Guitar Trader Brings Scouts, Local Band Talent Together

From his own experiences with the Monroes, Eric Denton knows how hard it is for a struggling young rock band to get a talent scout for a major record company to listen to its demonstration tape.

“If you send your tape directly to the company, it won’t get listened to unless you send it to a specific person with whom you already have some sort of personal contact,” Denton said. “And to establish that personal contact, we had to put on more than half a dozen showcases up in Los Angeles and entice talent scouts with open bars and little parties.”

Eventually, Denton recalled, the record companies were all ears--and in 1982, the Monroes signed a deal with the now-defunct Alfa Records label. The San Diego group’s first single, “What Do All the People Know?” was an immediate hit. And when Alfa folded a few months later, Denton said, “every label in the country was after us.”

These days, Denton is no longer playing keyboards with the Monroes. He dropped out years ago, for a variety of reasons, and now owns the Guitar Trader music store in Kearny Mesa. He’s in constant contact with local bands trying to attract label attention. Remembering what it was like for his band, he has plenty of empathy for their plight.

Empathy turned to action in February, 1988, when Denton invited a talent scout from Chrysalis Records down to his shop for an afternoon question-and-answer session and demo-tape pickup. The event was so successful--the Chrysalis scout left with more than 200 tapes and later expressed a keen interest in five local groups--that Denton decided to stage periodic repeats.

The next April, he brought down talent scouts from Chrysalis and Capitol Records; last February, he brought down a talent scout from MCA.

And Thursday afternoon, from noon to 5 p.m., CBS/Columbia Records talent scout Danni Krash will be at Guitar Trader, fielding questions and accepting demo tapes from local hopefuls.

“It’s a marvelous and rare opportunity for local musicians to establish a rapport, a relationship, with a talent scout, without having to drive all the way up to Los Angeles and go through the trouble of showcasing,” Denton said. “And at the same time, they get to deliver their demo tapes in person--which, even if you’re in L.A., can be difficult.”

The third annual Celebri-T-Shirt Auction will be Friday night at downtown’s San Diego Omni Hotel. Once again, most of the more than 200 autographed T-shirts up for bid bear the scrawled signatures of a veritable Who’s Who in pop music: from the Beach Boys to the Fat Boys, from the Four Tops to Three Dog Night, from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen.

Also on the auction block will be an assortment of autographed pop memorabilia, including concert programs from Pat Benatar, Yoko Ono and Billy Joel; albums by Ella Fitzgerald, Henry Mancini and Bette Midler; a Stevie Wonder press kit, and Jimmy Buffett’s electric guitar.

Proceeds go to the Storefront, San Diego County’s only emergency shelter for homeless youth.

The Celebri-T-Shirt Auction is the brainchild of Salli Stiner, who began hitting up rock stars and other celebrities for their autographs two years ago. The inaugural auction was held in May, 1987, and, together with telephone bids solicited in a free ad in Rolling Stone magazine, raised $30,000 for the Storefront, sponsored by Catholic Community Services, METRO and San Diego Youth and Community Services. Since then, the vivacious Stiner has been backstage at virtually every local pop concert, pen in one hand, T-shirts in the other. High bidders at last year’s auction paid $400 for a shirt signed by the Everly Brothers, $650 for a shirt signed by Madonna, and $750 for a shirt signed by U2.

The hot item at this year’s auction promises to be a T-shirt signed by Roy Orbison after his concert last October at the Starlight Bowl in Balboa Park. Six weeks later, the legendary rock singer suffered a fatal heart attack.

The Olympiad of Rock ‘n’ Roll is coming to Rio’s in Point Loma. Every Thursday night for the next 12 weeks, two local groups will square off against each other. The weekly winners will proceed to the semifinals, to be held on the next three Thursdays. Winning bands will be picked by judges and by listener call-in votes to sponsoring radio station XHITZ-FM (Z-90). The first round in the battle-of-the-bands contest pits Robert Vaughn and the Shadows against Comanche Moon. . . .

The opening date for this year’s eighth annual Concerts by the Bay series at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island has been pushed back a week. The Saturday appearance by Natalie Cole has been postponed; the series will begin May 19 with two shows by the Four Tops. Just addded at Humphreys, two by shows Kenny G, on Sept. 27. . . .

Tickets go on sale: at 10 a.m. Friday for the just-added second show by Jimmy Buffett on June 15 at San Diego State University’s Open Air Theater; his first show is June 14. At 3 p.m. Friday for Oingo Bingo, June 25 at the Open Air Theater. And at 10 a.m. Saturday for Jody Watley, June 11 at Symphony Hall; Bonnie Raitt, July 1 at the California Theatre, and Al Jarreau, July 3 at the Open Air Theater.