OC Underground - Orange County's Chain Reaction

Written By: Alan Oakes

Many, when they think of Orange County, think of beaches, Disneyland and spoiled rich kids that create MTV "reality" shows to show the world how truly spoiled and rich they really are. It's easy to forget that numerous musical acts over the years have called Orange County home. Social Distortion, No Doubt, Thrice, The Offspring and Zach de la Rocha of Rage against the Machine all grew up in the shade of the Orange Groves. Even though you'd be hard pressed to find an orange tree around here nowadays, the music still flourishes. Every music scene needs an epicenter, though. The New York punk scene had CBGB, the Los Angeles rock scene had The Whiskey A Go-Go, and the Seattle grunge scene had The Croc; for over 10 years Orange County has had Chain Reaction.

I was fortunate enough to be at the first show when Chain Reaction opened in 1997. During the mid to late 90's, the 3rd wave ska scene was in full force in Orange County and there were literally dozens of venues and shows everyday of the week. Bands like Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris, Home Grown and The Aquabats were being picked up by records labels and the over abundance of places to watch bands made it easy for bands to be heard. But that all started to change as the 90's drew to a close. Chain Reaction soon became the only place where the all-ages crowd could go to watch their local band rock out.

When the competition dried up, there were too many bands to house in one club and bands had to compete for a slot on the Chain Reaction stage. The prestige of the club grew almost overnight and it began to actually mean something when your band got to play there. Touring acts did not yet have the House of Blues at Downtown Disney, so they also started booking dates at Orange County's new hot spot. The club's owner, Tim Hill, began staple-gunning T-shirts of all the acts to grace his stage and not long after, every wall in the house was covered. Local and touring band t-shirts mingling with one another on the walls. It meant something to play there, but it really meant something when Tim asked to put your bands T-shirt on the wall. It was a new level of status for the local musician.

Chain Reaction has been home to numerous music scenes throughout it's reign. You could have an Indie show one night and Hardcore or Gutter-Punk show the next. It made it difficult to build an audience of loyal patrons that would show up to the club on a regular basis to check out new bands because the music genres were so segregated. Back in the day, you could walk in to The Whiskey A Go-Go on any given night and most likely see a group that interested you but unless you were extremely musically diverse, you had to check before hand what group of bands were performing at Chain Reaction. None the less, Chain fulfilled the need of each scene and each scene flourished. I speak in past-tense because things are a bit different nowadays. Not only in Orange County but also in Los Angeles (which is only 30 miles north).

In Hollywood, an enormous amount of rock legends have played on the world famous Whiskey stage since it's opening back in the 60's. Hendrix, Joplin, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Zepplin just to name a few. To book you band at The Whiskey and walk the same stage that Jim Morrison did almost 40 years ago (I'm sure the stage has been rebuilt since then but you get my point) is more than just epic. Today, the legendary prestige and integrity of the Whiskey stage is nothing more than a faded memory. Your band doesn't have to be any good or even a band at all to perform there. As long as you have 50 friends you can sell tickets to and convince to show up, you can stand up on that stage by yourself and dry-humping the monitor for 30 minutes. It's a scheme of club promoters requiring a band to sell a pre-determined amount of tickets on their own and turn in the money before they take the stage. A term that musicians have dubbed "Play-To-Play" and it's an epidemic that has spread to every music scene including Orange County.

Chain Reaction has also fallen victim to this. A bands ability and competence has been replaced with the number of friends they have. I'm not going to play the role of the cynical music journalist and tell you that the Orange County music scene is dead because of this. I'm not a journalist to begin with but in my opinion, the music scene is far from dead. Stumbling across a new local act worth listening to has come to resemble searching for a needle in a haystack but has only made the search more rewarding. The same could be said about the internet. It doesn't discourage me in the least. There are still plenty of worthy bands here and you can still watch them on Chain Reaction's stage.

Chain Reaction has and will continue to play a vital role in the Orange County scene. It was never a club about a single coherent thought but more about a melting pot of diverse ideals. I've enjoyed many nights at the club and have seen more bands perform there than I can count. Many may feel that the scene is dead, bands are dead, the industry is dead but like everything else, music scenes travel in waves and I'm just sittin here looking forward to the next big set.