Teen-Age Cruisers

Maybe no one told promoter Jaime Munoz that the roots-rock subculture is in a bit of a stall lately. Or that DaVinci has apparently reissued a whole slew of "'50s-style" shirt-jackets, oversized for the modern man. Or that Dave Alvin's not with the Blasters again. Or that the Foothill Club in Signal Hill has been knocked down to make room for condos. Or that "rat rod"—the hated term for hot rods built using '40s and '50s parts—is a very popular key word among eBay sellers.

And that's a good thing: Munoz is throwing the Sunday Drive-In, the first of what he promises will be a monthly barbecue-with-bands-and-cars, this Sunday at the Xalos Bar in Anaheim. It sounds a bit like the Doll Hut's after-Hootenanny soirees, or like the shindigs British promoter Tom Ingram used to throw at Java Lanes in Long Beach after every Viva Las Vegas rockabilly weekender: the parties they don't seem to have any more.

"I think it's just a good idea to have the young meet the old, and just build up the underground scene again," Munoz says. "And that's cool, because it's not overplayed right now."

In fact, it has all the makings of a local, shrunken, semi-insider Viva Las Vegas—without, perhaps, such niceties as a Swedish rockabilly three-piece (those plane tickets don't pay for themselves). Otherwise, the entertainment has just about everything—and everyone—else you need to shake a leg: Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys; Royal Crown Revue head hepcat Eddie Nichols fronting the Redondos; the Blasters with Jerry Angel on drums; and Tom Ingram spinning the likes of Don Woody, Warren Smith, Jack Earls—the good stuff you haven't heard in way too long. Factor in a car show with members of Orange County's Shifters car club (where have those guys been?), and who knows what, er, hijinks will transpire.

"It's going to be one of those cool little cruise things," Munoz says—the one time he slips up and uses an old-guy car word like "cruise." "It's going to be a cool day gig. And then when night falls, the bands go on."

And that's all you need.

THE SUNDAY DRIVE-IN, WITH BIG SANDY & HIS FLY-RITE BOYS, THE BLASTERS, THE REDONDOS AND TOM INGRAM AT THE XALOS BAR, 1160 N. KRAEMER BLVD., ANAHEIM, (714) 632-0390. SUN., 4 P.M.-MIDNIGHT. CALL FOR COVER. 18+.