Them, and the Animals. But the Gravedigger V were sufficiently Punk I guess that we opened for the Dickies in Los Angeles; that was Spring 1984, so latter-day in a way, compared with what you guys are talking about in this thread–but I was still just sixteen, it shows how fast things can accelerate when you are that young, and your senses are soaking everything in. In 1985 the Nashville Ramblers (me on bass again) played the Mabuhay Gardens–a punk stronghold as I understood it, but already little to do with that truly old-school end-of-the’70s time by then–in North Beach in San Francisco–where we also played a party at Courtney Love’s apartment, an event which seems stranger with every passing year. It was on Fillmore St., “the Fillmore” then, “Lower Haight” in more recent times. She shared that place with Kat Bjelland, who was no one then–and pretty well forgotten now…. Anyone remember the I-Beam in San Francisco? And what about shows you saw at the Adams Avenue Theatre? First time I got to a live show was there: 1982–the Blasters, the Paladins, and some L.A. rockabilly act called “the Rockin’ Rebels”. Lions Club in North Park (I missed the punk shows there, but played there in ‘86, I think)–who remembers attending something there in the early days? To me, the Skeleton Club was a legend of something I had just missed.
Somewhere I have a flyer from ‘83 by Bobby Lane, for a GBH and Battalion of Saints show. Perhaps someone remembers it. It shows some doddering figures, very well-drawn, wizened old men in leather jackets and full regalia, one has a mohawk. It reads, “Old Punks Never Die. Punks in the 21st Century”. I didn’t attend the gig, but I saved the flyer. Did anyone else know Bobby Lane, and where is he now? I’ve been gone so long, San Diego is like a foreign land to me now….
I think the world needs more punk rock band names with “-wagon” in the name. I remember Meatwagon, and Lagwagon. Maybe Dave Ellison and I can start one called “Chuckwagon”, some kind of pedal-steel thrash. Needs a gratuitous umlaut or two, perhaps…. Folkwagon. Bandwagon. Spamwagon.
March 7th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
i saw Bobby Lane at a record show, selling all his garage sixties pebbles comps. He wasn’t letting go of them cheap. He owns a tattoo shop adjacent to the guild theatre, where you worked for a smattering of time, Tom.
i have a few Bobby Lane fliers, too. Shattered Faith.
Where was that Saigon palace? I remember the name, I can’t remember where it was?
March 7th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Wasn’t Saigon Palace in what is now the Gaslamp? Perhaps on 4th street.
I can’t believe I never made it to the Skeleton Club. During it’s last shows there were usually shows on the same night at the North Park Lion’s Club, and I always chose to go there. I guess I was a little intimidated by going to a seedy part of downtown at that age. I worked at Farrell’s at the time on Saturday nights so I could only go to Friday shows. I had to quit that job because it was interfering with my social life. Larry Nadler got arrested and sent to juvie when the cops busted up the Skeleton Club. The cops claimed it was because people were dancing without the club having a dancing license!
I remember some shows at the Blind Center – like the Nutronz (early Battalion of Saints).
It’s great hearing from old friends here!
March 7th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Dean: Dave Ellison swears that this Rockin’ Dogs picture was shot in the Saigon Palace the night Noise 292 and the Dogs ripped it up there. Poor Dave had laryngitis, so Sam had to sing all the songs — and Wendell was only 17, so he had to hide in the men’s room.
Oh, and Tom: Here’s that GBH flyer by Bobby Lane, complete with doddering punks!
March 8th, 2008 at 4:22 am
Wow, there it is! I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who saved that flyer. Good to see it again without travel and rummaging. Flyers were kind of a big thing in the scheme of things, it’s easy to forget. Pre-internet, your sources were a telephone grapevine, flyers, sometimes posters, The Reader with its advertising, seeing your friends and getting the word–what am I forgetting? Dave Klowden’s letter mentions spraypainting “Germs” on bus benches–are there still bus benches all over town? In New York City there are bus shelters, but they either have no seating, or extremely minimal seating with small horizontal surfaces, no ready-made billboard there in the flat (vetical) back.
Funny, I can’t remember much classic San Diego advertising any more, except “Pacer’s–Just A Kiss Away”, and some of the immortal radio jingles, like Pearson Ford (We Stand Alone At Fairmont & El Cajon)and Beau Gentry’s (…Is Waterbed Country). The Pearson Ford ad is probably very instructive to new residents, tells them how to get that “j” sound in espanol. Anyway, it was understood that your flyer should almost aspire to being Art, or be clever in some way. When Jerry Cornelius’s flyers started to get some San Francisco influence, readability was not really an issue. A kind of exclusivity was at work that I enjoyed. The insularity of San Diego had bred a scene that for once was complete in itself. There weren’t many Mr. Joneses looking on to not know what it was, but something was happening, and the participants Did know what it was–a creative entertainment workshop on a grassroots level, I guess–not that I ever tried to put it into words before. You could decide where your own nucleus of it was, and then include tangential stuff of your own choosing–like Bobby Lane flyer-drawings for shows I wouldn’t be attending–that would be at the center of someone else’s nucleus. At the same time, the local octopus was small enough that you could kind of know a little about nearly everything that was happening–so you might be influenced by something entirely local. You could then feel attuned to pop culture, while letting world-historic pop culture phenomena on the macro level just blow by overhead.
