FILLING VOID IN COUNTY’S CLUB SCENE

When the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach closed last week, Orange County lost its most significant piece of pop music history.

The closing has drawn a wide range of responses from the local musical community, which expressed everything from shock and anger to resignation and even optimism following the demise of the club that featured Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Cream, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Steve Martin, B.B. King, Huey Lewis & the News and hundreds of other rock, pop, jazz, folk and comedy performers over the last 25 years.

A possible silver lining in the latest cloud over Orange County pop music is that the shock waves from Golden Bear’s closing are stirring other local clubs into starting or increasing bookings of original music.

Foremost, though, were reminiscences from those who have played at or frequented the club during its 2 1/2 decades as a concert showcase.

John McEuen, former Orange County resident and member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, said the Golden Bear played a major role in the formation of the veteran rock-folk-country band that is marking its 20th anniversary this year.

It was at the Golden Bear that Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founder Jeff Hanna first saw McEuen, who was sitting in with a New York bluegrass band, and invited him to join the group. “We played our first paying gig at the Bear,” McEuen said by phone from his Rocky Mountain residence outside Denver.

A few years later, after the group had split up, McEuen said: “Jeff and I went to see (the country-rock band) Poco at Bear and said, ‘We can still do that stuff.’ So we got back together. I’ve always felt the Bear never got the credit it deserved for keeping people alive, for the role it played in performers’ lives and in the music business and the number of songwriters that went through there.”

Multi-instrumentalist David Lindley, who backed the likes of Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt before embarking on a solo career in the late ‘70s, said his first public performance, when he was 17, was also at the Golden Bear.

“The last time I played here, my daughter’s band opened for me--she’s 15, so it’s kind of like a family club. It’s a tradition,” Lindley said. “But we seem to like to tear things down when they become old. We want new everything. That’s stupid, and I don’t like stupid stuff.”

Larry Larson, who currently manages Kenny Loggins, worked with Loggins & Messina, Poco, Iron Butterfly and others during the Golden Bear’s heyday in the mid-’60s.

While the club “was a great showcase for a lot of artists over the years,” Larson said, “it had gone downhill.”

In fact, the major complaint many musicians and fans voiced about the Golden Bear is that the bookings in recent years lacked the sense of adventure upon which the club built its reputation in the 1960s. Many said that the bookings had become repetitive and that there was little attempt to foster new local acts.

“It’s too bad, but I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did,” said William McEuen, John McEuen’s brother, who is now a film producer and manager of Steve Martin, who built his early following at the Golden Bear. “There were a number of management changes. . . . It was at its best when (former owner) George Nikis had it (in the mid-1960s) and he was into an acoustic thing.”

Jim Guerinot, a booking agent for Avalon Attractions who has been closely involved with Orange County music for several years, was pointed in his opinion of the impact that the club’s closing will have on the local music scene:

“None whatsoever. If it had been a real hip place that catered to the youth market, it might have (had an effect). I can’t see it having a huge impact.”

Still, Guerinot said, “I can’t believe it. You see the (other rock clubs) come and go. But the Golden Bear was one I never thought they would chip away at.”

Club operators Richard and Charles Babiracki were evicted Jan. 30 by court order after losing a bid for an injunction to prevent the property owners, Richard Schwartz and Gwendolyn Tubach, from reclaiming possession of the building. The attorney for Schwartz and Tubach said they were concerned about people being in the structure because it was deemed seismically unsafe by the city.

The club is part of the downtown Huntington Beach area targeted for major redevelopment in coming months; plans call for a 300-room hotel to be built on the site. Although the property owners reportedly had threatened to demolish the Golden Bear immediately after it was vacated, the building was spared so that Huntington Beach city officials and a local historical committee will have a chance to evaluate the musical and architectural significance of the structure.

Built in the early 1900s, the Golden Bear was designed by prominent Southern California architect Ernest Ridenour and thus has major architectural significance, said Barbara Milcovich, the historian conducting a survey of downtown buildings. The committee hopes to persuade the Redevelopment Agency to save part or all of the building and incorporate it into the hotel project.

