CLUB HOPPING ON THE PARTY BUS

If you think getting to a club should be as much fun as the club itself, check out the Party Bus. It’s such a perfect idea for the City of Freeways that it’s surprising no one thought of it before transplanted New Yorker Cash B. Oshman.

Here’s how it works: The 44-passenger bus starts its run at 10:30 p.m. on Saturdays outside Canter’s restaurant in the Fairfax District. It proceeds on a circular, two-hour route that includes half a dozen of the city’s hottest night spots, including Scream, Third Eye, Performance and Funky Reggae.

For a $10 ticket (which includes a discount on admission to the clubs), you can hop on and off the bus as many times as you like until the final return to Canter’s at 4:30 a.m. And we’re not just talking any old bus. Each of the four school buses sports a different motif, executed by local artists: the Dragon Bus, the Sphinx Bus, the Gobot Bus and, due next month, the Fake-Nose Bus. The atmosphere is understandably festive.

Oshman, 39, is into busing. When he talks about moving passengers, his eyes light up like a 15-year-old guitarist with his first Stratocaster. He talks ebulliently about how he uses his buses during the week to round up audiences for local television shows and how he eventually wants to put together a tour of local museums. He’s also thinking of expanding the Party Bus concept to include Pasadena and Santa Monica.

Miguel Gonzales, 24, of Los Angeles, a passenger on a recent run, thinks the bus is a lot better than driving to the clubs. “Some of the clubs around town are in areas so you can’t enjoy yourself because you’re worrying about your car. Besides, you meet a lot of people on the bus--everybody from tourists to the crazies that live here.”

Added bonus: The crazies aren’t behind the wheel. Information: (213) 464-5026.

THE NIGHTLY NEWS: Thought you’d seen everything on the club scene? How about a “post-nuclear sonic heavy-metal disco?” Ground Zero certainly lives up to that image with its bomb-shelter decor: lots of simulated debris, black lights and multiscreen videos of--yes!--atomic explosions and battle footage.

“A lot of the clubs that are going on now are very commercial and don’t have any environment,” says co-owner Bill Villarini, whose environment is working so well he’s looking for larger and more permanent quarters. Ground Zero’s final blast at its current home (Troupers Hall, 1625 N. La Brea Ave., (213) 663-7526) will be Saturday night.

Also making a move is another atmospheric Sensurround: Scream, which has been making its noise at the downtown Embassy Hotel. Now that the hotel has been sold, Scream owners Bruce Purdue and Michael Stewart are planning a splashy opening next month at a new--and still secret--location. The last Embassy show will be May 30 with Jane’s Addiction.

BLACK SALES IN THE SUNSET: It’s amazing how many records aren’t even worth a quarter. Rhino Records (the store, not the record company) put more than 100,000 new and used records on sale recently at its semi-annual parking lot sale, and 75% of them were priced at 23 cents or less . Sample items: the Chicago boxed set, Chuck Mangione, John Klemmer, Peter Tosh, Barrington Spence and a hefty selection of imported Trojan label records from Jamaica.

By the end of the 12-hour day, the exhausted clerks were playfully giving records away. Says the store’s reggae buyer, Scott Hinkley: “We were giving away Peter Frampton, Barry Manilow, the Bee Gees and all the Gibb brother records, records with bands with cities in their names or titles, food in the names or titles, fire on the covers, brother-and-sister acts. It was crazy. Why? Just to make things more interesting for everybody.”

ANGRY MATHEMATICIAN: Gregg Turner has an interesting dual identity: guitarist in the hard-core punk band the Angry Samoans and a math lecturer at Cal Poly Pomona. And he’s making progress on both fronts. Turner has received a one-year appointment to the mathematics faculty at Pitzer College in Claremont starting next fall, and the Samoans--following up the recent “Yesterday Started Tomorrow” EP--are preparing to record a full album tentatively titled “STP, not LSD.”

Turner and Samoan singer Mike (Metal) Saunders have recorded an acoustic album as the Sons of Mellencamp, and is also recording with his own folk-rock group, the Mistakes.

“In the very literal sense of the word, (the band) is nothing but a hobby,” Turner says, adding that he’s not the only member of the band with “respectable” credentials. Saunders is head accountant at Oakland’s Providence Hospital and bassist Todd Homer is studying architecture.

THE DE FOREST THROUGH THE TREES: Will Carmaig De Forest be the first to take the ukulele onto the pop charts since Tiny Tim? Is he rock’s answer to Arthur Godfrey? Is this ‘80s troubadour (who appears Wednesday at Raji’s in Hollywood) anything more than a novelty act?

“I came to the conclusion that by not admitting to myself I’m a novelty act . . . by demanding to be taken seriously, I’d make this whole thing work,” he says, laughing heartily.

Actually, the uke is downplayed on De Forest’s debut album, “I Shall Be Released” (Good Foot Records). The LP has some sharp electric guitar played by the record’s producer, Alex Chilton, and sharp-tongued lyrics. Among the titles: “Crack’s No Worse Than the Fascist Threat” and “Hey Judas” (which blasts some of history’s great evil figures--including President Reagan).

FOREVER YOUNG: Don’t feel out of touch if you don’t recognize the name Bucket Fisher, who is listed as co-producer on “If I,” the flip side of Thelonious Monster’s new 12-inch single. Bucket is a newcomer on the scene. In fact, the son of Fishbone bassist Norwood Fisher is just 5 months old. Bucket’s contributions to the record? He cried regularly through the sessions, causing numerous retakes.

JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM: The first solo album by True West’s Russ Tolman is due out soon on Steve Wynn’s Down There label. The LP, “Totem Poles and Glory Holes,” was originally released earlier this year by England’s Zippo label, and features a raw Rolling Stones-ish sound.