Okay, enough parsing of the obvious…. Let me comment on that Cramps flyer on the same page [the link above, in Matthew's post]. I was there at that show, and I’d completely forgotten that the Tell-Tale Hearts and the Pandoras were on the same bill. What’s become of the California Theatre? My mom sent me a clipping about it, new owners but work was stalled-out, but this was already nearly ten years ago, I’ll bet. What a room that is. The Cramps were great that night, my first time seeing them play although I had been in a room with them a couple or three years before. In 1993 I subbed for the bass player for the Phantom Surfers, opening the Cramps’ New Year’s Show at Bimbo’s 365 in San Francisco–but that’s going off-topic again. Although let me say this: I brought Mark Zadarnowsky’s (now my) sacred ‘61 Fender Showman amp to that gig, which goes way back in scene antecedent-land, so there were three blonde Showman amps on stage–and a bit of Crawdaddys history (and influence) carried forward. However, the Cramps of 1993 were not as genius as the Cramps of 1986, when they had the black-clad Nick Knox on drums–and the delectable Candy del Mar on bass.
I ramble, but I hope this rambling enables some other memories for y’all. Okay: Saigon Palace. I remember a 4th St address for it as well; and old copy of the Reader would tell. Maybe we need to make a map of the landmarks of the scene. How long was it around? I think I played there with Ray Brandes’ post-TTH combo, the Towne Criers. I think I remember Lynne Reverby (sp?) showing up in a big hat, a la race day. She was a scenester from before my time, whom Ron Silva was always sentimental about. Does anyone remember this gig or this girl? The gig would have to have been late ’80s, but she would have been around in the early ’80s, pre-Summer of ‘82. Also, was there a balcony at the Saigon Palace? I may have my venues mixed up. Let me mention another name from the mid-’80s: the Emerald Ballroom. This was a rental room, like the Wabash Ballroom, but was up above the Stadium in Serra Mesa. Or was it off of Convoy, in Kearny Mesa? I attended something random over there once. I guess these were places you’d ordinarily hold a wedding reception or similar event. The usual entertainment was probably provided by a mobile DJ rather than a band, but fortunately, our scene focused on live music rather than DJ action–and people danced. In New York today (which has always had weird laws regulating dancing and alive music) the scene mostly dances to 45s spun by some very specialized DJs–and I know that there are parallels out west–Tony can confirm. That was a feature of the mod / soul cliques, but live music was just as important in the scene, and drew a wider cross-section that sometimes included but transended the true cliquesters of DJ-dom. But do San Diego kids still dance to live music? I remember how we would all run up to the front of the stage for our favorite bands, but we were not just “rocking out”–it was actually live music “a-go-go”. Then again, there were some bands you enjoyed but were less prone to dance to–and some to which you more or less did just “rock out” (like just shaking around instead of really dancing)–so I’m guilty of making generalities here. There were also bands whose shows would result in an instant “pit”, but those were more like the antecedent ones–except maybe at some wilder Wallflowers gigs–or was that just stage-diving?–though there are likely others I’m forgetting, having shied away from the pit when it occurred. I wasn’t into the heavy-jostling, human-earthquake-scene. Let me get out of here before I add any more hyphens and dashes. Two more venues, though: the place down at like 11th & Broadway where the second “New Sounds…” event occurred–what was its name? And “2581″. I’ve always regretted missing the IBlend (International Blend). Does anyone want to talk about Peter English, the manager? I think he would fit under “antecedents”.
March 8th, 2008 at 5:50 am
I feel like Jack Kerouac typing on this continual roll…it’s not toilet paper, though–unless you don’t like my writing, in which case it can be printed out and used–endlessly. What you’re looking at is just the acetate. I hope the length of these posts has not been a bummer.
Here I go again, as it turns out. This can’t last, so don’t worry!
If we want to talk about antecedents AND venues, Dean’s apartment comes to mind. I remember that post-gig parties were frequent there. You’d look for the giant batwing Honda dealership sign on El Cajon Blvd. just east of 805, and turn north about one block…. Man, that was a cool sign. Show me the fool that decided to tear it down!
Dean’s place was a crossroads of primarily-music people overlapping with primarily-scooter-motivated people. If you got as far as Dean’s apartment after a gig, you were with people who might be over twenty, and thus more self-assured and mature. They’d already proven themselves! Ha.
I might have arrived there the first time on the back of Ed the schoolteacher’s P200. He’d actually Been my schoolteacher at Gompers Secondary (I think it was an art class–or was it English? English, maybe), which is where I first ran across the Turek brothers and Pat Works–not in my class, but at Gompers–in ‘79 / ‘80. Okay I was twelve–they were older–none of us were what we were to become, except maybe Pat Works, who was already kind of a beatnik. All three of the guys I mentioned were already unmissable standouts. I remember Pay in a little Kangol-type cap and an army fatigue jacket. At thirteen he looked like he was protesting the Vietnam War and driving an early MG at the same time. Just looking at him, the word “dissident” came to mind–like “look, there goes the junior Solzhenitsen.” Anyway, Ed the schoolteacher, who is still around, you probably saw him last weekend–remembered me a few years later–1983–and gave me a lift to some scene events, on eof them at least was at the Headquarters, of which we’ve just been speaking. A perfect gentleman–I couldn’t really have asked for a better date, unless it could have been with a girl. I had a terrible crush on Maia Guest, but this is primordial even as adolescence goes! When you are too young for a driver’s license in San Diego, you’re really out of luck, unless your girl a.) notices you, and b.) is willing to perch on the bars of your radical left-over bmx machine…. The only thing I had going for me were cooler glasses than Bart Mendoza (sorry, Bart)–but being prescription dark glasses, they were harder to explain to a girl’s parents. I think this is perhaps more-or-less the genesis of Dave Anderson’s “Tom Ward Party of One” joke. Unfortunately if we revive all the jokes of that era, we’ll have to live our adolescences all over again…so we’d better edit ourselves to some extent.
