A TIME FOR ’86 TURKEYS--AND A TIME FOR THANKS

When 1986 began, much of the moaning about Orange County’s pop music scene centered on the perennial lack of a mid-size concert hall like the Palace or the Palladium in Los Angeles.

Such a mid-size facility would fill the large gap between small clubs and the county’s two giant outdoor amphitheaters.

In retrospect, those were the good old days. An astonishing number of pop music clubs closed this year--most notably Safari Sam’s and the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach--leaving fewer forums for local music than ever.

Despite all the hoopla over the opening in September of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the county’s own culture is being born--and bred--in such places as Safari Sam’s.

Without small clubs--warts and all--new music has nowhere to start, and county audiences have no choices other than popular mainstream acts imported into the large-scale facilities. Yet those clubs have been as warmly received as new prisons: everyone wants them, just not in their neighborhood.

So with that in mind, and with Thanksgiving Day upon us, it’s time again to distribute Turkey Awards to those whose efforts helped stifle music locally and to give thanks to the people and events that survived against formidable odds.

First, the 1986 Turkey Awards:

- To Huntington Beach city officials, who could find no more creative response to problems caused at Safari Sam’s by a few troublemakers than to shut it down for the majority of the club’s well-behaved patrons. The death of Safari Sam’s ends an exhilarating and rare adventure in new music, theater and poetry, one where artistic creativity and experimentation was placed above profitability. An extra helping of stale stuffing to the city for allowing the historic Golden Bear to be demolished despite outcries from the public and local historians who had hoped to preserve what was a significant part of Orange County music history.

- To Anaheim City Council members, for their refusal to allow Radio City to reopen after it was destroyed by fire in 1985. Hard rock and heavy metal bands now have no clubs for their music and only sporadic opportunities to perform in Orange County.

- To the Newport Harbor Art Museum, for firing associate curator Tom Heller and emasculating the challenging Contemporary Culture series Heller had brought to the county in art, music and performance offerings. Varied programs featured videos by Graeme Whifler, new wave jazz by the Microscopic Septet, the quirky pop of the Fibonaccis, the rock guitar orchestra of Glenn Branca and the photographic-musical collaborations of composer Ingram Marshall and photographer Jim Bengston, among many others. (One sign that the series may be revived came earlier this month with the collaborative video-music piece “Veto” performed by composer Charles Amirkhanian and visual artist Carol Law.)

- To local music fans, who largely ignored a fabulous talent lineup at Saddleback College in March at a memorial concert for slain student Robbin Brandley. Rather than generate enough funds to start a memorial scholarship, the event lost money because of the poor turnout. Those who didn’t show missed enthralling performances by the Rave Ups, the Wild Cards, Fishbone and a half dozen other acts.

- Publishers of “The Punk Rock and Heavy Metal Handbook.” Despite good intentions of the Orange-based Back in Control Training Center to help parents, teachers, police and others deal with problem adolescents, their 30-page booklet leaves an overriding impression that any kid who listens to a punk or heavy metal record will turn into a satanic murderer. Instead of adding to all the anti-rock hysteria generated this year, what was needed was a reasoned voice to remind parents that a small percentage of youths have always developed behavioral problems and that the music they like or the clothes they wear is more a symptom than a cause of major psychological problems.

- To “Captain EO.” Disneyland’s new 3D-film-musical-space fantasy attraction was promoted as an event on a par with the Second Coming, but it arrived with all the punch of yesterday’s newspaper. This pale, Buck Rogers-learns-to-boogie adventure is the best that the combined talents of Michael Jackson, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, the Disney organization and $20 million could buy? A friend suggested that by dividing the cost of admission to the park ($19) by the number of rides and attractions (55), he figured that each ride costs an average of 35 cents. In his words, “Captain EO is worth 35 cents.”

- To Orange County rock radio, for simply mirroring formats of Los Angeles stations and perennially leaving the job of exposing records by local groups to college radio.

With the bad news out of the way, there have been several developments for which local music fans should give thanks today.

- To the Coach House. Emergence of the San Juan Capistrano club is the best news of the year. While providing a roost for most of the touring club acts left homeless by the closing of the Golden Bear, the Coach House has become almost everything one could ask for in a concert club, offering diverse programming, quality presentations and a congenial atmosphere. Club owner Gary Folgner and booking agent Ken Phebus deserve a special nod as true friends of local music, having donated the club for benefit concerts--including two for owners of Safari Sam’s--and replacing competition with cooperation.