“The city hopefully will have the foresight to preserve the building because it is a landmark,” said Mike Jacobs, an Orange County band manager and consultant. “The Golden Bear is a legitimate landmark as much as any other place in this town. It’s the only place in Orange County that people around the country identify with rock music--not the Pacific Amphitheatre or Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. People in New York know the Golden Bear. If that historical society doesn’t do it, the music community should do something.”

To some, however, that news that the structure has been saved was anti-climactic. “The building itself is a landmark, but what’s the point in saving it if it’s not the Golden Bear,” said John Kane, a member of the Whittier band Disarray. “Something’s got to be done. The Orange County music scene is so disgusting as it is. It seems like a lot of clubs are closing.”

Indeed, the Golden Bear went dark a little more than a week after the closing of Spatz in Huntington Harbour, leaving Safari Sam’s in Huntington Beach as the only Orange County club offering original music full time.

Other club owners view that trend as ominous. “This is getting scary,” said Gil Fuhrer, one of the owners of Safari Sam’s. “Two clubs gone in one week is not my cup of tea.”

Most on the local music scene however, believe that Orange County music will survive in spite of the Golden Bear’s loss. Just as new outlets for music have sprung up in the wake of previous club closings, there are signs this week that a new flurry of club activity will help fill the void left by the Golden Bear.

Tonight, the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano begins a new series of concerts with guitarist Robin Trower. He will be followed Saturday by Al Stewart and Sunday by Hiroshima, a hard rock band that was originally scheduled to play the Golden Bear on Saturday. Among the other performers on the Coach House’s lineup in coming weeks are the Blasters, the Untouchables, the Gregg Allman Band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Stephen Bishop.

Ken Phebus, one of the booking agents handling the Coach House shows, said the Coach House has picked up several acts that were scheduled to play the Golden Bear in February.

“Not to denigrate the Golden Bear, but we also want to make the attempt to break Orange County talent. We don’t want to be labeled as another Golden Bear,” Phebus said. “It’s a sad day for me. I was born and raised in Newport Beach, and I saw the Lovin’ Spoonful there in ’65. It’s an out-and-out tragedy, but it’s a fact of life.”

Also entering the original music arena in coming weeks are a pair of longtime Top 40 clubs, Joshua’s Parlor in Westminster and Night Moves in Huntington Beach, which are booking original music as a response to what the club operators see as an overcrowded Top 40 market in Orange County.

Jack Richards, former owner of Spatz, has moved outside Orange County’s borders in starting a concert series at Bogart’s in Long Beach, beginning Monday with Wall of Voodoo and continuing Feb. 24 with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

In addition, Radio City in Anaheim, which has been closed since it was gutted by fire in November, may reopen as early as March, said club owner Jerry Roach, who began reconstruction this week. Roach said he is considering once again booking well-known touring acts at Radio City, where bookings in recent years have featured local bands almost exclusively.

At the same time, the Babirackis, who bought the Golden Bear in 1974, have been meeting this week with other local club owners and booking agents in making plans to reopen the club in another Orange County location. But they have not announced any specifics.

Having heard the same promises many times before from other displaced club owners, however, veteran Orange County club owner Jerry Roach was somewhat skeptical that the Babirackis will resume business shortly. “All these former club owners say they are looking for new locations. Either they aren’t looking very hard or it’s impossible to open a place. I see a lot of buildings for rent in Orange County. It seems like Orange County is anti-rock ‘n’ roll, all in all.”

But Avalon’s Jim Guerinot, a longtime Orange County resident and veteran of the local club wars, isn’t worried. “Orange County will survive,” he said. “The Orange County music scene is like a cockroach--you can’t get rid of it. People keep trying to stamp it out, but it always springs up somewhere else.”

LIVE ACTION: Buddy Rich and his band will be in concert Feb. 14 at Mission Viejo High School. . . . Salsa artist Clare Fischer will perform at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa on Feb. 23. . . . Doug Kershaw returns to the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana on Feb. 24. . . . Nick Pyzow will play Feb. 14-15 at the Blue Beat Cafe in Newport Beach.