The Shirts Were Bid Right Off Their Backs
The fourth annual Celebri-T-Shirt Auction, held Friday night at the Kona Kai Club on Shelter Island, raised a record $81,000 for the Storefront, San Diego County’s only emergency shelter for homeless youth.
But while the take was almost double last year’s, the bidding for the 200 or so T-shirts autographed by celebrities, most of them pop stars, didn’t get nearly as high as it did in 1989.
The five priciest shirts, and what they were auctioned off for, were those signed by Jon Bon Jovi ($430), the late Roy Orbison ($400), Van Halen ($360), Guns N’ Roses ($300), and Sting ($290).
At last year’s auction, by comparison, an Orbison shirt went for $1,275, an all-time high. Other pop stars whose autographed T-shirts sold for considerably less than they did in 1989 include Jimmy Buffett ($180, down from $725), George Michael ($170, down from $320) and Neil Diamond ($210, down from $300).
The really big bucks were brought in by items other than T-shirts. At the top of the list was a bass guitar signed by Paul McCartney ($4,700), followed by a Fender guitar autographed by Eric Clapton ($4,300)--which, incidentally, was sold to promoter Bill Silva, who had produced the legendary British guitarist’s concert the night before at the San Diego Sports Arena--and the skirt worn by Madonna on her “Material Girls” tour ($3,200).
Other pop trinkets that did well on the auction block include a New Kids on the Block platinum-album award ($850), a soccer ball signed by Rod Stewart ($770), an autographed copy of the Rolling Stones’ “Steel Wheels” album ($620), and a black-leather Aerosmith tour jacket signed by all five band members ($550).
There were several surprises. A signed Carl Perkins T-shirt sold for a mere $20, about the same as a ticket to the rock ‘n’ roll pioneer’s recent concert at the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa. A shirt autographed by the Beat Farmers, a local band, went for $70, more than shirts signed by such international stars as Santana ($65), Willie Nelson ($60), Stevie Wonder ($55), Jimmy Page ($50), Kenny Loggins ($49), Whitesnake ($45), New Order ($40), and the Fabulous Thunderbirds ($35).
And despite the fact that Cher and Lee Ritenour have sold millions of records over the last few years, neither one of their autographed T-shirts attracted a single bid.
Early last year, San Diego State University English professor Ron Shane decided to combine his two passions--classical literature and heavy metal music--into one. He formed a rock band, Mental Anarchy, whose song lyrics were either adapted from or influenced by the deathless prose of English Romantics Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron and French Symbolists such as Arthur Rimbaud.
“If Shelley and Byron were alive today, they would love to take their poetry and set it to heavy metal music,” Shane said at the time. “They would laud me for finding them a forum that espouses the same sense of mental rebellion and recalcitrance which they expressed through their writings.” Mental Anarchy’s much-hyped debut performance, however, kept getting postponed and was ultimately scrapped because of persistent personnel problems, Shane said. Still, he refused to give up and, after nine months of extensive interviews and auditions, he resurrected the band--with an all-new line-up and a slightly more commercial sound.
This time, Shane decided to pass on a live premiere. He took the new and improved version of Mental Anarchy directly into the studio to cut a demonstration tape. The tape was completed two months ago and is currently being shopped to various major labels in Los Angeles and New York by Shane’s agent in the hopes of landing the band a recording contract.
In the meantime, Shane is keeping himself busy with a new project. He has put together a second band, Savage Fire, which plays crude garage-rock over which the good professor raps out his ad-lib lyrics.
While Mental Anarchy’s objective is to illuminate the parallels between the fevered poetry of yore and the ferocious music of today by fusing them, Shane said, Savage Fire’s goal is “to generate the electricity and passion associated with primitive volatile shamanism, to give people that instinctual liberation, that hedonistic fire, that so many of their souls crave.”
And while Mental Anarchy continues to be confined to the studio, Savage Fire is strictly a live band, with several local appearances coming up. Sunday night, they’ll be at Rio’s in Loma Portal.
LINER NOTES: Ten more shows have been added to this year’s Del Mar Fair grandstand concert series, eight starting at 7:30 p.m. and two at 2 p.m. The nighttime concerts: Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, June 18; the Robert Cray Band, June 19; Poco, June 24; Gordon Lightfoot, June 28; Laura Branigan, June 29; Air Supply, July 1; Natalie Cole, July 2, and the Gap Band, July 4. The afternooners: the Harry James Orchestra, June 21, and Carmen McRae, June 28. . . .
Just added to the ninth annual Concerts by the Bay series at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island: “Saturday Night Live” comedian Dana Carvey on June 29. . . .
Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. for David Byrne’s June 8 concert at the Starlight Bowl in Balboa Park, Saturday at 10 a.m. for Oingo Boingo’s June 28 show at San Diego State University’s Open Air Theater, and Monday at 10 a.m. for Cher’s June 21 appearance at the Sports Arena. . . .
Although some tickets are still available for Jimmy Buffett’s June 18 concert at the Open Air Theater, a second show has been added June 19. Tickets for that show go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. . . .
This week’s concerts: Whitesnake with Bad English, tonight at the Sports Arena; Laura Nyro with Joel Edelstein, tonight at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach; Kaoma, Thursday at the Starlight Bowl; the Psychedelic Furs, Thursday at the University of San Diego’s Sports Center Gym; the Bonedaddys with Drums of Fire, Thursday at the Belly Up Tavern; the Dave Mason Band, Friday at the Bacchanal; John Doe with Emmy Mack and Candye Kane, Friday at the Casbah in Middletown; Restless Heart, Saturday at the Bacchanal; Dino Lee and His Luv Johnson, Saturday at the Casbah; Little Charlie and the Nightcats with the Mighty Flyers featuring Rod Piazza, Saturday at the Belly Up Tavern; Melissa Manchester, Saturday at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts; Mission U.K., Saturday at Iguanas in Tijuana; and Badlands, Sunday at the Belly Up Tavern.
