Steve Mcclintock

Adolescent fantasy and teen romance are Tiffany's trademarks, but behind the 17-year-old pop singer's latest hit, "All This Time," lie the adult heartaches of its authors, two longtime musical partners from Orange County. Today, Tim James and Steve McClintock see the sweeping ballad as a career breakthrough: having peaked this week at No. 6 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, "All This Time" is the first hit to spring from their 10-year songwriting partnership.

Adolescent fantasy and teen romance are Tiffany's trademarks, but behind the 17-year-old pop singer's latest hit, "All This Time," lie the adult heartaches of its authors, two longtime musical partners from Orange County. Today, Tim James and Steve McClintock see the sweeping ballad as a career breakthrough: having peaked this week at No. 6 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, "All This Time" is the first hit to spring from their 10-year songwriting partnership.

Fame and fortune are nice distractions, but the lasting value of popular music is most often found in the barest of essentials, in this case, songwriting. Steve McClintock, Karen Staley and the Nelson brothers joined forces in an evening on the subject hosted by Victoria Shaw.

In the eight years since Michael Mikulka and Steve McClintock opened a recording studio in Westminster, they have spent thousands of hours working with hundreds of aspiring musicians. As part of their efforts to gather the best information and advice for their clients, they've also journeyed as far away as Nashville, New York and Cannes, France, to attend numerous record industry conventions and seminars. What have they learned from the music industry's experts?

When Matthew and Gunnar Nelson became teen-pop sensations in 1990, they were tracing the footsteps of their father, the original rock 'n' roll pop teen idol. But, pointedly, the twins were not taking their cues from Rick Nelson's music. "Nobody does Rick Nelson better than Rick Nelson," Gunnar said in a 1991 interview with The Times. "The man is dead; let him lie. If [people] want heritage, they go out and buy my dad's records."

Decor can make or break a place. Take Chez Helene, for instance, on Beverly Drive. The food's OK, nothing spectacular, and the desserts are not worth the calories. But I go there again and again and recommend the place to friends because the rooms themselves are so gracious and celebratory, charming as a French country inn, and, to be fair, the chicken rosemary and lamb aren't bad either. But if the decor is tasteless, can the food possibly taste good?

A New Order concert can be the next best thing to Sominex. But Peter Hook, the popular British dance-rock band's moonlighting bassist, showed a surprising wild streak as he fronted his new group, Revenge, Tuesday night at the Coach House. The cussing, hollering, arm-waving Hook didn't show much more than that, though. Revenge's uninvolving hour on stage centered on a voice of narrow range and little individuality, and songs of solid craftsmanship but scant substance.

With a white-knuckle grip on his pencil, your preschooler does earnest battle with the alphabet. You applaud every stroke, unconcerned that some letters are standing on their heads or have done a complete about-face. He'll improve with time. And besides, his teachers will turn him around once he gets into kindergarten. Right? If your child has dyslexia, the answer could be no .

The members of Dexter, the Huntington Beach trio that recently won a national talent competition, were only joking when they said they hope to keep their new crown "for the next three years." That's because in the contest sponsored by JBL loudspeakers, Musician magazine and the National Assn. of Music Merchandisers (NAMM), Dexter was selected as "the best unsigned band in America."

Kicking around a soccer ball seems to shake some rockers' inhibitions loose. Take Rod Stewart and Elton John: Two of pop's biggest soccer buffs, they also happen to be two of its most flamboyant peacocks. But before drawing broad parallels between the world's most popular sport and the world's most popular form of music, consider the case of Sixtieth Parallel. The young band from Long Beach (which plays tonight at Club Postnuclear) would probably not exist if not for soccer.

Tune your radio to 88.9 FM Monday at noon and you may hear something different. Capping a four-year push to boost its signal, KUCI, the student-run station at UC Irvine, will flick on its new transmitter at that appointed hour, raising its broadcasting power from 24 watts to 200--enough, the station hopes, to transform it from little more than a rumor to a significant presence on the Orange County airwaves.