Club Postnuclear to Aim Weeknight Concerts at Dance Audience

Despite the blow of being denied permission to sell beer, Club Postnuclear will try to keep up a profile as a venue for touring pop acts.

Aldo Bender, marketing director of the Laguna Beach rock music club, said Wednesday that Postnuclear will try to exploit its strength--a solid weekend draw for recorded dance music--by booking weeknight concerts by touring bands that should appeal to the dance crowd.

Book of Love, a New York-based techno-pop group, will play Postnuclear on March 27, the club’s first new booking of a major touring band since the Laguna Beach City Council last month denied Postnuclear’s bid for a beer permit. Club owner William (Max) Nee had said that without beer the club would not be able to continue live concerts.

Beer sales figured to let Postnuclear broaden its audience base and tap into bar revenues, which are vital to most rock clubs’ survival. Without alcohol, Bender said, the club will have to avoid taking chances on lesser-known acts and those that don’t fit the dance-oriented concept. That will probably shut out groups on the local rock scene.

“I’ll do a concert here that I know I can sell out,” Bender said, noting that Book of Love’s music already is regularly featured during Postnuclear’s weekend disco nights. As for local bands, he said, they don’t figure to draw well at Postnuclear because their fans can see them at other area clubs that serve alcohol.

In hopes of eventually increasing concert offerings, Postnuclear plans to expand its recorded-music dance nights starting in May, opening as a disco on Wednesdays and Thursdays as well as the current Friday and Saturday nights.

The Wednesday night sessions will be dubbed “Trashbox” and feature disco, soul and Top 40 music. Thursdays will be known as “Nemesis” and concentrate on alternative dance music.

After building a dance audience for each specialized night, Bender said, he plans to bring in live groups that fit the evening’s musical concept.

Until then, Postnuclear will continue Thursday night shows by local bands, including performances tonight by Donkey Show and Odd Mann Out; Fear & Faith and Still September, March 23; Sixtieth Parallel and Violet Burning, March 30, and National People’s Gang and Imagining Yellow Suns, April 13. Kym Ryder, a dance-rock singer from Minneapolis, will appear April 6.