Anyway, Dean’s apartment was a cool place. I’m sure I was there multiple times in 1983, and have never forgotten the story I heard at the time: “the scene started when Dean and this other guy passed each other on scooters, going the opposite direction. Independently they each did a double-take and decided to turn around. They were instant friends, the only other scooter owners they’d seen were teenagers times four, or five. Like seventy-five-year-old men. Later, not much later, they discovered this band from Point Loma–the Crawdaddies.” Dean, who was the other guy again? And was this 1978? Do I have it almost right? The Crawdaddies, of course, had been playing since ‘77, originally as The Hitmakers. Even that early, their flyers were saved–there was one on the wall at Freedom Guitar downtown, until it closed. It was a cut-out photo of a giant pair of Beatle boots and the cuffs of Ron Silva’s pantlegs! It’s weird to think of straight-up Sixties revivalism in 1977; the dust had barely settled. But it was more than revivalism, more like continuationism, and this is why I think it is truly an important antecedent: in those days, Ron Silva used to write songs! As well as be frontman, guitarist, drummer, bassplayer, or whatever was needed. Also, for what it’s worth, he and Steve Potterf kept long hair cool and viable in the punk rock era in San Diego–and they imported Mike Stax from England. Their notoriety extended worldwide in the Penetrators era. While superficially appearing to be derivative, they were post-modern iconoclasts. No matter how you slice it, these guys were pivotal, firstly because they created and fed the original tiny audience year-by-year–like some kind of sourdough starter–that new offshoot bands (and I think we were all that in some way, even if you just knew them as local lore) could find and pick up on and add to. Future hairshaker and Hair Theatre strains of the scene virus could–even unknowingly–benefit from what these guys had started and kept going. And the point from which they started has to be seen as absolutely “in the wilderness”. Which reminds me, I just saw a copy of HOMEGROWN in a bin in a big New York thrift bookshop. In the end I forgot to buy it! Just thinking about that just now I got visions from the past, like KPRI stickers re-oriented to read “PRIK”; baseball caps emblazoned with the legend, “SOMF”! Alonzo F. Horton, you’re my friend, indeed. I love these visions now in the abstract (sort-of), but back then it could easily make you want to put Roy Liechtenstein on the cover of your independent-label e.p.! If you were drowning in a SoCal adolescence circa 1981-’82, you needed a “Plan of Action” indeed–but when I heard the Crawdaddies doing “Lolette,” “Ruler of My Heart” by Irma Thomas, their cover cover of the Phantom Brothers “Chicago,” and a version of the Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again,” I heard a sound of aesthetic hope, and lifestyle choices being made–my own!
Seeing the Answers and the Mirrors and adding them to my Crawdaddies-admiration completed my local nucleus of coolness. I could have Rhythm & Blues, British R&B, the Velvets, Ron Silva’s late-70s originals, some twang and reverb from the Unknowns–and some proto-neo-psychedelia (I had already connected with Gene Clark by seeing him play in the parking lot of Jack Murphy Stadium in 1983 as “the Firebirds”) to add to my slight rockabilly leanings combined with Duck Dunn / James Jamerson aspirations and Stu Sutcliffe aesthetics. What could I do but join the Gravedigger V? In my mind it seemed to make sense. My trousers were tight even if I couldn’t quite get my hair done right, but I knew it was gonna be alright, to paraphrase a well-known song.
Sweet Jesus, Buddha, whomever–sorry for the memoir-type action-writing, my friends! Just remember to laugh with me, not AT me–if you can help it. Will try to pull back to the short Q & A format you all have been following. I obviously have too much time on my hands. But better time than blood!
March 8th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Peter English did a huge service to the scene. There was a lack of live venues to see bands at the time, especially if you were under 21. I think the International Blend opened post-North Park Lions Club and pre-Fairmount Hall. Here’s a sample of how plentiful and varied the club’s entertainment was.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Update: Dave Rinck has identified another strand in the incestuous punk-rock web we’re weaving: “Matt, interesting to note that we are related. My first (albeit short-lived) musical venture was as bass player for The Injections with Joanne Norris, and she played drums for The Wallflowers for a short period while we re-formed at Greenwich Village West.”
March 11th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I remember a party a Dean’s one summer . Us mods were standing in the driveway when a big skinhead and his girlfriend came walking up. I think his name was “Bid”. He turned and tapped a mod in a parka on the shoulder. As he turned the skinhead cold cocked him on the side of the head. I learned not to make eye contact from then on
March 11th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Michael Rice wrote:
“I remember a party a Dean’s one summer . Us mods were standing in the driveway when a big skinhead and his girlfriend came walking up. I think his name was “Bid”. He turned and tapped a mod in a parka on the shoulder. As he turned the skinhead cold cocked him on the side of the head. I learned not to make eye contact from then on”
That guy Bid was a real creep. I remember we got rid of all the more violent punks that night by quietly telling everyone not to leave that we wanted to stay, then I made an announcement that the party was “over and the cops were coming to arrest everyone”. It worked!
