Local Fans Rolling Along With Plans for All-Out ‘Stones’ Anniversary Bash

On July 12, 1962, a band calling itself the Rolling Stones played its first gig at the Marquee Club in London.

At the time, it meant no more to Matt Rosney than it did to anyone else. He was a 10-year-old kid in Philadelphia then. The British Invasion was a historical event 185 years in the past, not a music revolution two years in the future.

But for Rosney, July 12, 1962, turned out to be a significant date: for him, the Stones have made all the difference. In 1966, when everybody knew what the British Invasion was, he saw his first Rolling Stones concert. Now, Rosney says, the tally of live Stones performances he has witnessed stands “in the high 70s”--a substantial feat, considering that the Rolling Stones go on tour about as often as the United States elects presidents.

In 1978, at a Stones concert in Cleveland, Rosney met his future wife, Andrea. She was another Rolling Stones fanatic of a special stripe, evidenced by the fact that she had trekked all the way from Orange County to see the Cleveland show. Now the Rosneys run Beggar’s Banquet, the Anaheim record store (named, naturally, after a classic Rolling Stones album) that Andrea established 12 years ago.

For the past year or so, the record shop has been the scene of regular Wednesday night musical soirees in which a loose confederation of Orange County rock musicians gather to play songs for fun, including a good deal of Stones material.

“It’s kind of like playing poker, except with guitars,” Rosney said.

A month or so ago, when somebody reminded him that July 12 was coming, Rosney decided to mark the occasion with a barbecue. He and Andrea would have some friends, including the Wednesday night crowd, over to their house in Laguna Beach. They would play some of their collector’s item Stones videos and rare records and tapes, and honor the day when Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones ushered an embryonic, six-man version of the Stones into being. (The others in that first lineup were the late Ian Stewart, who became the Rolling Stones’ right-hand man and barrelhouse piano specialist, bassist Dick Taylor, who went on to found another long-lived band, the Pretty Things, and Mick Avory, who couldn’t cut it with the Stones but found a 20-year gig as drummer for the Kinks, the only other British Invasion band still going).

The Rosneys’ private party has turned into a public bash that should be fun for Stones fans: a 12th of July Rolling Stones anniversary celebration, Tuesday at Bogart’s. Starting at about 9 p.m., Matt Rosney will play prime audio tracks and video clips from his collection. The Wednesday night record-shop rockers, dubbed “Some Boys” for the occasion, will take the stage at 10:30 and midnight to churn out two sets of Stones songs.

The musicians include Jeff Drake, lead singer of the Joneses, drummer Mike Cessa, who plays in Ann De Jarnett’s band, and D.A. Valdez, who usually plays drums for the Pontiac Brothers, but will switch to bass for the night. The rotating cast also includes Matt Rosney, Scott Drake and Mark Walsdorf on guitars, Rik Homan singing and Shawn Edwards drumming.

Rosney said his affection for the Stones has evolved over the years. “When I was in high school they were rebel noise. In the ‘70s, it was the party angle. And now it’s just high-grade rock.” He says he doesn’t feel compelled to prod young customers who come into Beggar’s Banquet to check out the band that changed his own life.

“There’s a whole generation of teen-agers who just weren’t there for (the Stones), and that’s the ones that come in,” mostly to buy records by Depeche Mode and other current favorites. “God bless ‘em, I can’t sit there and tell ‘em how good the Kinks were when they did ‘Arthur,’ ” Rosney said, tossing out another example of classic ‘60s British rock.

If the Stones are a mystery to many young rock fans, the band itself deserves the blame for having spent the past few years squabbling instead of playing, Rosney said.

But encouraging word has gone along the Stones grapevine that a new album, and perhaps a new tour, are in the works. Rosney and his wife, who has seen the Stones play 27 times, plan to renew their practice of following the band from city to city.

“If they’re going to tour, I’m going to use it as an excuse to see a bit of the country again,” Rosney said.

The Rolling Stones anniversary celebration will take place Tuesday at 9 p.m. at Bogart’s, in the Marina Pacifica Mall, 6288 E. Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach. Admission is $4. Information: (714) 828-2328.

APOCALYPSE ROCK: Another new contender in a burgeoning Orange County concert club competition is Club Postnuclear, 775 Laguna Canyon Road in Laguna Beach. The club is scheduled to open July 27 with a private party, with concert dates to follow soon afterward.

The club, owned by developer William (Max) Nee, will try to draw audiences with “an atmosphere that’s really elegant,” said Alaina Hoover, a member of its management team.

Among the unusual wrinkles, she said, are a policy of no alcoholic beverages, no smoking, an elaborate sound system and an aluminum dance floor. By day, Club Postnuclear will be a restaurant/cafe, with that aluminum floor available for aerobics classes. Paul Hartmann, who will oversee concert operations by night, said bookings will encompass reggae, jazz and rock. Capacity, a combination of seats and standing room, will range between 400 and 600, Hartmann said, depending on a final evaluation to be made by Laguna Beach fire officials before the club’s opening. The club will start with three live shows a week, gradually building up to five nights, he said.

The Postnuclear doesn’t have any firm bookings to announce yet, said Hartmann, who has a background in rock band management with past clients that include Crosby, Stills & Nash and America. He foresees challenging the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, currently the county’s dominant pop concert club, with new-rock acts along the lines of Devo, Aztec Camera and newcomers Stealing Horses. Hartmann also said Club Postnuclear will host “audition nights” for local rock bands, with an eye toward cultivating the ones that do well as opening acts for the bigger names and as headliners in their own right.

Another new venue, the 350-seat Michael’s Supper Club in Dana Point, is scheduled to open in late August with a four-night stand by B.B. King.

While Michael’s owner, Michael Zanetis, has said his general strategy calls for courting a somewhat older audience than the Coach House, Hartmann said the Postnuclear will “go after a lot more new things, more contemporary things.” He expects direct competition with the Coach House, including a possible “bidding war” for some acts.

Among the acts the Postnuclear will try to host, Hartmann said, is David Lindley, who has had a virtual second home at the Coach House. “He’s an old friend of mine. I’m going to use things like that.”

LIVE ACTION: Tickets go on sale Monday for a show at the Pacific Amphitheatre on Aug. 16 by Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Rossington Band.