Rock 'n' Roll in Orange County by Chris Epting

Author:Chris Epting
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2014-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

An ad for a show held at the Cuckoo’s Nest in Costa Mesa. Courtesy of Ernie Grimm.

Along with Social Distortion and T.S.O.L., China White’s legacy remains burned in the punk rock history of Orange County. In 2013, guitarist Frank Ruffino became ill and was in need of a new liver. Bands, including Bad Religion, Black Flag, the Adolescents and many more, donated items for an auction to raise funds for the ailing punk legend. Benefit concerts were also held, but sadly, Ruffino passed away on June 4, 2013.

The fertile punk rock scene in Orange County meant, of course, that there would need to be venues to accommodate the intense and often physical shows where slam dancing and early forms of mosh pits were evolving. The Golden Bear was far too tame for many of these bands, and so other venues began to almost spontaneously pop up around the county.

The Cuckoo’s Nest, which was open at 1714 Placentia Avenue in Costa Mesa from 1978 to 1981, became one of the first true punk rock ground zeros in Orange County. But it was never without controversy. Hosting such local favorites as Social Distortion, Agent Orange and others, owner Jerry Roach constantly had his hands full, in large part due to the fact that located right next door to his punk club was a restaurant called Zubies, which was typically populated by a country music–loving crowd. Fights between the two factions became legendary but eventually city officials revoked Roach’s entertainment permits and put his club out of business—but not before its legendary status was etched into the minds of punk fans who traveled far and wide to visit the vaunted venue.

The 1981 film on the club, called Urban Struggle, detailed not just how local punks attending the club were constantly being harassed by the law but also how Roach felt that authorities were actually trying to stamp out something they considered to be simply a violent fad.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.