That was the party where the Untouchables and the Crawdaddys played. Too bad the cops shut down the Crawdaddys during their set because of multiple complaints by the neighbors (they were loud!). Jimmy Rooster talked the cops into leaving, and we kept the party going with records all night long.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Quite frankly, I was never cool enough to be truly part of the sussed out mods. I was probably more of a “ticket” type mod. I was way more into the records, bands, guitars, and scooters than fashion. clean, pegged levis, hush puppies and a fred perry were as sussed as I ever got. My main advantage those early years was that I was a couple of years older than most and thus able to buy alcohol for all………..
March 12th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
The Saigon Palace was a small bar on 5th with a stage in the back…ait had been the Zebra Club in the very early 80s. The California Theater was boarded up not long after that Cramps show. The last I saw, it was still there, signage and all …the sign was painted over in white, though, …someone’s idea of making the place invisible and less of an eyesore I suppose.
March 12th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
A few notes: That International Blend flyer is great! A perfect snapshot of the summer of ‘82. I was dating Missy Showalter then (come to think of it, she had also dated Dean and Bart). The Crawdaddys, the Hedgehogs (my band with Carl Rusk, Ron Silva and Paul Carsola) plus the Scan, and a great Battle of the DJs night! Anyone remember that flyer that Peter English made on which he called himself “Rankin’ Pete”?
Some younger people imagine the eighties as one big Ferris Bueller parade, but there was a real dark, violent undercurrent that is rarely talked about. I saw some horribly brutal attacks on friends of mine, many of them racist or homophobic in nature. There was always animosity between different groups (in Spain sociologists refer to them as tribos urbanos). A mod was hospitalized after an attack outside of Dean’s house, punks beat the late Steve Foth really severely behind the Adams Avenue Theater at a Crawdaddys/Battalion of Saints fiasco, and many others were badly hurt, including James Harrell and Murphy (who used to hang out with the Tell-Tale Hearts and Morlocks). Those of us who are in our mid-forties recall having to run from drunken frat boy/surfer/cowboy types who wanted to kill us because our hair was too long or too short, etc. . .I have to chuckle to myself when I pass a Hot Topic at the mall . . .
March 13th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
James Harrell and I were talking about that time that Steve F and Jim Becker were beat up outside of Deans house. In fact between Ski beach, presidio there was much violence. Even with the Rockabilly crowd later that hung out at the later bodies. Dean and I talked about this undercurrent of san diego related violence and that is one of the bad memories of SD as he and so many who left were left with.
I don’t see it now, yet there is this weird P.B. effect over North Park, as the rents are now so high in the beach areas that the jockular/frat boy types/my wave get off of it types tend to hang out in North Park on the cheap. Drat. James noticed this, as he had just moved back to SD after 20 years in Seattle.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Wow I did’nt expect to open an old wound regarding inter-subculture violence. I do remember some rather enlightened people that moved between various scenes. Tony Suarez’s brother Paul, a confirmed Rockabilly, was known to attend the occasional Mod show and physically defend the Mods from overly aggresive punks …………
March 14th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I’d like to share a little Peter English lore: His real name is Peter Verbrugge.
He moved to San Diego in 1979 from London, where he’d been a mobile DJ.
Fortunately for San Diego, he brought his Stranglers, Damned and Jamaican dub records with him!
I met him at the Skeleton Club, where Pete was the house DJ. I was 14 & a bit of a novelty as the youngest guy at those shows. Pete took me under his wing, letting me carry his records in exchange for free admission and an honored spot standing (pogoing!) in the slapped together elevated wooden box that served as a DJ booth.
He introduced me to his younger sister, Elaine, who was 15 or 16, and going for the X-Ray Spex look- tight day-glo spandex with her hair bleached & dyed with patches of bright pink. Not one other person in San Diego looked like that. I worshipped her & she taught me how to both french kiss and french inhale.
Peter ended up getting a job at my parents little Middle Eastern sandwich shop by SDSU, where he worked right through his early days promoting shows with Tim & Bob. He never treated me like a kid. He shared with me his music and his infectious enthusiasm for it. He also beat the shit out of the drums quite enthusiastically and played in bands with some of the Boys Club crowd. But that’s another story. Peter now lives in Seattle, still promotes events, and is an avid bicyclist.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Thanks for the background material and anecdotes, David. I worked part-time for someone in the entertainment field in San Francisco nearly ten years ago–it doesn’t seem so long! Well, in the course of the band-booking process, vis-a-vis Superdiamond or one of the others in the stable (to play in Seattle), who should I end up speaking with on the phone but Peter English?
March 14th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
In those days, EVERYONE did a Peter English imitation, and every one of them was horrific. Peter was a gentleman of the finest sort. At one point, Aesop’s Tables boasted a fine stable of San Diego’s finest, including David Klowden, Mike Stax, Peter English and some of the funniest and most charming undocumented immigrants from all corners of the world, including Al, who taught me that “the man’s name Bill” is the Farsi word for shovel, and that “the girl’s name Jill” means elephant. Mike, of course, eventually moved next door to College Copy, where we were all introduced to John Hanratti and Ted Friedman. How many gig flyers were printed there on the stock colors “re-entry red,” etc.?
March 17th, 2008 at 1:50 am
Does anyone know who owned and operated the International Blend before Pete English took over and changed the name to the King’s Road Cafe? I know that when Pete ran it, it was strictly a venue…but before then I think it was a coffee house during the daytime, and I think they also served food. I vaugely remember the guy who booked bands then…it wasnt Pete. Pete was a cool guy. I think he really HATED the Rockin’ Dogs, but booked us anyway…haha.
