Club to Keep Offering Local Bands Despite Problems

The Coach House’s recent experiment in offering regular showcases for Orange County rock bands has not been an immediate hit, but the club will continue its efforts to devote one or two nights each month to local talent.

“I’m still going to keep doing this and build something up,” said Nikki Sweet, who is in charge of local bookings at the concert club in San Juan Capistrano.

Last Sunday’s show, featuring the Squids, Cactus Jack and Black Daphne, was low on attendance and high on hassles, according to Coach House officials. Kraig Black, the club’s stage manager, said that only 70 paying fans turned up and that unruly behavior led to some Squids fans being ejected or barred from entering.

A band from Garden Grove whose act features frat-rock music and comical stage antics, the Squids arrived in a chartered bus with about 60 fans, according to guitarist Dan Moran, the Squids’ leader. Moran said Tuesday that “one bad apple made a scene, and she’s never coming on a bus ride with us again.”

But Black said that there were problems with about 30 people in the Squids’ entourage and that Moran may have missed some of the trouble while preparing to go on stage. Problems included fans smuggling booze into the club, 21-year-olds buying alcoholic drinks for minors, abusive language toward club personnel and littering the parking lot with beer bottles and cans, Black said. Eventually, he said, the club called sheriff’s deputies to clear the parking lot and to make sure that the fans who had been barred or ejected remained on the bus until the show ended.

Three previous local-band nights since December had gone better, Sweet said, with no similar incidents and with attendance ranging from 100 to 200.

In booking acts that are not proven draws at the 380-seat Coach House, the club--which according to Sweet faces nightly overhead costs of $2,300--is relying on the bands to help sell tickets in advance.

“It’s kind of discouraging when it doesn’t happen,” Sweet said. But the Coach House will try again on March 12 with an Orange County band night featuring the Slim Beats and the Slugs.

Sweet emphasized that the Coach House is not running the sort of “pay-to-play” arrangement that some Hollywood clubs follow, in which bands have to buy tickets for the privilege of being booked. All bands playing the Coach House are being paid, Sweet said.

The Coach House’s comparatively isolated location in southern Orange County doesn’t lend itself to the sort of walk-up clientele that has helped Bogart’s in Long Beach succeed with frequent local band bookings, Sweet said.

Also, the Coach House has been charging $8 a ticket for local band nights, several dollars more than fans usually have to pay to see the same groups at Bogart’s or at Night Moves in Huntington Beach.

LIVE ACTION: Huayucaltia, a Latin American folk group that is part of the politically oriented nuevo cancion movement, will play Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at Tower Records, 23811 El Toro Road in El Toro. . . . Tiny Tim will tiptoe through the tulips April 11 at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, on a bill with the Del Rubio Triplets.