A long way from Dick Dale

A long way from Dick Dale

Saturday night’s 2003 Orange County Music Awards proved that the O.C. sound doesn’t mean what it did when the Offspring and No Doubt took over in the mid-’90s. Punk and ska were only an afterthought in a four-hour, 26-award show honoring local talent in a multitude of Grammy-like categories. Rock is still the name of the game, as Britpop-oriented Scarlet Crush, female-fronted alt-rock band Sideswipe, and big Zeppelin-Stone Temple Pilots channelers Wonderlove each picked up two awards. But there were also distinctive sounds from winners Natural Afrodisiac (R&B;), Brook Lee (male acoustic), Darenda Owens (country) and Bayadera (world). Then 65-year-old surf guitar king Dick Dale accepted a lifetime achievement award and gave a performance with his young son, Jimmy, that included Dale’s tribute to the Balboa Peninsula’s most famous beach, “The Wedge.” Since its debut last year, the event at the Grove Theatre of Anaheim has grown from a small-time labor of love to a multi-corporate-sponsored extravaganza. In a noteworthy upset, Afterfall topped the Ziggens and Trespassers William for best indie rock, causing one of its band members to quip: “Wow, I haven’t even heard of us.”

Fast forward

Local phenom Paloalto has snagged great opening spots recently for Supergrass, is now touring with the Soundtrack of Our Lives, and in late April will head out with ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. New album in June....The Hotel Cafe scene is becoming a singer-songwriter mecca. Gary Jules, who released one of 2002’s best records, “Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets,” plays Tuesdays there this month. Another regular, Patrick Park dropped his often-gorgeous first EP, “Under the Unminding Skies,” Tuesday on Badman Records....L.A.’s underground horror-punk masterfiend Damnation opens for Fear at the Key Club on April 5.... On April 15, the oddly named San Diego rock band Rochelle, Rochelle will release its EP, “Secondary,” a follow-up to a 2001 disc that earned the group tons of local awards and a Blender magazine editor’s pick at the Austin, Texas, South By SouthWest confab in 2002.

Dean Kuipers, John Roos

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