March 19th, 2008 at 12:14 am
I just thought I would jump in with some additional comments about Peter “English” Verbrugge. I moved to Seattle in Jan. of 1989, and Peter came up as some sort of road manager for a Hoods tour a couple of years later. I think anyone associated with that tour took several years off of the lives of their livers, with most of the band camped out on the living room floor of my one bedroom apartment. Peter really liked the Seattle area, and moved up soon after. He decamped to Portland with his mom, and Elaine for a period of time. He then returned to Seattle, at which time he and I became roomates, and remained so for about 5 years, until I got married. Peter has always been the king of promotion. He can take any event, and turn it into an EVENT! Look at Pink Panther evenings, when people would wait in line for an hour to get into that great little dive bar. Peter booked shows at The Crocodile Cafe during it’s heyday in Seattle. Like the flier that Dean posted shows, Peter has diverse tastes, that creates excitement. I felt the club in Seattle never recovered from his departure. He left music promotion when it began to take a toll on his health, and as Dave K. stated, became an avid cyclist. Now instead of promoting music, he does event promotions for one of the largest cycling clubs in the country. He is still one of the funniest, lively, and entertaining guys I have ever met. I sent him a link to this blog, so maybe we will hear from him in this forum.
March 19th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Yes. The pink panther was the logical path for many of us in san diego after the end of the international blend, headquarters and easy to put on shows.
I learned the love of the nut brown ale through the copious amounts of Watneys i consumed under Pete’s patronage. It was definitely wild. Pete was the first one to let my bands play at a club (int. blend) and I was always surprise to find out that he wasn’t that much older than us. He was
just, worldly. To this wide-eyed suburbanite, he shared alot of his knowledge and gifts. He had a knack for the promotion and making everyone feel at ease.
I remember that Benefit (nazi punks f-off) at the pInk Panther, for the guy who was beaten to a pulp out from of the PinK panther. THe shirts depicted Pete in a Uncle Sam motive that so summed him up. I think this was the summer of 88? James, you might remember.
I gotta give a big thumbs up to James for his Corned Beef and Soda Bread cooking from this Saturday. James had all the fixing, and family and friends came over for a good time.
To all you San Diegans, james is living in san diego and we’re all the happier.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Toby Lifehater has another nice resource — a Flickr gallery with shots of Social Distortion playing King’s Road as well as some other great old punk scenery. (Is anyone here in touch with Dave Sharp from Personal Conflict? I liked him very much!)
March 20th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
These photos of Toby’s are great…the photos of Social Distortion are by Allen Clark, who’s been posting here ( and who also tooks some Rockin’ Dogs photos when our drummer was the guy on the left in THIS photo…Scott Slob (also known occasionally as Scott Nichols). Toby himself is in this shot on the far right, next to Jason Seibert (another Poway punk).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobygibson/2314254294/
March 20th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Lessseee. Brent died in a fight about 6 months after this. Those creepers he has on were on “display” in a friend’s (Elaine?) room for a couple of years.
He went out with Stacy Swapp at that time – doesn’t look like her here. Stacy was an object of unrequited affection for Paul Allen, at the time I met him. I still recall the vivid description he made of what his heart felt like. Stacy’s sister Laura was Sergio’s girlfriend, somewhat later on.
I could map all of this with Chrissy Smith, Elaine, Paul, Brent, Sergio, Stacey, Cathy “q”, Laura, myself, etc. But I think I won’t.
March 20th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
What’s funny about this pic is that Scott appears to be wearing one of my uniform shirts from my dad’s Exxon station where I worked during that time. He used to take them out of the back seat of my car and was always wearing them.
The girl’s name is Leslie…she later grew her curly red hair really long and looked like Ivy from the Cramps. She lived in a cottage apartment in El Cajon that a lot of people hung out at. I think I mentioned that place in another thread.
Jeremiah…did you know that Stacy Swap married Sam? They live in Kansas and have three kids.
Here’s Jason Seibert nowadays…he looks just the same!
http://www.rachaelraymag.com/travel-tips/get-lost-in-san-diego/article.html
March 20th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Same Jason! He was up here in SF at the Culinary Academy.
Leslie. I knew her. Did guest DJ spots on her late-night show at KCR.
Matthew mentioned to me that Stacy and Sam were married. The circle is drawn closer.
March 20th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I knew Elaine. She had very long hair…like down to her waist. She was from La Mesa.
March 20th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Jeremiah: Didn’t Jason live at Central House in San Francisco for a while?
I didn’t know Brent, but Toby’s forum features a chilling eyewitness account of his death. The San Diego underground could be a scary place at times.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Yup. He was at the Academy at that time.
The fights – especially when cops were involved – always teetered on the edge of this…
March 21st, 2008 at 12:56 am
To Scott’s credit, he didn’t come up with the nickname Scott Slob himself. Originally, someone (I think it was Scott Harber) started referring to him as Scott Lop… eventually that mutated into Scott Slob.
March 22nd, 2008 at 9:55 pm
We should probably start a thread on the mayhem and violence associated with the San Diego music scene — as Jeremiah says, the cops exacerbated matters, but the kids also did a pretty good number on each other.
The peripatetic Toby Gibson contributed this brief memoir to a page of Black Flag memories and recollections:
“In 1983 the San Diego punk scene had gotten a reputation as being senselessly violent, edgy, and unpredictable. The only venues at the time were Fairmount Hall and the Lyons Club, both in North Park and alternately off limits as punk venues. There was the Kings Road and Adams Avenue, maybe Wabash Hall and occasionally the Boys Club, but for the most part there weren’t a lot of halls because we tore them all down and ran out of legitimate people to front the shows.
