Finger-Pointing in Wake of Fracas at Punk Show : Pop music: Promoters from Costa Mesa, local musicians and others differ on events at Blockbuster Pavilion and who was responsible.

Three novice concert promoters from Costa Mesa and a huge amphitheater in San Bernardino County got their first taste of large-scale punk rock promotion last weekend--and found it not altogether sweet.

The show also held a sour note for a rowdy young Huntington Beach punk singer who wound up briefly behind bars on suspicion of inciting a riot at the Punk Show ’95 festival on Sunday.

The event’s organizer, Costa Mesa-based CPR Productions, was starting at the top of the punk-promotion ladder: With minimal concert experience behind them, the three partners, two of them brothers in their early 20s, decided to leap into the punk scene by staging an 11-hour, 22-band extravaganza at a major outdoor concert facility.

Hosting the promoters, their roster of grass-roots Southern California bands and some 5,600 punk fans was the Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion, a 2-year-old concert bowl in Devore that had not previously put on a punk show.

Punk rock has turned into a lucrative property in the past year, but, as the events of Punk Show ’95 demonstrate, it remains a raucous, untamed and potentially volatile form of entertainment. The day brought 11 arrests, according to police. It also resulted in an undetermined but “not enormous amount” of property damage, according to Blockbuster Pavilion general manager Alan J. DeZon, and no reports of serious injuries.

One San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy required stitches after he was struck in the head by a thrown object as police skirmished with punk fans. A Sheriff’s Department spokesman said the incident took place as deputies made arrests related to an unarmed assault inside the amphitheater.

In a separate incident, Mark Adkins, singer of the popular Huntington Beach band Guttermouth, was arrested on suspicion of inciting a riot. Police said Adkins tried to inflame the audience against the security crew. He was also charged with misdemeanor assault after allegedly scuffling with security guards backstage following Guttermouth’s aborted performance.

The day ended, prematurely, with fans pouring onto the stage. It had been left unguarded by the amphitheater’s security detail, which, fearing for its safety, had pulled back after Guttermouth’s set.

In the aftermath this week, CPR’s partners criticized Blockbuster management for not tailoring the fixed-seat venue better for punk rock. Brothers Raymond and Chris Martin said they had asked for a bigger mosh pit and contended that such a setup might have forestalled the trouble that broke out during Guttermouth’s performance.

“It wasn’t set up the way [punk fans] like it,” Raymond Martin said. “They felt they weren’t given the opportunity to have fun at the show and that they were treated like a problem from the beginning.”

DeZon dismissed the notion that the lack of a larger pit--he estimated the small one provided at stage front held about 250 people--played any part in causing the turbulence; he laid the blame entirely upon Guttermouth’s Adkins and on the promoters’ inability to “have a handle on [Guttermouth’s] presentation.”

The promoters and the venue manager agreed on one thing: their belief that Guttermouth’s singer egged on his fans, touching off the concert’s worst trouble. The band is a popular local act that has toured with the Offspring and records for Nitro Records, the label run by Offspring singer Bryan (Dexter) Holland. Guttermouth’s satirically intended songs cast a wide net of ridicule; the band is known for a mock-confrontational stage style in which singer Adkins baits fans with sarcastic humor and engages in profane but jokingly intended rabble-rousing.

According to Raymond Martin, who watched from the stage, Adkins became angry at the security crew during Guttermouth’s performance and urged the audience to “get Staff Pro,” referring to the private company that provides security for Blockbuster Pavilion and many other Southern California concert venues.

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DeZon said he heard Adkins call out, “We’re not going to play until you tear this place apart!”

Adkins, who posted bail after his arrest, could not be reached for comment. Guttermouth drummer Jamie Nunn flatly denied that Adkins had incited the crowd.

“It’s absolutely not true; it’s a lie,” he said of claims that Adkins had threatened security guards or urged the audience to “tear apart” the amphitheater.

“We never said anything that drastic,” Nunn said. Adkins “had voiced his concern about how security was treating the kids in a rather direct manner, but in no way did we say ‘attack the security’ or ‘injure security.’ Absolutely not. No way did we say, ‘Tear this place up.’ We all know too well what can happen if we do that. There was no inciting anything.”