- To Safari Sam’s owners Sam Lanni and Gil Fuhrer, for continuing their fight with the City of Huntington Beach and the state Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control over the principle that freedom of expression through music, theater and poetry is a right protected by the Constitution, not a privilege bestowed--or withheld--by governmental agencies.

- The Pacific and Irvine Meadows amphitheaters, for another season of major concerts, ranging from the Bob Dylan and Tom Petty tour to Manhattan Transfer and R.E.M. to Hank Williams Jr. (But can’t we persuade anyone to open up in December and bring the Peter Gabriel and John Fogerty tours to Orange County?)

- To operators of the Golden Bear, who have been struggling to resurrect their former club’s tradition at Kono Hawaii restaurant in Santa Ana. Local audiences can rest assured that Golden Bear stalwarts like Dave Mason and Cecilio & Kapono still have a forum in Orange County (just kidding . . . a little).

- To all efforts to keep original music alive. A number of facilities tried to fill the void left by defunct clubs, only to fold, draw the ire of local government officials and-or abandon original music. They included Goodies in Fullerton (future for local music: promising), Big John’s in Anaheim (future: iffy), Night Moves in Huntington Beach (future: iffy), the Sunset Pub in Sunset Beach (future: iffy), Joshua’s Parlour in Westminster (future: iffy), the Hot Spot in Huntington Beach (future: iffy), Kiss the Club in Newport Beach (future: iffy), the Meadowlark Country Club in Huntington Beach (future: iffy), Garfield’s in Huntington Beach (future: closed), Spatz in Huntington Harbour (future: closed). Must local bands be confined to cloning Top 40 hits in meat-market singles bars?

- To the Crazy Horse Steak House, for continuing to bring country music to Orange County. Although concerts are only a sidelight to the Crazy Horse’s restaurant business, it would be nice to see a few more exotic bookings (maybe Dwight Yoakam or the Rave Ups?) along with the tried-and-true offerings like Janie Fricke, Ray Price and B.J. Thomas.

- To the Orange Coast College Jazz Festival, which after years in tenuous financial straits achieved stability in 1986 with a combination of private and college-supplied revenues.

- To the Pacific Coast Jazz Festival, a new event that debuted in August with a sensibly modest yet solid lineup of traditional acoustic jazz acts.

- To Lorraine Prinsky and Jill Rosenbaum, the two Cal State Fullerton professors who polled hundreds of Orange County teen-agers to lend some empirical data to the controversy over what impact rock lyrics have on kids. The surprising answer was that most kids can’t accurately identify what their favorite songs are about because they are listening to the music and the beat, not the words. That’s good news for Ozzy Osbourne, bad news for Bob Dylan.

- To all the touring performers, whose Orange County stops made it possible to forget the frustrations, at least temporarily. Among the year’s highlights: Jonathan Richman, 10,000 Maniacs, Jerry Lee Lewis, Joe Ely, Emmylou Harris, Eurythmics, Neil Young, Steve Earle, Leo Kottke, Peter Case, David Lindley, Joan Armatrading, Lou Reed, Oingo Boingo, Steve Winwood, the Blasters, Lone Justice, X, Richard Thompson, Eric Burdon.

- The James Harman Band, for rebounding from last year’s departures of drummer Stephen Hodges (who has since returned to the fold) and guitarist Hollywood Fats (who joined the Blasters). While Hollywood Fats’ unique style will be missed, guitarist David (Kid) Ramos has risen to the challenge and shown impressive growth with the added responsibilities. After faltering briefly, the quartet has regained its place at the top of Orange County music.

- To T.S.O.L., for the stark power of this year’s “Revenge” album.

- To Children’s Day, for the highly promising debut LP “A Message to Pretty.”

- To Medicine Man, for its rousing, energetic debut record “ . . . ‘tween the Dark and the Moon.” This is the inspiring type of garage-bred rock ‘n’ roll that Neil Young championed on his recent “In a Rusted Out Garage” tour.

- To the rest of the local bands, who, even with the shrinking number of performance outlets, have helped Orange County build a respectable music community that includes such diverse talents as the Wild Cards, James Intveld, El Grupo Sexo, Social Distortion, the Gyromatics, Blue Trapeze, Agent Orange, Rumbletown, the Nick Pyzow Band, Western Skies, Exude, Swamp Zombies, the Chums and Kerry Getz.