Move Over, Seattle; Here Comes . . . Uh-Oh, Reality
A new year is a year as yet uncorrupted by reality.
So please indulge me while I use this brief respite to forget the facts and sneak in my vision of the ideal 1994 for the Orange County rock scene.
Reality really feasted on that scene during a dismal ’93 of club closings and big-venue doldrums; perhaps it is momentarily sated, and therefore a little groggy. Let’s all do a little dreaming before reality comes to its senses--and forces us to come to ours.
Please Bogart That Joint, My Friend . . .
When Bogart’s closed in December, the local rock scene seemed ready for endless winter. With the Long Beach club went the only place in the immediate neighborhood where Orange County rock fans could find a steady, night-to-night diet of good local bands and cool, truly alternative national acts.
How foolish of us to think that Bogart’s
enlightened booking policy and its patron’s approach to fostering indigenous rock could not be duplicated at a time when the buck, having grown scarce, had become even more almighty than usual.
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As it turned out, a club management team did step forward that had a sharp enough head for business to turn a profit, yet was primarily interested in investing heart and soul in doing the right thing by the local rock scene.
That central club (unreality frees us momentarily from the need to provide such thorny details as names and places, but it seems as if this time the fulcrum of the Orange County scene was actually in the county) was only the start.
Grass-roots promoters, jolted into action by the Bogart’s closing, began thinking bigger and making the most out of smaller, less-established venues. Even the big guys from Los Angeles, like Avalon Attractions and Goldenvoice Presents, got interested in bringing strong club-level talent to Orange County, using such halls as the Ice House in Fullerton and the re-established Rhythm Cafe in Santa Ana.
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With the neo-Bogart’s as its new hub, and many satellite venues serving as spokes, the local scene quickly became a wheel on fire. Which led, by year’s end, to:
The Fall of the Orange Curtain
“Everybody thinks that people down there are so conservative and ultra right-wing. It’s got the Orange County stigma: ‘How can these people rock?’ But the fact is, these people are rocking, and they’re good. They just never get a break.”
That’s how David Crowley, an O.C. expatriate turned Los Angeles music publicist and band manager, summed up the reality of rock life in his former haunts at the end of 1993.
The wider world didn’t want to think about Orange County as a place of rock ‘n’ roll vitality. You could point to Social Distortion and the rest of the maturing O.C. punk rock class of ‘79; you could note the consistently strong work done by local bands on the Orange-based Doctor Dream label; you could submit as evidence such accomplished and widely acclaimed roots-oriented performers as Walter Trout, Chris Gaffney, Jann Browne and James Harman.
But when it came to defining our image, the only Orange County names that seemed to matter to outsiders were John Birch, Robert Dornan and Mickey Mouse.
All that changed in the pivotal year of ’94.
A decade and a half after the first volleys of the original O.C. punk boom were sounded, the local political establishment had finally gotten over its horror of little punkers running around causing mayhem.
In an era of drive-by shootings, slam-dancing and the occasional punk-related fistfight seemed pretty innocuous. And, heck, most of the county’s young cops, not to mention the city council members’ kids, were into Pearl Jam and Nirvana, like everybody else.
What had been seen as teen delinquency a few years before was now just teen spirit. Finally freed from the undue hostility of a tidiness-obsessed local officialdom that had undermined the scene as it tried to take shape in the 1980s, rock clubs were able to flourish.
And the wider rock world, always on the hunt for the next hip new scene to tout, began to take notice. It helped that strong records by Joyride and the Cadillac Tramps won Doctor Dream a rep as a hot independent label. Debut releases by Eli Riddle and One Hit Wonder added to the snowball effect. Social Distortion arrived at midyear with an album that proved to be its long-expected breakthrough blockbuster.
But the scene’s biggest rock hero was its oldest rock hero, Dick Dale. His first-ever video, a treatment of the searing surf-punk instrumental, “Nitro,” took over MTV and left Beavis and Butt-head too awe-struck even to say “huh-huh, like, cool, heh-heh-heh.” At 57, the surf-rock pioneer emerged as the world’s unlikeliest alternative-music guitar god.
The young bands Water, Xtra Large and No Doubt also released major-label albums that enjoyed good reviews and strong sales. The rock world’s pundits and plutocrats finally had to concede that there was a there there, after all, and they marveled that no two O.C. bands sounded remotely alike.
Best of all, it was there that, as far as alternative rock went, had more extensive historical roots than such previous ‘90s hot-and-trendy cities as Seattle and San Diego.
As Rolling Stone, Spin, Billboard and the rest did their big takeouts on the Orange County scene, the angle was consistent: how hardy, independent-minded souls had held out in some cases for more than a decade in an arid, overweeningly materialistic environment that was suburbia in excelsis ; how they had resisted the trend-crazed, so-you-wanna-be-a-rock-’n’-roll-star mentality of the great Hollywood machine to the north, and had continued making music full of integrity until the outer world finally started paying attention.
