Hootenanny Article

[kustom55]

Found this online as well as the pix of Ness, Doe and a little taste of what you can expect for the first timers.

A hoot and a holler
Hootenanny, Orange County's annual festival of real rock and cool cars, is back.
By PETER LARSEN
The Orange County Register
Ask Hootenanny founder Bill Hardie how he came up with the idea back in 1995 for a daylong festival of Americana rock 'n' roll and he laughs.

"You want the romantic version? Or the truth?" says Hardie of the annual show that turns 13 on Saturday with Social Distortion headlining a bill of more than 20 bands.

In the Hollywood version, Hardie had a vision in which rockabilly and punk, country and early rock all blended together to make a beautiful racket in the sunshine of rural Oak Canyon Ranch near Irvine Lake.

But that's more or less ? actually all ? fiction. The truth, Hardie says, is that it was more a fortunate accident.

His concert-promoting partner had gotten involved in a new festival called Board in Orange County ? which turned into the debut Warped Tour ? with local bands like No Doubt, Sublime and Social Distortion.

"All of them got up on that and so what am I going to do with my summer?" Hardie says of the main thought on his mind in the spring of 1995.

"I was promoting a bunch of different shows ? Cadillac Tramps, the Rev. Horton Heat ? and from that we kind of put it all together.

"That first year it was the Cramps and the Rev. Horton Heat, the Blasters and Lee Rocker," Hardie says. "We just tried to capture the whole subculture, from the vendors and the car show and how it kind of all ties together."

A year later, Jerry Lee Lewis and Social Distortion headlined and the pattern was set ? a strong name act here, an early legend there, and in between a host of bands who find inspiration in the same deep well of American music.

"To put Jerry Lee and Social Distortion on the same bill, I think people would have laughed at you," Hardie says. "But after the first year, it lent us confidence to try Jerry Lee Lewis and to bring in bigger bands."

? ? ?

Making those kinds of connections ? from the forefathers of raw, early rock in the '50s to their musical descendents ? is part of what keeps Mike Ness of Social Distortion coming back to play ? now for a sixth time.

"It's a good venue for people to see the connections ? going back to the 1930s, to the 1970s punk rock, between white and black music," Ness says of the Hootenanny. "It's connecting the dots and the relevance of all kinds of music.

"The old guys are slowly dying, and it's important to keep their legacies alive," he says of the festival that has featured rare local appearances by pioneers such as the late Link Wray, Elvis Presley guitarist Scotty Moore and Bo Diddley.


Ness spoke by phone from on tour in the Midwest in support of a new greatest hits album, and noted that a night or two before in Illinois he ran into a fan after the gig who told him he was flying out for the Hootenanny this year.

"From the fan point of view, I think (it's lasted) because it's outdoors, it provides the Southern California lifestyle of cars, bikes, nice weather, and it's a chance for people see the music they've grown up on," Ness says.

For musicians like him, there are both the special moments ? he ticks off meeting Jerry Lee Lewis a second time, getting to introduce Chuck Berry on stage, and getting hard-country legend Buck Owens to autograph one of his guitars ? as well as the more homey comforts of bumping into people who've been your peers for years.

"For the music community, it's a chance to touch base and say, 'All right, cool, still doing it,' " he says. "The chances of me running into John Doe at the supermarket are pretty slim, so it's a good reunion."

? ? ?

As a founder of the Los Angeles punk band X, John Doe and his band mates drew heavily from the sounds of early rock and old-time country.

On his way to his fifth appearance at the Hootenanny ? as a solo artist, with X or its offshoot the Knitters ? Doe also spoke of the camaraderie musicians find there.

"There's definitely a sense of community, and it's pretty rare that we're all in one place at one time," he says. "That's why you have to be careful.

"You get wrapped up into the reunion or the party feeling and then suddenly you forgot that you've actually come there to play music and you have to be focused. Focus actually being a code word for sober."

In a way, the Hootenanny is like the bluegrass and folk festivals from which the name likely came, Doe says.

"It's like one of those bluegrass festivals, except the music is different," he says. "There's a lot of loyalty from the people who come to it."


On tour in support of his new album, "A Year in the Wilderness," Doe says fans should expect material from that as well as the X songs many fans still clamor to hear.

"They can expect a rockabilly show, emphasis on the rock, and not a lot of country," he says. "That's why the Hootenanny's a good thing ? because you can just do whatever you want."

? ? ?

The Blasters played at the debut Hootenanny in 1995 and Saturday will be on the bill for the ninth time in 13 years, making them in more ways than one the quintessential Hootenanny band.

Emerging from the bars of Downey in the late '70s, the band ? founded by brothers Phil and Dave Alvin ? was a blue-collar throwback to the sounds of the '50s, a gumbo of rockabilly, country, blues and rock.

Their breakout album was titled "American Music" and that's really all you need to describe what gets played at the Hootenanny each year by most of the bands on the bill.

Just don't call it roots music, Phil Alvin says in a frenetic rush of words.

"It's inaccurate, in the overall analogy to a tree," he says. "In that somehow roots have got their heads stuck in the mud. I think they really mean 'trunk music.' Leaves are things that fall off at the end of the year, they're fashion.

"I thought the stuff that I was doing was the stuff that was going to be there whether it was spring, summer or fall."

The sturdy trunk of the musical tree, in other words, is there to span the decades of American music, as Alvin sees it.

"Nobody really brings back any kind of music," he says. "There's always elements or an underlying history in whatever you call pop music. Things that came before and that may have been an accident.

"I came from Compton, I played Pico Rivera, I played in Orange County, and there are certain kinds of icons and styles that will sell in any one of those ? Jimmy Reed, Jerry Lee Lewis, Lightning Hopkins," Alvin says. "That's part of the culture that brings people together, no matter what culture you're from."

And that, in a roundabout Phil Alvin way of saying it, is what the Hootenanny is all about.

? ? ?

Hardie sounds a little amazed that the Hootenanny has survived this long.

"Marriages are lucky to survive that long," he says. "I don't think it's me that's kept it going, I think it's the subculture of people who thrive on this music, and have stayed loyal to it."

It's given him not just something to do with his Fourth of July weekends ? the show is usually held close to the holiday ? it's given him great memories, too.

"I loved when the Cramps and Buck Owens played," he says, describing how quickly Owens took off after Cramps singer Lux Interior appeared on stage with a bit more of himself exposed than the country legend needed to see.

"I've never seen a guy that age run that fast to his limo," Hardie says of Owens. "They literally left without getting paid. They called me three days later and said, 'Hey Bill, could you send us a check?' "

He also ended up with Joe Strummer's car. The late Clash singer played the show in 2002 and after his death later that year, Hardie took in his '55 Cadillac, leaving it in his garage except for annual appearances at the Hootenanny.

As far as how long as the Hootenanny lasts, well, that depends on how long fans and musicians keep showing up, Hardie says.

"I have fun ? as long as they're having fun, why not?"


<font color="#FFFF00" size="1">[ July 05, 2007 10:11 AM: Message edited by: kustom55 ]</font>

[Glenn Cole]

Great Article Kustom55 and pictures!