A Showdown Between Country Music Clubs : Lawsuit: The owner of Anaheim’s Cowboy Boogie Co. claims that big-name acts have stayed away because of hardball tactics employed by the operating partner of a competing venue, the Crazy Horse.

The Crazy Horse Steak House, one of the nation’s most highly regarded country music nightclubs, has been using “threats and intimidation” to keep performers from straying to a competing venue in Anaheim, according to a suit brought in Orange County Superior Court.

In the suit, Jack E. Wade, owner of the Cowboy Boogie Co., claims that the Crazy Horse’s operating partner, Fred Reiser, has been using hardball tactics during the past two years to keep big-name bands from playing at Wade’s club.

Wade’s suit, filed earlier this month, maintains that the Crazy Horse management has “made it known throughout the recording industry that recording artists who would (perform at Cowboy Boogie Co.) would not be considered for employment at the Crazy Horse.” Wade is seeking damages of more than $1 million, as well as a court injunction prohibiting the Crazy Horse from continuing the unfair business practices alleged in the suit.

Reiser said last week that he had not yet been served with the suit and would have no comment.

During the past two years, several acts have appeared at both the 250-seat Crazy Horse and the 1,000-capacity Cowboy Boogie Co. Mary-Chapin Carpenter and Carlene Carter both played dates at the Cowboy Boogie Co. and were subsequently booked at the Crazy Horse. Highway 101 also has played both venues, most recently at the Cowboy Boogie Co.

While the suit contends that abuses have been “ongoing,” it cites only one specific instance in which the Crazy Horse’s management allegedly stopped a band from playing at the Cowboy Boogie Co.

According to the suit, agents for the Sweethearts of the Rodeo, a duo made up of two harmonizing sisters, committed the group last September to play a concert at the Cowboy Boogie Co. A few weeks later, the suit maintains, the agents canceled the Sweethearts’ appearance under pressure from Reiser. The suit says that Reiser told the Sweethearts’ agent he would not book the group again at the Crazy Horse if it played at the Cowboy Boogie Co. The Sweethearts and their booking agency are not named as defendants in the suit.

The band’s Nashville-based booking agents could not be reached this week. But Chuck Flood, the Sweethearts’ manager, denied that Reiser had anything to do with the show’s cancellation.

Speaking from Nashville, Flood said that “a misunderstanding and a screw-up on our part,” stemming from a foggy grasp of Southern California geography, led to the scheduling, then cancellation, of the Sweethearts’ show at the Cowboy Boogie Co.

Flood said that he and the band’s booking agent made the date without realizing that the Cowboy Boogie Co.’s Anaheim location was “right on top of the Crazy Horse.”

“We already had a history of playing with Fred over a long period of time,” Flood said, and decided it would be bad form to play at a competing club. “He’s been very good to the Sweethearts. I wouldn’t want to jeopardize our relationship with Fred. If you’ve done well, you want to continue doing business with that person until you outgrow the size of that club. Fred treats the artists great, he pays great, and he’s a very reputable guy to work with.”

Flood disputed the Cowboy Boogie Co.’s allegation that Reiser had threatened to “blacklist” the Sweethearts if they played the Anaheim club. Canceling the date “was our decision,” he said. “It was not a result of anything Fred Reiser said. He never (made threats), and I just can’t believe he would do that. He’s one of the most straight-up guys in the business.”

Besides the loyalty factor, Flood said, he was concerned that the Sweethearts might become overexposed in Orange County by playing the Cowboy Boogie Co. date. The band played at the Crazy Horse last June 3 and 4. If they had played again at the Cowboy Boogie Co. in October, he said, Reiser might have passed on the Sweethearts on their next Southern California tour swing--not to punish them for playing at a competing venue, but because he might conclude pragmatically that the band’s audience had been “saturated” with too many shows in the area.

Wade, the Cowboy Boogie Co. owner, said in an interview that he “never dealt with Flood,” but heard instead from the Sweethearts’ booking agency that Reiser had brought pressure to cancel the group’s Anaheim show. “There’s a lot more to come out,” he said.

As for his suit’s allegation of a two-year effort by the Crazy Horse to block bands from playing at the Cowboy Boogie Co., Wade said: “I don’t want to get too specific. . . . I just want to be treated fairly. It’s kind of embarrassing to book an act and have to cancel it.”

Wade said that he does not see his club as a direct competitor of the Crazy Horse. The Crazy Horse offers weekly sit-down concerts by touring bands, with ticket prices usually in the $20 to $30 range. The Academy of Country Music has named it the top country music club in the nation the past five years, and Reiser has been president of the L.A.-based Academy for several years. The Nashville-based Country Music Assn., country’s other major awards-giving organization, honored Reiser in 1989 as concert promoter of the year.

The Cowboy Boogie Co., Wade said, is mainly a dance club, but it tries to do a couple of major-band concerts a month. “I’m not in competition with the sit-down concerts they do” at the Crazy Horse, Wade said.

Some of the Cowboy Boogie Co.’s major-name shows have been free, with tickets given away as a promotional ploy by country radio station KZLA-FM. Shows promoted by the club itself carry low ticket prices of no more than $6, Wade said. “I try to get it where I break even (on shows by big-name acts),” Wade said. “That way, everybody has a good feeling about the club, and I get some exposure.”