Club Postnuclear Rejects Standard of Raunch Rock for Sober Concept
Music fans who come to Club Postnuclear, the new pop venue that opened last weekend in Laguna Beach, will have to leave cravings for tobacco or alcohol at home: There’s no smoking allowed, and the club’s small bar dispenses only fancy coffees and designer soft drinks.
They are welcome, however, to bring an aesthetic sensibility: This is club as high concept.
There is no sign on the free-standing, geometric exterior, just a circular symbol with a molten red slash across its diameter. Outside the front door are three monitors showing a continuous stream of video art. Beneath them is a glassed-in exhibition space for three-dimensional art “installations.” At the end of the club’s long entrance hall is a large, splashy, circular piece by Sam Francis, the popular abstract painter.
Postnuclear’s floor, where people can dance or stand and watch a band, is made of cushioned aluminum. By day, it will be used for aerobics classes. Overhead, a large cross of blue neon is the main feature in an extensive, computerized lighting system. Even the sculpted air-conditioning ducts beneath the high, wooden ceiling fit the high-tech, industrial-art concept.
After all these years of sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, Postnuclear is an elaborate bet that people are ready for a new formula: health and art and rock ‘n’ roll. (But with its mirrored, co-ed washroom, Postnuclear hasn’t exactly turned its back on sexiness).
The concept comes from owner Max Nee, a wealthy investor and real estate developer who lives in Laguna Beach. Nee says it took $2 million to fashion Club Postnuclear out of a former supermarket he bought as a real-estate speculation.
“I knew very little about the business. I think that’s how I got involved,” Nee said with a smile before the club’s first public show Saturday. “Everybody said the nightclub business is very difficult, and I was very naive.”
But Nee thinks his no-smoking, no-alcohol concept will succeed in drawing a crowd, especially fans ages 18 to 22. He will also aim for older music fans “who drink a little bit and smoke less.”
The club, with a capacity of 499, will admit younger teen-agers if they are with someone who is 18 or older.
Nee, 40, said his teen-age daughter, Molly, suggested that he invest in a nightclub that teen-agers could go to. With plans for a diverse booking policy that will include alternative rock, reggae and jazz, Postnuclear has developed into something beyond that teen-club concept.
In the usual economic scheme of music clubs, alcohol is the essential lubricant that allows profit to flow. The admission charge at the door usually goes toward paying the band; the club’s own share depends on how much beer and liquor it can sell.
Beginning with the astronomical construction and design costs quoted by Nee and Paul Hartmann, the night manager in charge of staging concerts, Postnuclear isn’t geared to the usual nightclub economics.
“I’m not sitting here thinking I’ll recoup my investment very quickly,” Nee said. “It’s a long-term investment.
“I have the luxury of doing this, but I still see myself as a businessman and this as an investment that will pay itself back. If I don’t make my money back, at least I’m enjoying myself.”
Nee said he is no puritan about smoking and drinking, but he does want to be in the vanguard of the more health-conscious fun that he sees as a wave of the future.
Saturday night proved a tough one for starting a new pop venue in Orange County. Sting was playing the Pacific Amphitheatre, drawing the mainstream-rock crowd; Nina Hagen’s show at the 380-capacity Coach House in San Juan Capistrano siphoned off some of the alternative-rock fans who might otherwise have been interested in hearing Postnuclear’s headliner, the Three O’Clock.
That left Postnuclear with 126 paying customers at $10 each, according to Hartmann--enough, he said, to allow the club to break even for the night.
A dozen or so concert-goers interviewed before the show had generally favorable impressions of the club. Several remarked about its cleanliness in contrast with most other clubs, and on the need for more outlets for live music in the county, where the Coach House has been the only club regularly booking major rock and pop talent.
Nobody went into rhapsodies over the industrial-art concept. For the most part, they said, they would come back if the club books bands they want to see.
“The nonsmoking is a great idea. The non-alcohol? I could go for a beer, personally,” said Bruce Warner, 37, of Newport Beach. “But if I was going to hear a band I really liked, that wouldn’t bother me.”
At a invitation-only party last week before the club’s public opening, a set by local rock band the Chant had raised questions about Postnuclear’s acoustics. Despite an investment in sound equipment that Nee said came to “well over $100,000,” the band sounded as if it were playing in a basketball arena, not an intimate club.
But by Saturday, the extreme reverberation that had turned the Chant’s sound into murk was under control. While there was still a lack of definition in the lead vocals and the bass, the Three O’Clock’s set came through with acceptable clarity. With its spacious interior of hard surfaces that can play billiards with sound waves, Postnuclear may turn out to be the sort of club where a good sound engineer will be critical to the success of a show.
Hartmann said the club still has plenty of modifications to make, including installation of sound-damping material to cut down on the reverberation.
“Things that aren’t right now will be later,” he said. “Money’s not an object in changing anything and making it right, which is really nice.”
Postnuclear’s most important early reviews will come from the managers and agents who decide where bands play. After the show, the Three O’Clock’s handlers gave the club a rave.
“When other artists and agents see this room they’re going to want to play here,” said John Silva, who manages the Three O’Clock. “If this was in Los Angeles right now, it would blow everyone out of the water. People would be on their knees lining up to play here.”
Brett Steinberg of Variety Artists International, one of the major talent-booking agencies, said he will also give a favorable report: “The first thing I’m going to say, the hospitality, the way they treated the band, is the best I’ve seen in a long time for a nightclub. The Coach House is a class act, and Postnuclear is going to have a difficult time matching the Coach House’s reputation, but the way they treated the Three O’Clock tonight, they’re off to a good start.”
Steinberg said that Postnuclear will pose competition for the Coach House when it comes to booking alternative-rock acts that appeal to a younger audience. In those cases, he said, the Postnuclear’s larger capacity will be an advantage.
But some veteran acts wouldn’t thrive in a smokeless, alcohol-free setting, he said: “You don’t put a Gregg Allman here. That’s a drinking audience. They would go out of their mind here, because they couldn’t drink.”
He also mentioned the crowd for another of his clients, John Prine.
Postnuclear is reserving Friday and Saturday nights for dancing, Hartmann said--primarily to recorded music. Those will also be tryout nights for local bands that the club will try to groom as opening acts for its weeknight concerts.
Upcoming concerts include reggae bands the Itals and Roots Radics on Wednesday and country-rock guitarist Albert Lee with his band, the Biff Baby All Stars, on Aug. 11. Cuban salsa bandleader Mongo Santamaria will headline Aug. 25, followed by contemporary jazz saxophonist Kirk Whalum on Aug. 30 and reggae singer Ine Kamoze on Aug. 31.
MOVING OUT: Synthicide Records, the county-based record label that recently scored a Top 40 hit with Bardeux’s “When We Kiss,” has decamped across the county line to the Culver City complex where Synthicide’s partner label, Enigma, is based. The move will cut down on commuting between Enigma headquarters and Synthicide’s old offices in La Habra, said Steve Levesque, director of marketing for Synthicide. Jon St. James, the La Habra-based record producer who founded Synthicide, has relinquished executive duties to concentrate on production and talent scouting for the label, Levesque said. . . . Synthicide act Metal MC, a rap/heavy metal band that hails from the county, makes its local debut Aug. 13 at Night Moves in Huntington Beach. Bardeux plays tonight at Disneyland’s Videopolis. The dance-pop duo will debut a new video at the show. . . . Tickets will go on sale today at 4 p.m. for the Charlie Daniels Band’s shows Sept. 4 and 5 at the Crazy Horse Steak House. . . . Tickets will go on sale Monday for a second Barry Manilow date on Sept. 24 at the Pacific Amphitheatre.
