This Was Spinal Tap . . . and Friends

The Scene: The Golden Monkey nightclub in Santa Monica Thursday night, where the Pollack Media Group threw its annual bash for record honchos and radio executives from around the country. The highlight of the evening was a performance by Spinal Tap, the P.D.Q. Bach of heavy metal bands.

The Entertainment: Like the Commitments and the Partridge Family, the group began as a fictional creation and proved so popular that promoters transformed it, Pinocchio-like, into a real, live band. Spinal Tap will soon release a new album, “Break Like the Wind.”

Who Was There: Pollack Media Group president Jeff Pollack, who hosted the party; the Spinal Tap members--Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and a drummer who went by the nom de guerre Rick Shrimpton; rock performers Tom Petty, Melissa Etheridge, Eddie Money and Robbie Robertson; rock bands Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Warrant; actress Jamie Lee Curtis, Spin magazine publisher Bob Guccione Jr., Lita Ford and Pete Townshend; a Santa Monica fire marshal. Dweezil Zappa made a guest appearance with the band. Deborah Harry of Blondie, dressed in a business suit and with her hair tinted red, sat on the outdoor patio and went virtually unnoticed for much of the evening.

Dress Code: Suits and ties for the serious executives; open shirts and gold chains for men on the go-go-go. Ponytails and bald spots still proved to be an evergreen combination. Also, other people’s hair was a popular fashion accessory. Among the young rock ‘n’ roll crowd, it was luxuriant hair extensions; older music types preferred Hair Club for Men.

Chow: Roast beef and turkey, shrimp, teriyaki chicken, fruit, cheeses and a very L.A. tray of jicama, sprouts and kiwi.

Pastimes: Trying to find the waitress carrying the teriyaki chicken. Avoiding the ventriloquist who had set up shop outside the club with a blue plastic wastebasket for donations. Wondering how those fingerprints got on the very swanky brass ceiling of the second-floor lounge.

Quoted: “Hello, Long Beach!” yelled McKean, the lead singer of Spinal Tap, before the band went into an ear-blistering set of funny occult tunes (“Christmas With the Devil”) and very impassioned, very pointless guitar solos.

Triumphs: A part of Spinal Tap’s shtick is that its drummers keep dying off in freak accidents, so it was fitting that the drummer arrived in an ambulance marked “Spinal Tap Emergency Percussion Unit.”

Glitches: Spinal Tap’s parody of a dinosaur heavy metal band is excellent, but it’s not flawless. Unlike real dinosaur heavy metal bands, with Spinal Tap you can actually understand the lyrics.