Playtime at the Doll Hut : Tiny Anaheim Rock ‘n’ Roll Bar to Stage Final Fling for the Pontiac Brothers

Playing for free, now we got some fans tonight--down at the Doll Hut. --from “Doll Hut,” the Pontiac Brothers

John Mello’s dream was to open a little pub, a rock ‘n’ roll hangout where musicians like himself could drop in during their off hours, have a beer and establish some out-of-the-spotlight camaraderie.

A singer and record producer based in Anaheim, Mello spent two years planning a move into the bar business with his wife, Linda. Their search ended a few months ago when the Mellos called to answer an ad for a place that had gone up for sale.

“The broker,” Mello recalls, “said, ‘It’s called the Doll Hut’ “--and Mello immediately said he’d buy it. “I didn’t even need to know the price,” he recalled last weekend, sitting at the bar. “I already knew everything I needed to know about it.”

Turns out he’d done some drinking at the tiny wooden barroom on Anaheim’s South Adams Street, so he knew it met the funkiness quotient that he was looking for. On the outside, it was a red-painted, weather-worn, one-room cabin, a 50-year-old building that really was almost doll-size. On the inside it was a functional, unadorned pub where the chief attractions were cheap drinks and darts.

No ferns, no decorating scheme, no trendiness. The total antithesis of Orange County mall culture. Best of all, Mello knew that the Doll Hut came with its own little slice of rock ‘n’ roll lore: The Pontiac Brothers, one of the more honest and unpretentiously rambunctious alternative rock bands of the 1980s, had honored the place by naming an album after it, and plastering a close-up picture of the Doll Hut’s blue neon sign on the album’s back cover.

The band broke up last year, having released three critically praised but commercially under-appreciated albums that combined the raw, basic crunch rock of the Rolling Stones with the emotional immediacy of the Replacements. The Pontiac Brothers will get together Saturday night for one last fling, playing for free--down at the Doll Hut.

The reunion will be a farewell-to-Orange County show for the Pontiacs’ guitarist, Ward Dotson, who will move to New York City in a few weeks.

Dotson said he used to pass the Doll Hut on his way to work, and decided to drop in one day when he saw a sign advertising a “60 lunch.”

“It was a beer, a hot dog and a bag of chips,” he recalls. The Doll Hut became a regular watering hole for the Pontiac Brothers, even though the other regulars were hardly a rock ‘n’ roll crowd.

“We used to practice about two miles from there, and afterward we’d get a few drinks and plan band strategy,” Dotson said. “We’d walk in there and double the occupancy. I never saw more than 10 people there until after (Mello) bought it.” Dotson said that the band “never, ever” saw any other rock musicians hanging out there. “There would be guys from the train yard nearby. We used to see this guy down there that just got out of the pen. We’d listen to him ramble on forever.”

When the Pontiacs put out their first album for an American label in 1985, they called it “Doll Hut” and put on a free show at the bar to celebrate the record’s release. The album didn’t feature a song called “Doll Hut,” however--an oversight that the Pontiac Brothers corrected on their next album in a tune that mentioned some of the regulars by name. The song’s release gave the band another excuse for a free show at the Doll Hut.

“After the album came out, they’d give us free stuff all the time,” Dotson said. “They thought we were Van Halen or something.”

Since Aug. 1, the Doll Hut has been run by the Mellos, who are considerably more savvy about rock ‘n’ roll. John Mello, 29, has put his music production company and recording session vocal work on hold temporarily while establishing the bar--a two-person operation he shares with Linda, who left her job as an AIDS relief social worker to help run the place.

Mello said his aim is to turn the Doll Hut into a regular hangout for musicians along the lines of the Commonwealth Pub, a now-defunct bar that was a magnet for the local rock scene in Fullerton during the mid-1980s. The Pontiac Brothers, in fact, got their start at the Commonwealth Pub when, under the name Gall Stones, they began playing covers of Rolling Stones songs just for the fun of it.

“It was the rock ‘n’ roll hangout,” Mello said. “Social Distortion, the Adolescents--everyone used to hang out there.” The Doll Hut, he said, will be “just a place to come and have cheap beer and play if they want to play. I want the feeling of camaraderie, the feeling of musicians going in there to have a good time, leave their egos at the door, and not have to worry about the politics of the music business.”

With a legal capacity of 50, the Doll Hut won’t try to compete with the area’s admission-charging concert clubs. It doesn’t have a sound system, or even a bandstand, so musicians will simply set up on the floor in the one empty corner that isn’t occupied by the bar, the pool table or the dart board. No admission will be charged.

Last Saturday, an Austin, Tex., band called the Rattlers turned up to play, having discovered the bar while staying in the area. Fullerton rockers Cheezboy have also appeared. Members of the hard rock band Danzig have dropped in, Mello said, and so has Robin Williams, brought in one afternoon by one of Mello’s friends in the entertainment business.

“No one even recognized him,” Mello said.

While building a younger rock following, the Doll Hut’s new owners still aim to keep the working-class regulars from the bar’s pre-rock days. The other night, a few longtime customers sat at a corner of the bar while younger rock fans surrounded the Rattlers in one corner or shot pool in another.

“It don’t bother me,” said Chris Grundy, one of the pre-rock regulars. “It’s a nice change.”

“The previous owners catered to older people. These kids are really turning it over. I like it,” said Gil Lopez, a gray-haired customer who has been coming to the Doll Hut for six years. “There’s music. It’s alive.”

The Pontiac Brothers play Saturday night at 9 and 11 at the Doll Hut, 107 S. Adams St., Anaheim (at the corner of Manchester Avenue) . Admission is free, but capacity is limited. Information: (714) 533-1286.