“At any rate, I remember The summer of 81 or 82 as a big summer for shows with the scene in San Diego just becoming a thing. The Skeleton Club and the Fonos were gone, but the residual bad boys were still floating around as SDSH. A couple of weeks prior, Arturo and Chui from SDSH had dragged some of TSOL off of the stage at the Fairmount and worked them over for some imagined or fabricated slight. There were rumors of carloads of LA and OC punks coming down to even things up because of that. It never happened.
“What did happen was that Black Flag came down and played the Fairmount, and I think maybe it was Terry Marine that tried to pull that same stunt by yanking Henry off of the stage, only Henry just kind of dove down and took him right up on it. I think Terry hung in there for a while, but then kind of lost his taste for it. Art and Chui were right there, but somehow Henry ended up looking pretty good. A lot of guys back then ended up looking pretty bad, but Henry Rollins is one of the few guys that just took that really violent thing we had going and threw it right back in everyones faces.”
Meeeeeemories …
March 23rd, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I am such the purveyor of misinformation. But to my credit I was just a kid and interpreted things through my own frame of reference. Well- and I was drunk or on some sort of psychotropic substance most of the time.
I have been told since I wrote that it was actually Tony Chuko (Tony Chiko?) that made the mistake of fighting Henry.
I have 100,000+ words towards a novel that evolved into a bit of fiction, though it is strung together from short stories and based on my own personal observations as a 15 year old kid in the punk scene in San Diego in 1982. One person who figures largely in parts of that story is Bid Walker, who became a good friend of mine for a time through another close friend, Ted O’shea. That doesn’t sound like Bid in the story above- the one where the mod guy got sucker punched- but who knows.
It was a very crazy time, we were adolescents raised on daytime television. Some of the guys out there who did bad things were raised by parents who treated them as bad or worse. On top of that there was a certain amount of adolescent neuropathy taking hold at around 18, and beyond that drugs and alcohol adding fuel to the fire. I’m not making excuses for the bad things myself and others did. I guess I’m just saying that sometimes there’s more to the picture than everyone gets to see from their particular vantage point.
Oddly enough, I think of P.B. and M.B. as mean little towns where it was extremely easy to get jumped for no reason at all. North Park, Golden Hills, I.B., O.B. and El Cajon all were pretty crappy too for that kind of stuff. It took me a few years up in Encinitas and then a few more abroad to realize that all cops weren’t there to hurt me, and that there are some decent people out there with no ulterior motives at all. I now have to wonder if it wasn’t the town at all but actually me? I still am a total psycho magnet.
Of course I was a bit of a jerk myself back then- easily injured and I only knew one way to push back. If there is anyone reading this that I did something horrific to, I apologize (and I don’t have that much of an excuse- my parents were total hippies). Lucky for me there aren’t that many atrocities in my past, but I found myself on the wrong side a few times, and when I was drunk I was a complete idiot.
I also have a story I’m working on right now called “Even Bad Guys Love their Dogs” which relates really well to my whole inane diatribe.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Me, Dave Dick and a handfull of other creeps were lucky enough to slide past the violence and drink both the mods beer and bum smokes from the punks. Fuck, while all my friends were getting skull tattoos, I got a smilly face tattooed on my hand.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I also managed to stay on everybody’s good side, as I recall. Our thang was just so weird, I figure all the hard cases were basically amused/bemused by us. I saw some hella rough scenes, but I never felt physically threatened myself.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I never had a scary skull tattoo. I had a comical skull tattoo that was intended to be scary. Jason was the first to tell me that the tattoo on my left bicep was more like E.T. crossed with a light bulb with eyes.
I should have gone with the smiley face. I just was not man enough for the smiley.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:58 am
Well okay- and some that somebody said looked like lumpy bowling balls behind barbed wire. And the sword with the inscription that made less than savvy people ask me, “Who is ‘plink’ and why is he not dead?”
Unfortunate tattoos are…. well- unfortunate. Thank god for cover work.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I, for one, am glad to hear that plink’s not dead.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I covered up in 1990, actually. I began operating under the suspicion that plink actually was dead, and they were just holding the corpse up and shaking it around.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
They should make a movie about that ….Weekend at Plink’s.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I believe the skinhead Bid referred to above would be Steve Bid. Not sure where he was from, but I saw him in M.B and O.B. often in the early 80’s. He would be with Mike Woods or Little Wally. I think he had a girlfriend named Beth for a long time. They had an apartment next to the Jack-In-The-Box right as you go into South Mission. His skin was really pocked-up. Too much speed? I think we all did too much speed in the 80’s. Bid gave me a black eye the night before my 21st birthday at a GBH show at Wabash Hall in 1985. I think I looked at Tim Brown for too long, then Chuy grabbed me, then Bid was telling me to leave. I was pretty drunk myself so I’m not sure what happened. I knew all these guys, that’s just the way it was. I moved to Hollywood in ‘86 so I stopped going to shows regularly in SD for a few years. It seemed to me that the jocks really took over at this time anyhow, and the violence that was always prevalent in the scene just escalated beyond measure.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
What became of Dave Hinge and his running partner … Scott?
March 26th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Yeah- that’s Bid for sure. No doubt. He was from MB. I think the first time I saw him was on the first day of (my) seventh grade at PBJH, when he cornered the biggest guy in school (probably a good head taller than him) and reduced him to rubble.
