Volunteerism Takes a Musical Turn in Orange County

Instead of a thousand points of light, an Irvine social work student named James Lovell has decided to transform volunteerism into a few thousand watts of sound.

Lovell, 20, has merged his interest in the local rock music scene with his desire to do charitable work by launching Spare Change, a new organization devoted to putting on benefit shows that will showcase Orange County rock music talent. Lovell, a senior at Christ College, a Lutheran school in Irvine, will inaugurate his project Saturday night with a five-band charity bill at the Saddleback Valley Board of Realtors Hall in Laguna Hills.

“This is my volunteer work,” he said Wednesday.

The varied lineup includes funk band Jerrasound, hard rockers the End and Shuttup, Purple Shake, a psychedelic group, and the Slugs, who play new wave rock. The show starts at 7 p.m. at the Realtors Hall, 25552 La Paz Ave. Proceeds will go to the Interfaith Christian Assistance Network, which sponsors drug education programs, and LIFE (Love Is Feeding Everyone), a Los Angeles group that helps feed the homeless.

“I’ve been going to shows since I was 13, all different styles,” Lovell said Wednesday. “I think it’s great to see new talent. It’s the new talent that does something different.”

Lovell’s goals for Spare Change are to highlight the work of local bands (which will all be donating their services), to raise money for good causes, and to prod the conscience of young rock fans.

“Laguna Hills, where this show is taking place, is an affluent area,” Lovell said. “I want the kids who listen to that kind of music to realize there are people who go with a lot less and need some help.”

Lovell said he is using his own money to cover the show’s overhead costs: $900 for renting the 299-capacity hall and taking out insurance. Tickets to the benefit, which Lovell has dubbed “Regaining Consciousness,” cost $10, with a $2 discount to concert-goers who bring two canned food items. Information: (714) 854-6764.

FIRST SOLO: Chameleon Records has scheduled a September release for “Ward One: Along the Way,” the first solo album by former Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, who lives in Seal Beach. It’s a concept album, in which Ward combines heavy metal with progressive rock touches as he chronicles the life-or-death struggle with alcoholism that followed his ascent to rock stardom.

Ward’s old Black Sabbath buddy, Ozzy Osbourne, appears as guest lead singer on two tracks, “Bombers” and “Jack’s Land”--with “Bombers” a fine, rumbling, dark-hued rocker that Ozzy’s fans shouldn’t miss (Osbourne headlines tonight at Irvine Meadows). Cream’s singer, Jack Bruce, also makes a guest appearance on the album.

In a recent Billboard magazine tribute to Osbourne, Ward recalled his friend’s reaction upon first hearing “Pink Clouds an Island,” a Pink Floyd-ish track from Ward’s album: Osbourne physically and verbally attacked Ward, “all of which is his way of saying he liked what he heard.”

WASTELAND: Music Connection magazine decided to survey the Orange County music scene in its July 24--Aug. 6 issue. Apparently, according to record label talent scouts queried by the magazine, there’s no there there (or, from our viewpoint, no here here) when it comes to music-making.

“Where’s Orange County?” wonders Bret Hartman, A&R; representative for MCA Records. Says Mio Vukovic, of Geffen Records: “A few of our bands play down there, such as Little Caesar and Junkyard, but now it’s almost like a wasteland down there. And there really isn’t much young talent in Orange County.”

Such comments are par for the course from creatures of a corporate, multinational music industry that’s geared more to watching the bottom line than to following its ears.

The fact is that it’s better, at least from a creative standpoint, for local bands to be ignored by big-label A&R; folk who want to mold everything they touch into the next Guns N’ Roses. The better Orange County bands--and there are many of them--are finding their own ways to play, rather than gearing their output to the tastes of big-label scouts trained to think like bankers rather than as seekers of passionate, adventurous music.

Maybe Junkyard, the sort of workaday clone-of-Aerosmith hard-rock band that the L.A. scene churns out like so much ear fodder, is Mr. Vukovic’s idea of promising young talent.

I’ll stick with the creative locals you’ve been reading about regularly in this space, even if they aren’t something the big labels can sell by the bushel.

DIVERSIFICATION: Dr. Dream, the Orange-based record company that is home to a good many of those creative locals, is throwing a bash this weekend to celebrate its diversification into the record shop business.

The store, like Dr. Dream’s roster of bands, is geared to alternative music tastes. Grand opening festivities will take place Saturday and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., with in-shop acoustic performances by the Swamp Zombies, Eggplant and Imagining Yellow Suns, as well as free food and drink, prizes, and storewide merchandise discounts.

Dr. Dream Records (the store) is located at 60 Plaza Square in Orange, below its parent label’s offices.

ENDINGS: The Movement, a San Clemente-based pop-rock band that got some exposure last year with a self-released album and soundtrack work for surfing shows, has called it quits over musical disagreements within the group.

“I wanted to play hard-edged, more guitar-oriented, stronger music,” said Steve Clifton, the Movement’s singer. “Some other people in the band wanted to go a little more sophisticated, and others wanted to go acoustic.”

Clifton said he is forming a new band called Joyriders with three transplanted Londoners--not to be confused with Joyride, another new group being launched by former Adolescents Steve Soto and Sandy Hansen.