Linda’s Will Party to Get a Face Lift

Age will serve beautification Saturday when Linda’s Doll Hut celebrates its eighth birthday.

The noon-to-2 a.m. bash at the wonderful little rock ‘n’ roll joint in Anaheim will feature 15 or so of O.C.’s finest roots- and alternative-rock attractions, along with door prizes and a barbecue in the parking lot.

Owner Linda Jemison, who celebrated her own birthday Monday, says that proceeds from the $6 cover charge will go toward refurbishing the club’s distinctive neon sign, which for decades has beckoned passersby to the tiny red shack near the railroad tracks.

“I was looking at an old Pontiac Brothers record the other day and said, ‘Ooh, that needs work,’ ” Jemison said. (The Pontiacs’ 1985-vintage “Doll Hut” album features a picture of the distinctive neon sign--it’s what alerted Jemison and her ex-husband, John Mello, to the existence of the neighborhood watering hole.) When the Doll Hut went up for sale in 1989, they pounced on it, and the rest is O.C. rock ‘n’ roll history.

With its clubhouse ambience, its bare-floor-for-a-stage simplicity and its utterly unpretentious vibe, the Doll Hut has been the busiest and most nurturing incubator for the O.C. rock scene. It offers a steady stream of bands making fledgling steps but also regularly showcases world-class area talents such as One Hit Wonder, Liquor Giants and Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys, along with occasional surprise shows by the likes of Social Distortion and the Offspring.

The advertised musical revelers at the anniversary party are One Hit Wonder, Tiki Tones, Rhythm Lords, Sun Demons, Large Hardware, Wack Pack, Wank, Exit, Backdoor Blues, Jimmy Camp and promised “secret guests.”

When it’s over, Jemison said, she’ll be able to do some “restoration on the old hut, to make it look pretty again. If it ever has.”

* Eighth Anniversary Party at Linda’s Doll Hut, 107 S. Adams St., Anaheim. Saturday, noon-2 a.m. $6. (714) 533-1286.

The Vandals Tour Podunk for Punk The 31 municipalities of Orange County can rest easy in the knowledge that not one of them is a Turd Town.

At least not as defined by the Vandals, O.C.’s long-running punk-rock answer to Mad magazine.

The Vandals embark Wednesday on what they’ve dubbed their First Annual Turd Town Tour 1997, in which the object is to skip the usual hubs and meccas of rock ‘n’ roll and play the kinds of places that inspire hometown punkers’ pride only insofar as it’s a badge of honor to be able to survive in such Nowheresville surroundings.

The clownishly satiric Vandals will play the California backwaters of Eureka, Chico, Sonora, Guadalupe and Victorville, along with Yuma, Ariz., and a few less off-the-track stops such as Berkeley, Tijuana and Reno, Nev.

“We were looking for places that no bands ever go” and yet an underdog’s sense of punk identity persists, said the Vandals’ bassist, Joe Escalante.

A turd town, he said, is one where “no one would live there on their own, without some compelling reason--like their parents are making them. Some of them are nice places, but they’re so far out of the way.”

“Orange County is turd-free,” Escalante noted. “That’s why we live here.”

The Vandals have gotten a whiff of the sweet smell of success this year as frequent touring partners of No Doubt. Escalante reports that Anaheim’s biggest rock stars have recorded a version of “Oi to the World,” a Christmas song by the Vandals, for inclusion on an upcoming holiday compilation disc to benefit the Special Olympics.

“The good news is I wrote the song. The band news is, I don’t get any money. But the Special Olympics is a charity I can live with,” Escalante said, noting that he coached a Special Olympics basketball team back in his late-’80s days as a schoolteacher.

“Oi to the World” is that rare Vandals commodity--a positive song, humorously promoting tolerance between warring ethnic punk factions. It would be ironic if this anomalous Vandals number becomes the band’s most widely heard creation. Said Escalante: “Most of our fans like the cynical stuff.”