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The hills of L.A. are alive with the sound of music--and it all seems to be coming from the abode of Go-Go guitarist/songwriter Charlotte Caffey and Redd Kross frontman Jeff McDonald, where a family jam session is currently in progress. That's their daughter, three-and-a-half year-old Astrid, sitting in on the drums.

"What song do you want to play?" asks Jeff.

Astrid, who idolizes Mickey Dolenz, suggests "The Porpoise Song" by the Monkees. After a few bars, Astrid stops playing.

"That doesn't make sense," she says, pouting.

"What doesn't make sense?" asks Jeff.

"Wanna play the shaker, Astrid?" Charlotte suggests.

"Nooooo!!!" Astrid screams, throwing her sticks against the wall.

"She already has the makings of a perfect drummer," Charlotte laughs.

All that jamming can work up a serious appetite, and visions of sandwiches are starting to dance in Charlotte's head. Jeff has other ideas, however, and deftly whips up a couple of servings of Fried Pumpkin a la Jeffrey, one of his culinary specialties. "I know how to make tamales," Charlotte says, "but Jeff is a really good cook."

"Well, I'm the kind of person who can make up things that taste good," says Jeff, who gleans much of his inspiration from Julia Child reruns on the Cooking Channel. "I watch the Cooking Channel religiously. Not that I've ever made a recipe from it, but you learn how things work. I'm very anti-Emeril Lagasse, though; I hate his whole schtick."

Though generally health-conscious, the couple admits to making weekly pilgrimages to Sweet Lady Jane's, the Melrose Avenue bakery that's supposedly haunted by the ghost of Orson Welles. "They have these incredible molasses cups, these crunchy toffee cups filled with frosting," sighs Jeff, with a dreamy look in his eyes. "It makes perfect sense that Orson Welles would want to hang out there."

After lunch, Jeff and Charlotte relax by surfing the internet. (Like most intelligent, creative types, they're Mac people.) Jeff usually spends his time online pranking various music chat rooms. "A friend of mine started this rumor in the Brooks & Dunn folder about Kix Brooks being bisexual," he cackles. "And then I went in and pretended to be appalled. We started this whole controversy."

Today, however, he and Charlotte are searching for websites devoted to their current obsession, the Osmond-esque musical group known as the Kelly Family.

"A lot of people we know are really into them," says Jeff, "but they're also kind of afraid of them. It's like, are they a family, or are they a cult? Are they evil, or are they good? They have this whole kind of Scientologist vibe. They have a TV infomercial, where if you order their two biggest albums, you get a free video. We never ordered the records, but one day the video just arrived in our mailbox!"

"They've sold four million records in Europe, and financed it all themselves," says Charlotte. "When their infomercial first came out, I'd be flipping around late-night TV, going, 'Please let it be on!'"

No visit to the Caffey/McDonald household would be complete without a peek at their collection of pop-culture dolls. Though massive, Charlotte and Jeff insist that it used to be much larger.

"Our house was just consuming us," remembers Jeff. "When Charlotte was midway through her pregnancy, I went from room to room, filling giant green Glad bags with all our junk, and throwing them in the trash without even looking at them."

"I did that with a lot of the '80s Go-Go's clothes that I had," adds Charlotte. "I should have kept those--they were so hideous! But you've gotta get rid of stuff; otherwise, this house would be the storage unit, and we'd have to live somewhere else."

There's still plenty of good dolls left, though; the couple's collection includes such notables as Agnetha from ABBA, Jimmy Osmond, Scooba-Doo (a scat- singing "beatnik" doll from the early '60s), Prince Charles and Lady Di, O.J. Simpson (complete with home-made knife), "Cock Ring" Ken, Vanilla Ice--and, of course, Kiss and the Spice Girls.

"Should we get out our Beanie Babies?" asks Charlotte.

"No!" shouts Jeff, visibly alarmed. "We have to pretend we don't have any of those!"

By: Dan Epstein