We became friends much later.
He never was very tactful when it came to negotiation. But he was really relaible to have your back when the shit hit the fan.
And yeah- I agree- that pretty much was just the way it was.
March 26th, 2008 at 2:14 am
Dave Hinge messed up on his dosages. RIP- he was a funny guy.
Scott? Are you referring to a big mohawked guy named Robert, per chance?
March 26th, 2008 at 2:24 am
Not to totally out the guy, but I can’t help it. I was totally stoked to get back in contact with Robert and to find out he was alive and well and happy and healthy and productive and all of that ridiculous shit.
http://www.myspace.com/fishingtheworld
April 18th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Toby: That’s awesome — have you invited him in here? I don’t know if I remember him … certainly not in that hat!
April 26th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
That’s Robert in the Skull Shirt (What is that- Battalion of Saints? Discharge? I think I had that same shirt.) standing with the Mohawk.
April 26th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Why will my post not appear?!!!
April 26th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Ah- there.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93373783@N00/191729917
Robert is in the white Discharge shirt with the mohawk- between Dan Mehlos and Sherri FRedriks.
April 26th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Shit.
Anyhow- he’s in a picture of Marc Rude at Harold Gee’s flickr. He has a mohawk and a discharge shirt.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Memory boost, please: Remind me about who was in the Executives … Dave Sharp, and David(?) Goldsmith … Goldsmith and I actually knew each other back in junior high — his dad owned the Old Time Cafe, that bluegrass club in Leucadia. It’s bugging the hell out of me that I can’t remember his first name! (You don’t use those synapses for 25 years, they kinda freeze up.)
May 8th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Here are a few more pictures of the Injections.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:34 am
i suppose one of the more distressing aspects of the 21st century is the pressing need the offspring of california’s upper middle class feel to self mythologize their youth. i was there too and while i enjoyed hair theatre and the morlocks in a real way, it was nevertheless obvious that the majority of the so-called scene were just a bunch of punks, by punks of course i mean punk, bitch, lame. the spoiled offspring of doctors and such spending your parents money and ending up as nothing more than style with no substance. get over yourselves.
June 24th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Istvan: OK, I’ll bite … What’s especially 21st century (or distressing) about self-mythologizing? It seems like a common human experience to create narratives with yourself in the role of protagonist. Where else are you going to cast yourself, after all?
I’m also unsure what socioeconomics have to do with appreciating the music and the aesthetic of the bands who played at that time. We could get down to brass tacks about whose family had less money and who had more — I’m comfortable putting myself into the latter category, although probably nowhere near the top of the scale. Some of the kids were wealthy, some most definitely weren’t … Using family income as a yardstick to measure “authenticity” doesn’t interest me much, although I readily admit that may be the prerogative of the more fortunate.
You’re only allotted one youth, and we’re choosing to compare notes on ours here. Your point is … ?
June 24th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
The funny thing is that in this particular batch of comments The Morlocks and Hair Theatre are barely mentioned. Apparently someone has a little resentment. What’s the matter Istvan- never got invited to the after party?
Matthew has put this blog together to try and piece together a fairly complete history of San Diego’s underground music scene circa 1980 and thereabouts. Mostly what’s written on here are people’s personal recollections of stuff they did when they were kids. The common thread is that most everyone was involved in the underground music scene in San Diego at the time. The band I was in was pretty middle class- 3 members had two parents home and I had one. My family was probably the most broke, so I guess that made me the most punk! Har! Our band was one of the more fucked up, out of control bands of the time. We weren’t there to play pretty music- we wanted to start a riot. We mostly chased girls, fought jocks and rednecks, got arrested a lot and drank and did a lot of drugs. Between us and our closest friends the challenge was usually who would do the craziest, most unpredictable shit. Even so, I knew and hung out with people from many of the bands mentioned on the Che blogroll. At the time I didn’t know what bands they were in- I was just running around with a bunch of teenagers. Of the people I knew I found them to be all over the map, but generally pretty intelligent and less prone to breaking and throwing things than we were. It takes all kinds.
One whole common thread amongst punks at that time was that it didn’t matter where you were from- nobody cared. It was what you were doing right then. I knew some pretty degenerate kids from La Jolla. Money didn’t make them any different than me. Wealthy people get addicted to heroin, participate in crime, get cancer- money doesn’t make you immune to anything.
If I didn’t like someone it was usually because they were an asshole- I didn’t have to look at their bankbook to figure out they were an asshole.
If you take the time to read some of the comments on various topics here, I think you’ll find that the people here are from a variety of economic demographics and that you’re the only one who seems to be hung up on the money issue.
June 24th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
The “Hyphenates” thread provoked some terrific autobiographical writing and challenged my assumptions more than once. It’s a great place to get schooled if you’re so inclined.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Relative to the first and second comments here,I was also in the “punkmobile” as bruce called it the night of that social spit gig and i was in it again on the trip to LA that Flem mentioned.weird.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Dave Ellison and myself ended up going to LA in about 1980 to see one of the nights of URGH-A Music War. We went w/ Bruce and a girl named Cyndi? and another girl I can’t think of. Well Dave and I were 14 and I remember stopping in Oceanside for a couple of quarts of Colt 45 which I drank a and put back onto the outside of the punkmobile.
The thing had paint poured all over it and folks were looking at the car watching me puke and laughing. Beautiful memory.
