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great article. I may just go check out that exhibit this weekend.
-K
On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 23:52:05 -0000 "San Barry" <>
writes:
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>
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> POP MUSIC
>
> Upon this rock, a scene was built
>
> O.C. was the birthplace of surf music and the fabled, amped-up
> Fender guitar. So take
> that, L.A.
>
> By Marc Weingarten
> Special to The Times
>
> February 17, 2005
>
> Orange County is the Orange Curtain, the wags say, a gulag of strip
> malls far from the
> vibrant cultural currents of Los Angeles. Fox's sexy soap "The O.C."
> hasn't burnished the
> rep either, what with all of those sexed-up young things and a
> middle-aged patriarch who
> likes to surf in his spare time.
>
> Which is why the Fullerton Museum Center's exhibition "The Orange
> Groove: Orange
> County's Rock 'n' Roll History," is a necessary corrective to the
> cultural misperceptions
> about this maligned region. The display, a sweeping survey of the
> county's musical
> heritage that features rare memorabilia, handbills, musical gear and
> other ephemera,
> places Orange Country in its proper historical context as the home
> of some important rock
> musicians and a breeding ground for surf music, a genre that's
> synonymous with Southern
> California but, alas, not necessarily Orange County.
>
> Perhaps it's because Orange County is regarded by many as the
> state's capital of
> conservatism, a place where the apotheosis of artistic expression is
> Disneyland. But
> according to the show's curator, Jim Washburn, Orange County's
> conservative philosophy
> actually gave a leg up to the nascent music scene.
>
> "For a while, the conservative mind-set worked to the scene's
> advantage," says Washburn,
> a veteran music journalist and a contributing editor for the OC
> Weekly. "There was this
> whole notion of letting the market determine everything, of
> eliminating Big Brother. If
> someone wanted to rent a hall for a concert, so be it."
>
> As the exhibition makes clear, the region's most important musical
> figure was a free-
> market entrepreneur: Leo Fender, who invented the solid-body
> electric guitar out of his
> Fullerton shop. In the 1950s Fender began shilling his Stratocaster
> guitar to local
> musicians to advertise his product, and one of them, Dick Dale,
> became O.C.'s first local
> rock hero. The Balboa resident, who bashed out his jittery surf
> guitar hits "Let's Go Trippin'
> " and "Miserlou" on a custom-made, left-handed Fender Strat,
> launched an O.C. surf
> movement.
>
> Suddenly, everyone was saving up to buy a Fender guitar so they
> could start a band.
> Fifteen-minute O.C. surf groups such as the Blazers, the Rhythm
> Rockers and Santa Ana's
> the Chantays played key venues such as the Rendezvous Ballroom on
> the Balboa peninsula
> and the Pavalon in Huntington Beach. The Chantays' "Pipeline" became
> the first O.C.-bred
> national hit, selling more than a million copies in 1963. "We had a
> big fan base in Orange
> County," says the Chantays' Bob Spikard, a Santa Ana native. "We
> played the Rendezvous
> Ballroom for two years straight."
>
> Meanwhile, Spikard's high school classmates Bill Medley and Bobby
> Hatfield were
> emulating the gritty vocals of L.A. R&B act Don and Dewey and
> performing locally as the
> Righteous Brothers. The duo became the most successful musical duo
> to emerge from
> Orange Country, with Top 10 hits "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling,"
> "Unchained Melody"
> and "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration." "The Orange Groove" has two
> of Medley and
> Hatfield's stage suits on display, as well as rare album covers,
> some canceled checks for
> local gigs and a video loop of TV performances.But it's the
> obscurantist strain in "The
> Orange Groove" that makes it such a revelation. There is significant
> display space devoted
> to Kathy Marshall, for example. Virtually unknown today, she was a
> crackerjack in her
> early-'60s heyday, the "Queen of the Surf Guitar" who matched licks
> onstage with Dale and
> other guitarists.
>
> "Kathy was an amazing player, but terribly shy," Washburn says. "She
> used to throw up
> before going on stage."
>
> Tracking down Marshall was one of Washburn's most challenging
> quests: "I couldn't find
> her anywhere," he says. "Finally, on a tip, I looked in the phone
> book for Marshall
> Advertising, and she answered the phone. It was a half-mile from my
> house in Costa
> Mesa."
>
> When the Beatles relegated surf music to obscure status in 1964,
> Orange County moved
> through all of the requisite developments in rock the psychedelic
> movement, the
> singer-songwriter coffeehouses (where Fullerton natives Jackson
> Browne and Tim Buckley
> first performed) and the Marshall stack-heavy riffage of local acts
> like the Stack and Birtha.
> One of "The Orange Groove's" most impressive items is a large mural
> of a scene including
> the Acropolis from the Balboa coffeehouse the Prisoner of Socrates,
> where local folkies
> Steve Gillette and Tim Nelson performed. "It was being used as an
> oil-drip pan when I
> found it," says Washburn. "Fortunately, the owner had a nice car."
>
> Punk music is arguably Orange County's most culturally significant
> export, but it began
> modestly. "There were no places to play," says Jim Guerinot. The
> manager of O.C. bands
> No Doubt, the Offspring and Social Distortion, Guerinot began his
> career promoting shows
> in Fullerton in the early 1980s. "It was a very small scene. Bands
> would play in roller rinks,
> but most of those closed." Guerinot remembers mounting shows by
> Social D and TSOL at
> Fullerton Junior College, both of which were shut down by the
> police.
>
> That history of opposition runs through "The Orange Groove"; it is
> the subtext of a scene
> that thrived on the push and pull of propriety and rebellion. But
> like all insurgencies, the
> fires cooled down to embers by the '90s, and now O.C.'s music scene
> is much like the rest
> of the country's, a combination of under-the-radar clubs and
> mainstream venues such as
> the House of Blues.
>
> "Liability became a problem, and the scene got lawyer-ed up,"
> Washburn said. "But there's
> still plenty of good music here. You just have to know where to
> look."
>
> Marc Weingarten can be reached at .
>
> The Orange Groove: Orange County's Rock 'n' Roll History
> What: Exhibition featuring pop music ephemera
> Where: Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave., Fullerton
> When: Noon-4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; noon-8
> p.m. Thursday
> Price: $4; $3 for students and seniors; $1 for children
> Info: (714) 738-6545