Visiting writers looked to sources such as Jonny Donhowe of Fluf, one of the leading bands on a San Diego rock scene that in 1993 had captured national notice and been the object of a feeding frenzy of contract-blandishing scouts from big labels.
“I always looked to Orange County (for punk influences),” Donhowe had said in an interview during the waning dark days of ’93. “The Adolescents, Uniform Choice. When I was a kid, everyone I was into was from Orange County.”
Suddenly, label scouts were checking their freeway maps, trying to find their way to Fullerton. Hollywood’s population dwindled slightly but noticeably as would-be rock careerists looked for affordable rents in Costa Mesa, Santa Ana and Anaheim.
Copies of “Adolescents,” Social Distortion’s “Mommy’s Little Monster” and catalogue items from T.S.O.L., the Crowd, Agent Orange, Tender Fury, the Vandals, D.I. and the Pontiac Brothers were sought and coveted by alternative-rock cognoscenti the world over. One’s hipness quotient was now measured in part by how hip one was to the history of O.C. rock.
Veteran Orange County players and music fans thought they must be dreaming.
The O.C. Hat Trick: Three Big Venues, Three Big Scores
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the Pacific Amphitheatre’s demise as a rock venue proved to be greatly exaggerated.
Instead of keeping it in mothballs for all but two weeks of the year, the new owners, the Orange County Fair, struck a deal with promoters eager to operate the Pacific as an all-purpose concert venue.
Instead of going for the blockbuster shows, as it had in the past, the Pacific scaled back and concentrated on becoming the good, intimate concert theater Orange County had lacked--a sort of Wiltern-under-the-stars.
It made its way with a strong schedule of acts that typically attracted 2,000 to 6,000 fans. The likes of Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Van Morrison, Lou Reed, Pete Townshend and David Byrne became the Pacific’s steady fare. Perhaps the season’s biggest highlight was a wonderful “unplugged” evening with Stevie Wonder.
And the place was gorgeous--the Fair Board having used its horticultural connections to turn the vast but no-longer-needed lawn area into a lovely combination arboretum and sculpture garden with changing exhibits highlighting the botanical arts.
With its scaled-down layout, and its concentration on bands not committed to earsplitting volume, the Pacific’s longstanding problems with noise-fearing neighbors were laid to rest.
Irvine Meadows, meanwhile, became one of the most profitable concert venues in the country. No longer forced into auction bidding against the Pacific for the biggest names with the biggest draw, Irvine pulled in every giant attraction that came down the pike, from Pearl Jam to Tom Petty, to a multiple-night engagement by the record-setting Frankiepalooza tour.
That was the one in which Ol’ Blue Eyes presided over a daylong, inter-generational bill of pop-standards that also included Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Liza Minnelli, Linda Ronstadt, k.d. lang and Bono Hewson.
Anaheim Arena became firmly established as an active, first-class hall for acts that wanted a roof over their heads.
What really put the building on the rock map was the “Week of the Dead” it staged in conjunction with Anaheim Stadium. For seven days, the two adjoining facilities and their parking lots became a huge but orderly Deadhead encampment, enlivened by side-stages featuring an array of old-line country, blues and roots-rock acts representing the Dead’s stylistic sources.
The Dead, rock’s biggest live draw, had been absent from Orange County since 1990, when a large number of arrests at its annual Irvine Meadows concerts that year resulted in the group being declared “rock banda non grata” by city and amphitheater officials.
The Dead played three nights at the Arena, then three more at the Stadium, before capping the week with an unprecedented day-night Sunday doubleheader involving shows at each venue. The band donated the final day’s take to Orange County’s effective, nationally renowned anti-gang task force.
The week went so well that plans went ahead to make it an annual event, and wherever the Dead played for months afterward, Jerry Garcia could be seen on stage sporting a Mighty Ducks T-shirt.
Under its new management, the Orange County Performing Arts Center bid adieu to past cultural snobbishness and worked in the occasional attractive adult-rock program. The center signaled this newfound openness and imagination with an acclaimed “Singers of Southern California” series that featured concerts by Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley and Linda Ronstadt.
In summary, the O.C. big-venue scene was transformed in ’94 from one of cut-throat competition to one in which complementary concert facilities formed a perfect fit. Toss in the Coach House, with its usual varied lineup of shows, and local pop fans had so much good stuff from which to choose that the sparse days of ’93 seemed almost unreal.
Meanwhile, Back in the Real World
The local scene actually does have real musicians making real music that we can realistically expect to hear in 1994.
Social Distortion took most of 1993 off, although it did some scattered live shows and provided the backing music for a Nike television commercial featuring Dennis Hopper as a sports referee.
Now, reports main man Mike Ness, “I’m writing (what is) I think the best record I’ve ever written. . . . The last few records we showed everyone that we loved the blues, we loved country and rockabilly. This record I want to get back to my primary roots,” which means a shot of straight, melodic punk.
