I Married a Rock Star
I first met Matthew Rothenberg in 1989 when I was living in San Francisco, at the legendary Nikki’s BBQ on lower Haight street. He was a transplant — like myself and most everyone knew there — from some other place.
In the following years — getting to know him — I heard a lot about the music scene he left behind in San Diego in the early ’80s. I knew he had formed and played in several bands. I was amazed at what seemed like a lifetime of stories he would tell about a scene that lasted two years at the max.
Matthew often played the guitar and sang in that casual way people do when they live close. But I hadn’t heard him play in a more professional performance, until years after our first meeting, at a party his parents threw for us to celebrate our recent marriage.The party was in the beautiful garden of their San Diego home. Matthew reconnected with the band that dissolved when he left to live in San Francisco — Three Guys Called Jesus.
I remember it well, and always will. It was the moment I realized I married a rock star.
Years have gone by, and bands have come and gone. Life gets busy; kids, house, work. Living in the New York area has taken Matthew further away from the family of friends he had in California. So I was pleased to see him start a blog a few years ago; “The Che Underground”, to reconnect with this part of his life.
Listen: Here's a blast from the past - Matthew's band's The HoHo's desktop video of Infinite Prague circa 1994!
I asked him a few questions about revisiting these old ghosts:
What’s the big idea behind your new blog?
I started it in early 2008 as a way for a small group of musicians I’d played with in San Diego in 1983 and 1984 to share music, pictures, flyers and stories.
Where does the name The Che Underground come from?
I retroactively named our old scene and new blog “The Che Underground” in honor of the Che Cafe at the University of California, San Diego, where we played many of our best shows.
What’s the reception been?
We found people who hadn’t seen each other, much less played together, in 25 years … Then more people started finding us on the Web. Now, we’ve located practically everybody we knew from those days, we’ve attracted San Diego musicians from other scenes, and we’re pulling in 7,000 or 8,000 visitors a month.
Do you see this project taking shapes you hadn’t originally planned?
I thought this was just going to be an online reunion, but it actually inspired a real-world get-together! In late May, we put together a two-night performance event at San Diego’s Casbah club that reunited eight of these bands and brought musicians and fans from all over the country and as far away as Nairobi.
People really seem to like the idea of social networking as an opportunity to revisit social history. We got coverage on Wired.com and all over the San Diego press. And we’re seeing correspondence from other fans, old and new, all around the world.
Seems like this could translate into other “scenes”…
In fact, I’m working now on a new project that extends social-networking concepts to other rock-’n'-roll scenes, wherever they sprang up; I hope to make the magic we’ve experienced available to anyone who ever felt part of a musical scene, past or present.
Swoon!
