Credit theft or just bad blood between Vandals?

Paul McCartney’s recent reversing of the familiar Lennon-McCartney credit drew the wrath of John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, but that dispute looks like a polite discussion next to a copyright battle brewing in the camp of Southern California punk mainstay the Vandals.

It started when friends of Steve Jensen, the singer in one of the first versions of the Vandals in the early ‘80s, and Steve Pfauter, the bassist in the band in those years, saw the Vin Diesel movie “XXX.” They were thrilled to hear in the soundtrack the song “Anarchy Burger (Hold the Government),” from the Vandals’ debut 1982 EP, “Peace Through Vandalism.”

But they were not so happy to see the credits at the end of the movie, which stated that the song was written by Joe Escalante, then the band’s drummer and later its bassist. Escalante has anchored the continuation of the Vandals for nearly 20 years.

When the song was originally released, the writing was credited to all the members of the band. When they heard of the change on “XXX,” Jensen (known as Stevo) and Pfauter (whose Vandals nom de punk was Human) hired an attorney who contacted Sony Pictures, which temporarily held up payment to Escalante for the song.

Escalante, who has a law degree and worked in business affairs for CBS for several years, responded with a suit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court against his former bandmates charging interference with a contract and asking for more than $6 million. Jensen and Pfauter are looking into filing a countersuit.

You expect less from a band called the Vandals?

“Joe’s trying to rewrite history,” says Jensen, now a Hawaii resident. He claims that he wrote nearly all the lyrics to the song, with the music a group collaboration.

“That’s a song I wrote,” Escalante counters, noting that he had been asked by “XXX” screenwriter Rich Wilkes, a longtime friend, to contribute a song to the film. “I purposely chose a song that I wrote so there wouldn’t be any question.”

But he also says it wouldn’t make any difference, as Jensen and Pfauter had signed away all claims on Vandals material in 1985 in exchange for the right to perform an “original Vandals” concert. Jensen and Pfauter say that there was never such an agreement.

Escalante says that Sony was satisfied with his claim of copyright and eventually did pay him for the song, but he believes his former bandmates’ actions have damaged his ability to secure other licensing deals.

“His law degree is not going to protect his reality distortion in a court of law,” says Pfauter.

“If you’re going to interfere with a deal, the reasons better be true,” responds Escalante. “Since it’s not true, they put themselves in a bad situation they thought they could get away with, but it wasn’t very smart.”

A settlement hearing is scheduled in L.A. for June 27.

Wanted: an executive director

More than a year after a series of fund-raising concerts for its fight against music industry contract practices, the Recording Artists Coalition is still looking for a leader. Though co-founder Don Henley has been its most visible figure and a board of directors has overseen its efforts, the organization is still without an executive director.

“We are actively recruiting,” says Jay Cooper, a music business attorney serving as the group’s counsel and a member of the board. “I’ve got a number of resumes and we’re looking at them. My job is to narrow them down to the top five candidates and turn it over to the board. There’s no requirement that we have an executive director, but we need someone devoting themselves full time to this to carry out the goals.”

Cooper says that for the moment, the group’s focus remains on trying to repeal the musicians’ exemption from the California law prohibiting services contracts longer than seven years, as well as trying to get access to record company accounting. Such issues as health care coverage for artists are on the agenda for future campaigns.

“We’re making a lot of progress on the accounting issue,” he says. “I have a new [contract] form that came in as I negotiate a contract with Warner Bros. Records, and it’s substantially different than before. It’s reduced in size by about a half from the past and a substantially simpler form. But I complained that they’re also using smaller type, making it more difficult to read. They said that was a fair complaint.”

Small faces

* After winning praise for their singing roles in “Chicago” and “Moulin Rouge,” respectively, Renee Zellweger and Ewan MacGregor have teamed on “Here’s to Love,” the end-title song of “Down With Love,” a comedy in which they co-star. The song, written and produced by film composer Marc Shaiman, will be on a soundtrack album due May 13, with the movie opening May 16. Also on the soundtrack will be a title song sung by Michael Buble and Holly Palmer.

* The Stray Cats’ Brian Setzer, Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom will reunite for the trio’s first live performance since 1992. They’ll be at the annual Hootenanny on July 5 at Irvine’s Hidden Valley. This will also mark the 25th anniversary of the band’s forming. No other Stray Cats shows are expected at this time. A second Hootenanny show July 6 has Social Distortion and Little Richard booked so far. Tickets for the shows will go on sale Saturday.

* Attention Minutemen fans: An album of previously unreleased live and private home recordings with the band’s late leader, D Boon, is due in July as the inaugural offering from Box-O-Plenty Records, a new label started by Richard Derrick, a high school friend of Boon and Minutemen bassist Mike Watt. Derrick plays drums on several tracks on the album, which also includes four solo acoustic Boon performances at the old Lhasa Club and a Minutemen performance of “Hammerdown” at a Music Machine benefit headlined by Spinal Tap. Watt wrote liner notes for the collection. Box-O-Plenty will follow this with an album of English eccentric Kevin Ayers recorded in part at the Hollywood Knitting Factory in 2000 and an instrumental improvisation album by Derrick with guitarist Nels Cline and bassist Bob Lee.