A Friend of Orange County Music Scene Pulls Up Stakes to Try His Luck in Glitter City

Orange County rock lost a tireless booster of its alternative-music scene with last week’s departure of promoter Jim Palmer for, of all places, Las Vegas.

But true to his well-deserved reputation as a champion of local music, the first words out of his mouth, speaking by phone from Sin City, were: “I think it will be interesting. And I hope I can tap into the local scene here--or get one going.”

Palmer has abandoned his digs here in citrus paradise, where he had worked as a band manager, booking agent, nightclub manager, record label chief, independent promoter and all-around friend of local music. He has accepted a job as a booking agent and promoter at Calamity Jane’s, a concert club taken over this summer by Gary Folgner, owner of the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and the Ventura Theatre.

He sees it as a good career opportunity, where he will get to work with bigger acts and agents than he’s been accustomed to here. And he promised that he’s not cutting all ties to Orange County. He will continue working with several bands he helped nurture, including National People’s Gang, Imagining Yellow Suns, Eggplant and others.

Additionally, Palmer will be back next month to oversee the annual “Orange County Artists for the Needy” benefit concert, an event he started five years ago to work as a food- and fund-raiser for disadvantaged Orange Countians as well as a friendly gathering and celebration for local musicians. This year’s show will be held Dec. 19 at the Coach House.

Sadly, the reasons Palmer cited for his decision to leave the county are the same ones that plague struggling musicians and artists trying to carve out a career in this affluent region that is “affordable” to an ever-shrinking segment of the population.

“I’ve wanted to get my family and personal life together and that just wasn’t possible in Orange County because of the money it costs to live there,” Palmer said.

Case in point: Within three days of arriving in Las Vegas Nov. 3, Palmer said, he found a place that he and his girlfriend will be renting. “It’s a new townhouse with two bedrooms, two baths, a wood-buring fireplace, washer and dryer and the master bedroom has a sunken bath. Something like this would cost $1,600 in South Orange County; we’re paying under $500.

“It really is a big difference living here. We live in an apartment complex (in Fountain Valley) surrounded by $350,000 homes, and we’re paying $675 a month for an apartment that is 25 years old. It’s a nice neighborhood, but the apartment is starting to get run down.”

“We are each making $24,000 to $25,000 a year but out here you can do so much more with that; here I can afford to have a family. I’ve lived in Orange County for about 24 years, and I’m afraid the place is going to end up like Los Angeles and New York (where there are) too many people on top of each other, and people forget about the way people are supposed to treat each other.”

Palmer, an ex-Marine Corps corporal, also said the sense of increasing urban violence in Orange County has him worried. “A couple of things started scaring me. A stone’s throw from my house we had a drive-by shooting; this was at a roller rink and fun center where kids go. . . . It’s getting crazy with the traffic and all these people.”

Ironically, he also spoke proudly, and optimistically, about the improving state of the Orange County music scene, which has been languishing without a solid communal center for years.

“I was noticing before I left a splurge of new local clubs starting to happen--there are three or four. It’s time for that to happen. I think (original music) is going to be a lot more accepted.”

He expressed no qualms about trading the often frustrating but equally exhilarating Orange County music scene for the Lounge Lizard capital of the world.

“That (casino showroom entertainment) is fine for the tourists. But the people who live here need a musical outlet also. And some of the tourists might recognize some of the names we’ll be bringing in and listen. When I come to Vegas, I don’t necessarily want to see Engelbert Humperdinck.

“The people (in bands) I’ve talked to are really excited about it (because Calamity Jane’s) is a concert venue, not part of a hotel. A lot of people in the entertainment business would like to work in Vegas . . . if they could expect a normal, regular concert club.”

The biggest difference Palmer said he has noticed between Southland musicians and those in Las Vegas is that “a lot of musicians here can earn $2,000 to $3,000 a week playing covers (of Top 40 hits) two or three nights at a week at the Aladdin. So why should they want to come down here and get $100 to open for the Del Fuegos? But I’m sure there are some people who are in rock bands that are something besides lounge acts. I haven’t seen any garage bands yet, but I haven’t been here long enough.”

Despite the town’s appetite for middle-of-the-road performers such as Wayne Newton, Palmer plans to apply the perspective he honed in Orange County working with clubs from the now-defunct Spatz and Safari Sam’s to more-recent affiliations with Bogart’s and the Coach House.

“There is a big university here (the University of Nevada, Las Vegas). I think this can be a very successful club, and one of the reasons it hasn’t exploded yet is the lack of having someone here on a full-time basis. There have already been some pretty successful things with Jerry Jeff Walker, King Swamp, the Del Fuegos, Concrete Blonde and the BoDeans.

“My job is going to be trying to expose people to these things and trying to build a scene.”

Orange County’s loss is Las Vegas’s gain. But come to think of it, what more appropriate place to take the gamble?

DR, Dennis Lowe / Los Angeles Times