GIVING OUT TURKEYS AND THANKS

Today is the perfect day to dissect the Orange County pop music scene, serving up Turkey Awards to those people and events that left us culturally undernourished and offering just desserts to those who left us satisfied and enriched.

First, here are this year’s Turkey Awards:

- To Chuck Berry, for the scant two-song set he reluctantly performed during an Oct. 25 Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre concert purportedly saluting him on his 30th anniversary in music. Charge the Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll with child neglect.

- To Willie Nelson, one of country music’s most gifted singers and songwriters, for his thoroughly uninspired performance Oct. 20 at the Pacific Amphitheatre. Is there anyone, anywhere who really needs to hear “Whiskey River” one more time?

- To Phil Collins, rock ‘n’ roll’s best-loved nice guy since Ringo Starr, for a June 2 Irvine Meadows concert filled with suffocatingly repetitive pop songs that weren’t nearly as entertaining as his banter with fans between songs. Advice: Talk more, sing less.

- For lackluster shows at both amphitheaters from Alabama, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Firm, Power Station and Robert Plant, making at least one member of their audiences wish he’d stayed home and watched “Dynasty” . . . or the stock market report.

- To Orange Countians who objected to AC/DC’s Oct. 21 concert at the Pacific Amphitheatre--which was subsequently canceled--because suspects in the Night Stalker murders and another murder in Villa Park wore AC/DC caps or T-shirts. Would they also boycott Levi Strauss or Fruit-of-the-Loom if a criminal wore their products?

- To TransWorld Concerts, the “organizers” of the canceled Duran Duran-Culture Club concert that was to have been held next month at Anaheim Stadium and beamed around the world via satellite broadcast. The little-known promoter hadn’t even signed a contract for use of the stadium before announcing the event to the world at a New York press conference.

- For the measly turnout at the Orange County Artists for World Hunger concert June 8 at Irvine Meadows. The all-day event provided an opportunity to sample the range of Orange County talent, but the invitation was accepted by only a few hundred local music supporters.

- To Orange County rock radio, such as it is. KEZY-AM and KWVE-FM traded their rock formats for religious programming, leaving KEZY-FM the county’s only commercial rock station. As KEZY-FM ignores local music, Orange County acts must turn to non-commercial college stations or Los Angeles stations for what little radio exposure they get.

- To rowdy fans who forced the closing of Spangler’s Cafe, that adventurous experiment in nightclubbing in Anaheim. Club-goers took the free-wheeling atmosphere too far, and finally became too much for the easy-going club owners.

- To the Anaheim City Council for denying the renewal of an entertainment permit at Flashdance, one of the few outlets in Orange County for such hard-core acts as Social Distortion and Tex & the Horseheads. Another victory for civic expediency over freedom of speech?

- To the arsonist who set the fire that destroyed Radio City in Anaheim, the only Orange County club regularly booking hard rock and heavy metal bands.

- To the clubs that didn’t book some of the exciting and/or important newer acts that did play in Los Angeles, such as the Bobbs, Jane Siberry, Dwight Yoakam, Nick Cave, the Roches and Jason & the Scorchers, among others.

- To American record labels that can find no room on their rosters for Orange County groups as spirited as the James Harman Band, the Wild Cards and the Gyromatics. While signing seemingly every techno-pop musician strolling the streets of England, American record companies ignore contemporary performers whose music is rooted in such seminal American styles as the blues, R&B;, early rock and jump blues.

- To “Legends in Concert,” the summer production at Knott’s Berry Farm billed as a tribute to Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Buddy Holly, Marilyn Monroe and Janis Joplin. Instead, the revue was nothing more than a lifeless (no pun intended) parade of caricatures.

- To the Orange County Fair, for not devoting even one show on its 10-day summer entertainment schedule to musical acts a little more contemporary than Three Dog Night, the Mamas & the Papas, the Association and other faded ‘60s and ‘70s rock acts.

On a more positive note, there are plenty of reasons Orange County pop fans should be grateful today. So . . .

Thanks:

- To Irvine Meadows and Pacific amphitheaters for nearly 100 concerts with major pop, rock, jazz and country performers in a long season that began in March and ended last Saturday. Fans were treated to the good and taxed by the bad, but from John Denver to X and Perry Como to Iron Maiden, Orange County hosted a good sampling of contemporary pop music.

- To Tina Turner, whose dynamic and compelling show Oct. 5 at Irvine Meadows proved that pop music longevity doesn’t necessarily breed boredom. (Willie Nelson, are you listening?)

- For inspiring concerts this year by Sting, Randy Newman, the Meat Puppets, Lone Justice, Midnight Oil, Chip & Tony Kinman of Rank and File, Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, Leo Kottke, Joan Armatrading, John Anderson, David Grisman, John Hiatt and John Lee Hooker.

- To three Orange County acts that finally set foot on the amphitheaters’ stages as opening acts, something that amphitheater officials have been promising for years. It’s a qualified victory, however, since in each case, the performers--Bill Medley, Zot and Abecederians--were selected by their record labels or management, not theater operators.

- To the Newport Harbor Art Museum, for its ambitious and wide-ranging Contemporary Culture Series of music, art and performance. Series organizer Tom Heller has imported innovative and experimental musicians from throughout the country, with occasionally stunning results such as October’s concert by New York’s Microscopic Septet.

- To Safari Sam’s in Huntington Beach, for picking up where Spangler’s Cafe left off and managing to keep its patrons under control. The club has showcased hundreds of local performers, as well as numerous critically acclaimed groups from outside Orange County such as the Meat Puppets, the Minutemen, Rank And File, Chris D. & the Divine Horsemen and others. The management’s eclectic booking policy of music, poetry and performance is typified in the staging on Saturday of an original opera by Domes, a self-described “Theater of the Contrary” company.

- To the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach for remaining active despite financial problems that forced the club’s owners to seek protection and reorganization under federal bankruptcy laws. In recent weeks the club’s bookings of veteran folk, pop, jazz and rock acts have been supplemented by an increasing number of lesser-known but worthy local groups.

- To the San Juan Creek Saloon, formerly the Coach House, in its attempt in recent weeks to bring concert activity back to south Orange County. Working with various promoters, the San Juan Capistrano club has already offered such mainstream rock and folk acts as the ubiquitous Dave Mason, the seldom-seen J.D. Souther and Leon Russell, as well as local punk bands including the Vandals and Plain Wrap.

- To the Orange Coast College Jazz Festival, which still survives despite seemingly overwhelming financial odds to showcase top jazz performers along with a host of new talent from high schools and colleges throughout the West. Next year’s festival is scheduled to be headlined by the Woody Herman Orchestra, honoring Herman’s 50th anniversary in music and the Thad Jones-led Count Basie Orchestra.

- To James Intveld, one of the most promising and charismatic performers to emerge from the county in years, who returned to local stages recently after spending most of 1984 and early ’85 developing a budding acting career.

- To the Zentones, El Grupo Sexo and Memories of Days Gone By, part of a new breed of local groups bringing a welcome sense of humor to the local music scene.

- To original music in Orange County, which continues to exist without a thriving club scene, strong support from local fans or radio.