“The whole record is attitude. It’s angry, it’s aggressive, it’s just how I feel right now,” added Ness. He hopes that the band, which remains signed to Epic Records, will have finished recording by early spring, with a summer release to follow.
Dick Dale’s “Tribal Thunder” album won him critical accolades in 1993 and led to his first extended national touring. The guitar great’s first order of business for ’94 is to make a video for the album’s hot leadoff track, “Nitro.”
In March, he expects to be back in the studio, recording his second album for the HighTone label with pretty much the same supporting crew that helped drive “Tribal Thunder.” Also possible during the coming year are Dale’s first-ever appearances overseas: He says he has an invitation to play a major summer festival in Holland.
Before Dale goes surfing off to other parts, local fans can catch him at the Coach House on Jan. 22. (The old-line surf-rock contingent might also want to circle Jan. 16, the day the Chantays play at Randell’s in Santa Ana in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the release of their definitive surf-rock hit, “Pipeline.”)
April in Switzerland, anyone? Besides the Alps, you’d be able to take in shows by Jann Browne and Chris Gaffney, O.C. country-music stalwarts who will share a backing band on a two-week European package tour. Browne has an album due out on a Swiss label, Red Moon. Gaffney, one of the most distinctive songwriters around, is the king of even numbers, having topped my O.C. best-albums-of-the-year list in both 1990 and 1992. He goes for the threepeat in ‘94, saying he is well along in writing material to be released on an independent label yet to be determined.
The Walter Trout Band has another heavy year of travel ahead, including much work in Europe and its first dates in Australia, a continent where Trout established himself in previous blues gigs with Canned Heat and John Mayall.
And, at last, American audiences will have a chance to hear his potent, passionate blues-rock. Trout’s first U.S. release, “Tellin’ Stories,” is already in the can following 1993 sessions in London. Look for a May release here.
Also on the blues beat, Robert Lucas will issue “Layaway,” his fourth album for the San Clemente-based Audioquest label, and we can expect another Black Top release from the James Harman Band.
The promising young O.C. band Water starts the year with sessions in New Orleans for its debut album on MCA Records.
Having spent 1993 building its own home studio and writing some 40 to 50 new songs, the ska-flavored Anaheim rock band, No Doubt, plans to release its sophomore effort for Interscope Records. Albhy Galuten, whose past credits include working with the Bee Gees on the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack and a more recent album by Jellyfish, has already produced three tracks, reports No Doubt’s Tony Kanal.
Having spent most of 1993 as the drummer in Paul Westerberg’s touring band, wunderkind Josh Freese returns to Orange County to work on his debut solo album for Giant Records. He’ll write, sing and play most of the instruments.
Freese remains a member of Xtra Large, which will be working on a follow-up to its 1992 debut album. Local punk-scene veteran Dave Quackenbush, best known as front man of the Vandals, has replaced Darren McNamee as Xtra Large’s singer. Meanwhile, look for Xtra Large’s guitarist, Warren Fitzgerald, to continue his moonlighting association with Oingo Boingo.
Jack Grisham, one of the local scene’s most active and flamboyant rockers since his wild early-’80s days with T.S.O.L., sang not a note in public during 1993. But Grisham kept busy, working up new material with a new band. Geffen Records financed the sessions on a “development deal” basis, Grisham says.
While no formal record contract has been signed, Grisham and his new band, Joykiller, should surface soon with live gigs. The band includes Tracii Guns, of L.A. Guns, as well as alumni of the Weirdos, Gun Club, and Grisham’s old band, Tender Fury. Look for a sound that, as Grisham puts it, is “hard but pretty at the same time.”
Cisco Poison, fronted by another T.S.O.L. alum, Joe Wood, expects to sign an independent-label deal in ’94 and issue its debut album. . . . Cadillac Tramps are at work on their third album for Doctor Dream. . . . The hard-riffing San Diego/O.C. band Fluf also plans to release a new album and a flurry of vinyl singles. Fluf headlines Jan. 28 at Our House in Costa Mesa.
The roots-rocking Mystery Train plans a debut release on a Japanese label, EMI/Toshiba. The album is called “706 Union Avenue,” the Memphis address of the old Sun Records studio.
Others who made favorable impressions in ’93 and bear watching include Eli Riddle, which is readying a self-financed debut album; One Hit Wonder; Trip the Spring; Loaded (led by Burning Tree alumnus Mark Dutton); Big Sandy & His Fly-rite Boys; the punk-influenced Lidsville; Asight Unseen; and Gina Quartaro, a country-rock contender who is working with producer Jon St. James. The fact that the erstwhile synth-pop producer is now laying tracks with steel guitars speaks volumes about the ascendancy of country music.
As always, we embrace the unknown and the unpredictable, in hopes that along with the inevitable harsher realities will come the pleasant surprises that give us reason to keep on dreaming and peering around the corner for what comes next.