I knew Bruce as we were in the early stages of Social Spit. Brad English somehow folded us together as he had his eyes on a girl from Poway at the time and that’s where Dave and I lived.
So we drive to LA and the show is basically over. We head over to a party somewhere in LA and it ends up being lame. So we are about to leave and get gas and at the gas station and very drunk cowboy type starts in on Bruce and Bruce just throws a hard 1st punch and down goes the cowboy.
We left immediately.
Down the road the rear axle or something major failed and Bruce’s foster mom drives up to about Pendleton and takes us all home.
It was a nice breakthrough as my stepdad was getting ready for work at 6am and here comes his 14yr old rolling in. It was then I knew that there would really not be too many boundaries.
I don’t know if the “punkmobile” was resuscitated after that. I kind of doubt it.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Hahaha, I love it! You guys have really made my day. “Back in the day” we were jolly green giants walking the earth .
The punkmobile got plenty of attention, both good and bad. I just left the poor beast on the side of the I-405 South when the axle fell off on the way home from the Urgh! show. I drove it for nearly a year but I don’t think I ever registered it into my name.
I thought for sure that drunken cowboy was gonna kick my ass (thanks for the moral support Scott and Brad ;]). We split from there in a flash as soon as the hicks jumped in their pick-up truck to get reinforcements.
For anyone reading this that didn’t have the privilege of being in the fledgling S.D. scene: it’s all true… the skeleton club, the macing at the blind center, the wrench in the pocket, the underage drinking (generic blue label beer). Ah yes, the insanity.
Peter “English” Verbrugge is my hero. He put together so many great shows and always treated the people around him as a true gentleman would. He was cool even after I burned him by quitting the Denny’s busboy job that he went out on a limb to get for me.
So is John “Testical-head” Toner. I kissed her John, but I didn’t know she was your girlfriend.
Scott, Dave, Squirrel- you rock boys. The world owes Social Spit a debt of gratitude.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Here is an excellent article by Jay Allen Sanford on another local character I used to see walking around town, Gary Wilson.
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/dec/22/return-of-a-local-cult-hero-gary-wilson/
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:26 am
“Toby Gibson Says:
April 26th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Ah- there.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93373783@N00/191729917
Robert is in the white Discharge shirt with the mohawk- between Dan Mehlos and Sherri FRedriks.”
Shari Frederick..she is now Shari Farwell
I was at that show..you can see the back of my head right behind Shari..talking to someone
thanks for posting that picture Toby
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Toby,
Where is Shari these days?
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
“P Gargoyle Says:
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Toby,
Where is Shari these days?”
I’m not Toby.
but I am Shari’s brother
Shari is still in San Diego
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
oh..and I can name 3 of the unamed people in that photo
right over George’s right shoulder is a guy named Steve Tausan,behind him along the wall is a guy named Bob Kantin thats me talking to him
the next full figure behind Shari is a friend of mine named Bob Schroeder…all those people were from Milwaukee
more or less their first intruductions to the San Diego scene
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
>>all those people were from Milwaukee
MadMike: No kidding?? I arrived in SD with my family after a two-year academic posting in Milwaukee. I loved that town and went back often to see friends (some of whom I’m still close with). I had no idea we had other Milwaukee expats in our midst!
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I’m not too far from Milwaukee as I type Matt…
I always said it was a great place to be from…lol
I moved to San Diego in 79 from Milwaukee
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:22 pm
“Dave Ellison Says:
February 26th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Be sure to read the entire Injections history, including the part at the end that tells what became of the article’s author, Jim Woods (There’s a photo of Jim on Harold Gee’s flickr page).”
Dave, what did become of Jim Woods?
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Tell Shari that Joanne Injection says ” hi”, please.
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:41 pm
“P Gargoyle Says:
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Tell Shari that Joanne Injection says ” hi”, please.”
hello Joanne,
next time I talk to her I will, I will also try to direct her to this site.
hope life has been treating you well
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:45 pm
>>I moved to San Diego in 79 from Milwaukee
Too cool! I lived on the west side of town for two years, first on Downer, then Murray. Went to Hartford Avenue Elementary for fifth and sixth grades. Actually, that’s where I met Jason Brownell — who provides a lot of behind-the-scenes support to this this bog and played with me in the Amazons in SF.
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
aww thanks.. You too !! Where are you??
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
I’m back in Wisconsin
house, kids, wife…life is good
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Matt
we lived pretty close to the “state fair grounds” in West Allis
back then
I was 15 in 79
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I was 14 in ‘79. (Moved to Encinitas in ‘76.) One of my very good friends lived right next to that huge military cemetery in West Allis.
When I went back to visit in ‘81, I got to see the Violent Femmes before the Pretenders discovered them the next month. Tiny club, smokin’ set … Total Beatles-at-the-Cavern moment.
Gotta get back to Milwaukee for a visit!! It’s been … God, it’s been a LONG TIME.
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Excellent. Great to hear. How is your mom?
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Lolly..my mother is doing great..she is still in San Diego as well.
off of “C” street
hey Matt, if you ever do come back to Milwaukee..let me know
It’d be nice to meet you
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I really dont know any other people who’s mothers used to go to the shows
but my mom did
February 22nd, 2009 at 6:55 pm
That is right in my neck of the woods ! She sure did
February 24th, 2009 at 11:02 am
there are pictures posted here where you can see my mom on stage while Shari is playing
she used to go to some of the Saints shows as well
October 9th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Joanne Norris, Cliff Cunningham, summer 1983:
October 9th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Twin Dodge Colts??