While Los Angeles bands like The Germs, The Go-Go’s, X, and Bad Religion drew the spotlight to Southern California’s punk rock scene, their iconic larger-than-life presence may have inadvertently cast a shadow on the suburbs of Orange County, whose teens were ready to prove that rebellion thrived outside of La La Land.
In “Tearing Down The Orange Curtain: How Punk Rock Brought Orange County to the World,” journalists and authors Nate Jackson and Daniel Kohn lay out how the OC became a powerhouse for punk rock leading to the rise of acts like T.S.O.L., Adolescents, The Vandals, Social Distortion, The Offspring, No Doubt, Sublime, and others.
The book also features interviews with other vital pillars of the scene, including a range of past and present punk club owners, such as Jerry Roach, the owner of the shuttered Cuckoo’s Nest in Costa Mesa. It also helps illustrate how the youth, just 40 miles north of Los Angeles, forged their own scene that took the pogo dance to a slam-dance-filled mosh pit.
Jackson, an Orange County native, said he and Kohn hadn’t previously read a book that centered on the OC punk scene and its youth movements, so they decided to take matters into their own hands.
“When you talk about music and art more generally, Orange County is a vibrant capital of expression, there’s just so much that people don’t know unless you live in that area,” Jackson said. “What I saw in Orange County was always the spirit of rebellion underneath all the polished suburban veneer, and that’s what the Orange County punk scene really represents, especially when you talk about youth culture.”
While Kohn grew up on the East Coast, he was drawn to the punk music emerging from Orange County. He remembers the first time MTV played the music video for Social Distortion’s “Story of My Life” and how their sound was unique to anything he had heard before.
One summer in 1994, he returned from camp and noticed that all his friends were suddenly skateboarding and rocking out to The Offspring, moving on from Soundgarden and Nirvana, and trading in grunge for the ska-punk of Sublime and No Doubt.
“The thing that spoke to me so much about this music was the universality of it,” Kohn said. “At its core, they were songs that anyone could relate to because these were problems of suburban people, and music that channeled the angst of an adolescent teenage kid. It’s one of those things where it doesn’t matter where it comes from; it’s the message that matters the most. That always spoke volumes about what this music was and still is today.”
Ska music’s rise in Orange County is another focus of the book, with Sublime and No Doubt leading the way in the third-wave sound of the ’90s, which was another musical subculture emerging concurrently with punk rock and hardcore in the region.
While Sublime’s music was influenced by various genres, including reggae, hip-hop, punk, and ska, No Doubt’s primary foundation was the latter two genres. Jackson and Kohn said that the ska of Orange County helped pave the way for others in the decades that followed.
“You had kids who grew up with punk but also grew up with that music from the U.K., or they were in their school band and didn’t play guitar but were still yearning to be a part of something like this vibrant youth culture,” Jackson said. “Orange County was one of the ska strongholds. There were different ones throughout the country, too, like out in New Jersey and other areas that you’d see when Warped Tour kicked off.”
A chapter in the book is dedicated to Warped Tour and describes how the concept’s roots drew inspiration from the skateboarding, surfing, and punk rock cultures emerging from Orange County. It discusses how major players in Southern California’s music festival landscape, from Goldenvoice’s Paul Tollett to Kevin Lyman, who founded Warped Tour, worked to launch punk acts from all around the country to the national stage. There’s a funny anecdote about how the fest came close to partnering with Calvin Klein before securing a sponsorship deal with Vans, the shoe company founded in Anaheim in the mid-1960s.
“Vans as a brand really benefited from punk rock and vice versa at a very crucial moment for both industries when they both needed each other,” Jackson said. “Orange County punk is a big reason why kids are still wearing Vans today.”
The book also provides insight into some of the cultural aspects that gave the Orange County punk scene its unique identity, which remains a defining characteristic of the region today. The title refers to the so-called “Orange Curtain,” a term used to describe the area’s strong conservative leanings.
While punk rock’s counterculture spirit was often associated with anti-authority sentiments, the OC punk bands were more varied with that message. Bands like The Offspring enraged diehard conservative cable access host Wally George with their song “Kill the President.” Then there were others, including the Vandals and Circle Jerks, who expressed a wider range of sentiments — even performing at Cypress College in 1985 for a show hosted by the Young Republicans.
Jackson and Kohn said that they hope this book, which contextualizes the cultural impact of the youth and OC punk’s place in music history, will inspire a new generation to start their own cultural movement, whether it’s in the suburbs or the city.
“I hope people create culture on their own terms without feeling like anyone’s holding them down,” Kohn said. “These musicians did it and have done it in the face of serious adversity so that they could do it too. Just go out and believe in yourself, and good things will happen. If not commercially, at least you’ll feel good about yourself and do something you’re proud of.”