POP MUSIC : Dangerous Gigs Dept. : Spinal Tap’s audition should make drummers (and insurance agents) snap to attention

Local musicians scouring the “musicians wanted” classified ads in trade papers and magazines last week might have noticed a particularly promising, if vaguely ominous, query among the anonymous pleas for talent.

“DRUMMER DIED, need new one,” the ad begins. “Must have no immediate family.”

If the percussionist slot is that high a risk, then the advertisers must be none other than fictional dinosaur rockers Spinal Tap, whose string of bizarre drummer deaths was related in the 1984 pseudo-documentary “This Is Spinal Tap.” The group’s star-crossed stick-crossers have been subject to everything from the usual rock-drummer ODs to death by onstage spontaneous combustion.

Though the band isn’t mentioned by name in the blurbs, they leave potential daredevils no question who the advertisers are: “Auditions Oct. 31 at L.A. Coliseum with David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls.” Following is a phone number for RSVPs.

And yes: The ads--which appeared buried in the classifieds of Music Connection, BAM, the L.A. Weekly, Daily Variety and other publications, as well as in a more prominent ad cube on the front page of Billboard--are for real, even if the sponsoring band isn’t quite.

On Halloween afternoon, about 50 respondees will get a chance to try out for the Tap on a huge drum kit in front of the Coliseum goal posts, along with rumored celebrity auditionees yet to be announced.

The auditions--held in conjunction with, of course, a press conference announcing a new record deal--will be the first strike in MCA Records’ publicity campaign for the Tap, which until now has consisted mostly of coy denials that the band is even signed to the label. To the company’s consternation, Pop Eye broke news of the deal way back in September, well before the planning of this press blitz got under way.

As if MCA didn’t have enough legal problems in its ongoing battle with Motown and other business tiffs, now the company is even being threatened with lawsuits by fictional labels. That aforementioned Pop Eye item resulted in a cease-and-desist letter addressed to MCA from one Sir Dennis Eaton-Hogg, CEO of Polymer Records, who claims that Spinal Tap is still signed to his label (which, of course, doesn’t really exist).

“It has come to our attention that you may be negotiating with . . . ‘Spinal Tap’ (the ‘Artist’) for the rights of their recording services,” reads a certified letter delivered to MCA by Eaton-Hogg. “Please be advised that the Artist is a party to a valid and binding exclusive, universewide agreement with Polymer Records. . . .”

Sources say that no sequel to the original cult hit film is now planned. But besides an album scheduled to get under way soon (a follow-up to the 1984 soundtrack, which was released on PolyGram, not Polymer), and even a possible tour, a TV special is also in the works. Spinal Tap’s video crew will be on hand at the Coliseum to tape the proceedings, along with the expected hordes of real media.