Rockers Plan a Joyful Noise for Toys

Not all rock benefits are like Live Aid and Farm Aid and the Amnesty International tours--big stadium shows that assume a logistical scale only slightly less daunting than the Normandy Invasion.

For instance, there is Noise for Toys, which will take place Saturday at the Loose Moose Saloon, an Anaheim barroom with sawdust and peanut shells on the floor.

Noise for Toys started on a whim 5 years ago. Since then, it has followed a course shaped more by accident than by planning. But each year the benefit returns, headlined by an ad hoc group of county studio musicians known as the Decadent Debutantes. Each year it manages to provide Christmas gifts for children who have been removed from abusive homes.

John Mello, a local record producer and session vocalist, is the only Debutante who has been around since the group’s debut. As Mello tells it, the initial motive for forming the group wasn’t charity but jealousy. He and the other original Debutantes were friends who were in and out of each other’s bands and recording sessions. Their favorite hangout was the Commonwealth Pub in Fullerton, known in local music lore as the place where the Pontiac Brothers got their start bashing out cover versions of Rolling Stones songs under the tongue-in-cheek name Gall Stones.

“We were watching them play, and somebody said, ‘Why don’t we throw (a band) together,” Mello recalls. “We were jealous: ‘All these guys are getting the girls and the free beers.’ ” But since it was Christmas season, they decided to make their show a benefit.

A week before the show, the group was still nameless, with such deathless possibilities as Walking on Coals and My Favorite Bar Band under consideration. Mello and several other members were mulling it over while drinking at Trader Vic’s in the Beverly Hilton, where they had adjourned after a recording session. There, Mello says, he spotted a Kennedy--he thinks it was John F. Kennedy Jr., although he says it’s possible it was one of Robert Kennedy’s sons. Mello, who was raised in Cambridge, Mass., began hobnobbing about Boston with the Kennedy scion.

“We talked about hometown stuff, and he bought us a round,” Mello says. Then a group of lavishly attired girls passed by.

“Someone said, ‘Oh, look at all those debutantes,’ and (Kennedy) said, ‘Yeah, decadent debutantes.”

After that, there was no point in calling the group Walking on Coals.

In its first 2 years, Noise for Toys collected gifts for young patients at Childrens Hospital of Orange County.

“They’ve got such big donors that we didn’t feel we were having an impact,” Mello says. So he decided to adopt a smaller agency as beneficiary--and chose the Canyon Acres Residential Center from a list of county charities. The nonprofit center, based at a horse ranch in Anaheim Hills, houses and counsels 20 abused children who have been taken away from their parents for their safety.

The benefit’s location has changed each year. After playing the last 2 years at Big John’s and Night Moves, a couple of rock nightclubs, Mello decided to return to the neighborhood bar ambiance that Noise for Toys had when it started at the now-defunct Commonwealth Pub. He found the Loose Moose Saloon while driving around looking for a place to have a beer, liked the sawdust on the floor and got the owner’s approval for a Christmas benefit.

This year’s Decadent Debutantes include Mello as lead singer, bassist Chaz Ramirez, guitarists Chris Heilmann and Leland Jeffries, keyboard player Dizze Breau, and drummer Mitchell James. Playing a selection of rock oldies, they will headline a bill that also includes rock bands Nevada Time and Cheezboy. Mello says they will be shooting to collect $2,500 worth of toys for Canyon Acres children.

“It gives me a good sense of Christmas,” Mello says. “Christmas was starting to get real dull and commercial for me. Maybe it’s a cliche, but it’s giving at Christmas, and it gives me a good feeling.”

The Debutantes aren’t interested in playing shows beyond their annual yuletide coming-out party. They tried that a few years ago, Mello says, and fate frowned on the idea.

“We tried to do an Easter benefit, and the karma wasn’t there. The Christmas atmosphere wasn’t there. We had one rehearsal, and the drummer and guitar player actually came to physical blows.”

The Decadent Debutantes, Chee z boy and Nevada Time play in the Noise for Toys benefit Saturday from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the Loose Moose Saloon, 8901 Katella Ave., Anaheim. Admission is $5 or an unwrapped toy worth at least $5. Information: (714) 826-2040.

MUSIC FOR A CAUSE: The other big rock benefit this weekend is the fourth annual Orange County Music for the Needy extravaganza, Sunday at Bogart’s in Long Beach. From noon till midnight, 30 local acts will perform in Bogart’s two concert rooms. The charitable purpose is to collect money, food and gifts for poor Orange County families who otherwise would not have the means to enjoy a traditional holiday celebration. This year, organizer Jim Palmer is aiming to raise enough goods and cash to help 10 to 25 families. Admission is $6 or an equivalent value in food or unwrapped gifts.

Beyond the good cause, the benefit serves as an annual holiday celebration for the local music scene. For those more accustomed to going to the amphitheaters or the Coach House for the big names, Music for the Needy offers a good opportunity to get acquainted with a cross section of the county’s up-and-coming local talent.

Playing in the main concert room, in order of appearance: Cactus Jack, the Squids (with KROQ disc jockey Jed the Fish on drums), Respectable Street, Wood & Smoke, Burning Tree, Black Daphne, the Scarecrows, a reunion of the folk-rock band Clockwork, Hard as Nails Cheap as Dirt, National People’s Gang, Gherkin Raucous (partial lineup), Memories of Days Gone By (a theatrical-comedy group), Big Drill Car, Ann De Jarnett and the Falcons and Boneshake, which features former members of El Grupo Sexo.

Playing in the cafe, in order of appearance: Loving Kindness, Old Flo, the Nick Pyzow Band, 3D Picnic, Mark Davis, Fear & Faith, poet Gil Fuhrer, Don’t Mean Maybe, Kerry Getz, the Beat Pests (which includes local music writers Jim Washburn, Randy Lewis and James Chute), Joe Wood of T.S.O.L. in an acoustic duet with Dee Dee Grisham of Gypsy Trash, April Danielle, Swamp Zombies, Imagining Yellow Suns and Big Yard.