Rock ‘n’ roll county fair

Andrew Edwards

The Orange County Fair is not a place for ear-splitting rock ‘n’

roll. Except when it is.

Veteran Southern California rock band X was one of several bands

signed to perform at the Pacific Amphitheater for the Orange County

Fair concert series. The four-member band headlined Friday night’s

concert, blasting through about 90 minutes of songs selected from the

band’s early releases.

Drummer D.J. Bonebrake pounded the rhythms while guitarist Billy

Zoom played guitar, at times standing nearly still with a big grin on

his face while the riotous music filled the amphitheater. In contrast

to Zoom’s relative calm, bassist and singer John Doe appeared to be

on the verge of a fury as he moved across the stage. The group’s lead

singer, Exene Cervenka, gave a hip-shaking, hair-in-the-eyes

performance that wavered between ebullience and menace.

“You’re not afraid of me are you?” she asked the crowd between

songs.

The audience answered by cheering.

“You are,” she replied, coyly.

X’s style is hard to describe in simple terms. The band plays

short, fast, raucous songs, but without the screaming and yelling of

hardcore music. Doe and Cervenka can actually sing, and their

harmonies combine with Zoom’s rockabilly-inspired guitar work and

Bonebrake’s aggressive drumming to create a sound that could be

called punk rock, though that classification seems a little

incomplete.

“We’re kind of eclectic. I guess we have a strong roots influence

and we’re very loud,” Zoom said a week before the concert. “As far as

my own style with X, I play a kind of jazz and rockabilly trying to

sound like Johnny Ramone. If that makes sense. It’s sort of like

finger picking major 13ths with a lot of distortion.”

X, a band with roots in the late-1970s Hollywood punk-rock scene,

may not seem like a likely candidate for the Orange County Fair.

County fairs have agricultural roots and harken back to times that

urban and suburban fairgoers would likely consider simpler. X’s songs

have titles such as “The World’s a Mess, It’s in My Kiss” and “We’re

Desperate.”

But Zoom, who was interviewed at a recording studio he keeps in a

nondescript industrial building in Orange, doesn’t see any reason why

X shouldn’t play at the Pacific Amphitheater.

“Why not? Elvis played fairs,” Zoom said. “We play a lot of

festivals.”

Zoom said how X ended up playing at the fair was not his business.

Mike Rouse, the band’s road manager, called the deal simple. Rouse

got a phone call from the fair, and he and Ken Phebus, the Pacific

Amphitheater’s booking agent, made an agreement.

“They said, ‘We’d pay you X amount of money,’ and we said

‘Great,’” Rouse said.

Phebus, a Newport Harbor High School graduate, has booked shows at

the Pacific Amphitheater since 2002, and his career stretches back to

the 1970s. Rouse credited Phebus with having “a little cool factor

going on.”

“That’s why you probably have a fun sort of fair,” Rouse said.

An eclectic series

The concert series opened July 8, the same Friday as the rest of

the fair. The B-52s headlined the first night, and concert series

producer John Sullivan said the show sold out. The Steve Miller

Band’s Sunday show also sold out, as did pop star Hilary Duff’s

Wednesday concert.

Other acts scheduled to play at the Pacific Amphitheater during

the fair include Beck, Julio Iglesias and the performers scheduled

for the fair’s Reggaefest -- Burning Spear, Third World and

Yellowman. The series is set to close July 31 with a show featuring

hard rockers the Scorpions and UFO.

The concerts do not only feature musical acts. Comedian Bill

Engvall headlined the July 9 show and Saturday Night Live alumni Dana

Carvey comes to town Tuesday.

“We’re coming from a history of knowing what Orange County’s all

about and who lives here. And keeping in mind who’s in the Inland

Empire and L.A.,” Phebus said. “We’re trying to accommodate all

walks.”

Part of planning the concert series was casting a broad net.

Steven Beazley, the fair’s chief operating officer, said any acts who

were known to be around Orange County this summer likely heard from

the fair.

“We made offers from everybody to Tom Petty to the Doobie

Brothers,” Beazley said. “Anybody who’s at another venue right now,

we made an offer to.”

Homegrown talent

Concert planners did not have to go too far to find the Vandals,

one of the other punk rock bands scheduled to play at the fair this

year. Vandals guitarist Warren Fitzgerald said one factor that led to

his band playing the fair was they had become friends with members of

Flogging Molly, the band the Vandals are set to open for on July 28.

Another reason to play the fair was that the Seal Beach resident

planned to make a trip to Costa Mesa whether he had a concert at the

fair or not.

“When the offer came up, I was like, ‘I’m going to go to the fair

anyway, so why not do a show?’” Fitzgerald said.

Whereas X’s image is inextricably linked to Los Angeles, the

Vandals are clearly products of Orange County. Fitzgerald, who

describes his musical style as “skillfully irreverent,” was born in

Newport Beach and delivered the Daily Pilot as a youngster. The

Vandals’ discography includes a number of tunes -- including one

titled “N.I.M.B.Y.” -- that jokingly describe local life.

Before he joined the Vandals, the band penned two songs about the

now-defunct Cuckoo’s Nest, the Costa Mesa venue that hosted punk rock

acts in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The songs, “Urban Struggle”

and “The Legend of Pat Brown,” are humorous tunes that still manage

to deal with the violence that became associated with punk rock from

its early days. The first song mocks country music fans who fought

with punk rockers. Pat Brown was a punker who, according to the

song’s lyrics and the band’s website, attacked undercover police

officers with his car.

Despite the tunes’ local hooks, Fitzgerald said they may not be

played during the band’s July 28 set. Both songs were released on the

1982 E.P. “Peace Through Vandalism.” For the band’s younger fans,

1982 is a long time ago.

“We’ve been putting out records every couple years, and the

average fans at this point are teenagers,” Fitzgerald said. “They

don’t know those ones as much as the newer material.”

Zoom did not indicate any surprise that a punk act could play at

the fair. Punk rock has been around for about 30 or so years, and

Fitzgerald said time has allowed the style to assimilate with more

mainstream culture.

“We’re through the looking glass at this point. It’s insane,” he

said.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be

reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at andrew.edwards@latimes.com.