Anaheim Benefit, Michigan Trip on Singer Calhoun’s Itinerary

Nobody from Southern California packs up for Michigan in the middle of December without a good reason.

Vicki Calhoun has a pretty good one: The rock-funk-soul singer from Fullerton will fly to Detroit on Sunday to finish work on her debut single. But before she does, she and her band will lend their talents to a benefit concert Saturday at Linda’s Doll Hut in Anaheim to raise money for Toys for Tots.

Calhoun, 27, started out in the Orange County punk-funk bands Doggy Style and Double Freak and got her first national exposure singing backup on the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 1989 album, “Mother’s Milk.”

Since then, she has toured with the Chili Peppers and Young MC as a backup singer. Now, she is about to get her turn in the spotlight. She says she recently signed a deal with the Chrysalis/EMI label and expects her first single, “Sock It to Me,” to be out in February.

Her producer, Amp Fiddler , is based in Detroit, and her trip there involves finishing up the backing vocals for the single. Fiddler has played keyboards in George Clinton’s P-Funk lineups and has his own band, Mr. Fiddler.

Calhoun says she has been busy lately laying the business groundwork for a recording career, talking to prospective managers and booking agents while she tries to finish her single (she doesn’t expect to release a full album until late spring). Beyond that, she has been auditioning for a part in the film “Sister Act II” as “a little ghetto girl who can sing, but she’s bad.”

In all, Calhoun said, “I’ve got a lot of things going on. I’m trying to keep my mind straight.”

With the onset of her recording career, she says she will have to set aside temporarily her studies at Loyola Marymount University where she is a few courses shy of completing a master’s degree in counseling. Until recently, she said, she was working at a treatment facility for abused children--which helped prompt her interest in playing the Linda’s Doll Hut benefit.

* The Vicki Calhoun Band, Motorsoule, Suka Punch and Quazimofo play Saturday at Linda’s Doll Hut, 107 S. Adams St., Anaheim. Show time: 9 p.m. Admission: $5 or a new, unwrapped toy. Information: (714) 533-1286.