Nunn and the Martin brothers contend that security guards were being too rough in turning back audience members who bodysurfed atop the crowd to a stage-front barrier as Guttermouth played. They also said that things got worse when Blockbuster officials cut short the band’s performance.

“We told [Blockbuster Pavilion’s stage manager], ‘Don’t pull the plug; [Adkins] is doing what he normally does, leave him alone. If you pull the plug, you’re going to have a problem of immense proportions,’ ” Raymond Martin said.

“When they pulled the plug, the crowd went ballistic,” he added. “Metal grates [used to cover drainage trenches near the stage front] started flying. It was raining grates. They looked like Frisbees”--one of which, Martin said, hit him in the leg.

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Blockbuster’s DeZon gave a different account: He said that fans had already begun throwing grates and other objects before Guttermouth was cut off, and that stopping the band was a necessary step in preventing injuries and restoring order.

Things did calm down, and Face to Face, a punk band from Victorville, was able to play briefly before crowd members swarmed the stage, ending the show for good. Three scheduled bands did not play, according to promoters.

Cory Meredith, president of Staff Pro, which handles security at many punk shows, disputed CPR’s and Nunn’s contention that Staff Pro guards had helped instigate the violence by placing crowd-surfing fans in neck-holds or by striking them.

“My guys that [guard] the barricade are very professional; they’re there for the kids and for their safety,” Meredith said. “I had the best crew there, and if there were any punches thrown, it was probably to protect themselves. I don’t care if we had an army. Obviously the person with the microphone controls the crowd, not security.”

“The whole thing is very upsetting to us,” Guttermouth’s Nunn said. “We want the whole thing to blow over and for Mark to be cleared, because he did nothing wrong.” The band canceled performances that had been scheduled for Thursday night and tonight at the Whisky A Go-Go in West Hollywood, both of which were expected to be sellouts at the 450-capacity club.

“I guess their lawyer said they shouldn’t play it,” said the club’s booking agent, Kim Adams.

Chris Martin of CPR (not to be confused with another local punk promoter named Chris Martin, who was active a few years ago at the Meadowlark Country Club and other venues, and who now concentrates on managing bands) said Wednesday that he and his partners initially set out to promote the punk festival as a way of drawing attention to their plans to develop a combination skating rink and rock-concert space in the Costa Mesa area.

Martin said they also wanted to prove--in keeping with a punk ethic that values do-it-yourself initiative and eyes big business warily--that a motivated group of non-experts with a good knowledge of the music and its culture, and a strong commitment to the task, could successfully mount a large event.

Their first choice for the show was the large dome adjacent to the Queen Mary in Long Beach. When management there decided against hosting a major punk show, CPR turned to Blockbuster Pavilion.

“We were ready for it; we knew exactly what to look for, but [Blockbuster management] wouldn’t let us [control the staging and security arrangements] because [they felt] we were inexperienced and didn’t know what we were doing,” Raymond Martin said. “But [the outcome] shows who was wrong. Blockbuster was inexperienced.”

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Martin said that, for now, CPR will set aside concert promotion and focus on establishing the skate park, adding that he believes most fans at Punk Show ’95 had a good time and that the show’s troubles shouldn’t impede their plans.

DeZon said that Blockbuster’s tumultuous first experience with punk rock won’t necessarily be its last. He noted that the Pavilion, which usually promotes its own concerts, in this case was rented to an outside promoter.

“We probably should have researched better than we did,” he said of the decision to work with promoters who did not have prior big-venue experience.

Paul Tollett, a partner in Goldenvoice, the company that pioneered big-venue punk rock shows in Southern California, said flatly that the music doesn’t belong in buildings that have fixed seating in front of the stage, as the Blockbuster Pavilion does.

“I just don’t think they should do a show like that in a seated venue; those kids aren’t used to sitting in seats,” Tollett said. “It’s so obvious to anyone who looks at that show that putting it in a seated amphitheater was wrong. I don’t want to pile dirt on the Blockbuster [Pavilion], but my mom could have told you that show was going to have problems.”