Bacchanal Will Shut Doors to Remodel and Expand

Six weeks of concerts at the Bacchanal have been canceled after a dispute with the city fire marshal over remodeling that occurred more than a year ago.

In the fall of 1989, the Kearny Mesa nightclub expanded into a vacant store next door, increasing capacity to 750 from 550. And everything was just dandy, until two weeks ago.

That’s when the folks at the Bacchanal were informed in a letter from the fire marshal that the construction job hadn’t been done right--specifically, the proper permits hadn’t been obtained, and a wall hadn’t been built to code. And, until those problems are corrected, the letter stated, the club’s capacity would be slashed in half, to 375.

With potential box-office revenues cut in half, said Bacchanal bookkeeper Greg Loveday, going ahead with the concerts that had already been booked simply wasn’t economically feasible. So instead, it was decided to shut down the Bacchanal for at least six weeks and not only redo the previous remodeling, but proceed with a second expansion project that should bring the club’s capacity to 1,000.

“We’re going to comply with everything the city has asked of us, and we’re also going ahead with this second remodel thing, which has been in the works for a while,” Loveday said. “We needed time to do it, and we decided that right now is a good time; we’re going to do everything at once.

“So when we reopen--and we’re looking at somewhere around the middle of February--we should have a capacity of about 1,000.”

When the fire marshal’s letter arrived, it was too late to cancel the most immediate shows. Comic Sam Kinison’s Dec. 26 and 27 appearances were moved to the San Diego Hilton Hotel on Mission Bay, while concerts by the Beat Farmers (Dec. 28 and 31), Dread Zeppelin (Dec. 29) and Eddie Money (Dec. 30) were kept on the schedule. Ticketholders who arrived after the new attendance limit had been met were turned away at the door and given refunds.

Subsequent bookings, from now until mid-February, have all been canceled. They include concerts by WWIII, Jan. 5; Dave Mason, Jan. 12; John Schneider, Jan. 25; Poncho Sanchez, Jan. 26; Pieces of a Dream, Feb. 8, and Rik Emmett, Feb. 10.

Refunds are available at point of purchase.

Manual Scan is on a roll. The San Diego Mod revival band’s music is a throwback to the crude R&B; of such celebrated British Mod bands of the early 1960s as the Animals, the Yardbirds, and the pre-”Tommy” Who.

The group’s latest record, a five-song EP called “Days and Maybe’s . . .,” has just been released by Susstone Records, a small independent label based in Minneapolis. International distribution is promised. To celebrate the release, Manual Scan will make an in-store appearance from 3-4 p.m. Jan. 13 at Off the Record in Hillcrest. The band will play a short set and sign autographs.

In the meantime, the group is still getting great reviews of its previous EP, “The Lost Sessions,” from fan-zines all over the world. England’s Bucketful of Brains hails them as “melodic garage funsters” and praises their “definite English ’64 sound and suitably primitive (yet clear) production techniques”; similarly kind words come from magazines in Italy, France, and Greece.

That’s not all. One of the songs on Manual Scan’s new EP, “Nothing Can Be Everything,” appears in the movie “A Girl to Kill For,” which has just been released on home video in the United States by Columbia Pictures.

“The film is a murder mystery, sort of like ‘Body Double,’ that was a big box-office hit in Europe,” said Bartley Mendoza, Manual Scan’s singer, guitarist and chief songwriter. “A friend of a friend had our tape in the car and played it for the director, and he liked it enough to put it in the movie.

“They paid us $3,000 up front, just to get the song from us, and that’s before we even see any royalties. It’s the first real money the band has ever seen, even with all the records we have out. So who knows--maybe that’s the direction we’re going to go in.”

What’s more, Manual Scan will head overseas in March for an eight-date tour of England. One of the places the group will play is the fabled Hundred Club in London, where such seminal British punk bands as the Sex Pistols and the Jam got their start.

LINER NOTES: It is no longer possible to call the San Diego Sports Arena’s box office the night of a show to see if your “will call” tickets--the ones you buy in advance, over the phone with your credit card--are really there. All you get is an operator, telling you the extension has been disconnected. . . .

Rhino Records has set a March 3 release date for Buddy Blue’s upcoming solo album, “Guttersnipes ‘n’ Zealots.” The album was supposed to have come out in February. . . .

Tickets are now on sale for Jane’s Addiction’s Feb. 6 appearance at Golden Hall downtown. The thrash-metal band’s two-night stand last Nov. 2 and 3 at UC San Diego’s Price Center Ballroom sold out less than 15 minutes after the box office opened. . . .

Best concert bets for the coming week: Pam and Maggie, Friday at Choice’s Restaurant in La Jolla; the Neville Brothers with Crash Vegas, Saturday at Spreckels Theatre downtown.