Just Over the Underground

Cross “Club MTV” with “Cheers” and what do you get?

Joy.

A Thursday-night dance club, Joy has created the posed energy of “Club MTV” amid the friendly “Cheers”-like setting at Doug Weston’s Troubadour night club in West Hollywood. It’s an odd mix that seems to work.

The crowd at Joy is young, in-the-know, slightly upscale. A considerable number of casually dressed Brits are present. (Club co-promoter Graham Seaman is English and seems to attract this crowd.) The music--spun by the club scene’s omnipresent deejay Doc Martin--is composed of energetic house grooves that flirt with the hyper beats of the underground.

In fact, this place is a lot like the underground . . . Not!

Launched in November, Joy is one of a slew of new clubs that have attempted to bring the ambience of the underground’s often-illegal “rave” warehouse parties to mainstream venues, but the feel here is more formal than that of any rave scene.

The crowd in general is clad in black, jeans and baseball caps, though eccentrics do roam. Visual snapshots on a recent night included a man dancing shirtless and an ultra-short-haired woman in mirrored glasses and a gold lame blouse dancing like a mime on fast-forward.

Martin spins on a wood-railed balcony. Dancers boogie on the dance floor and a show-your-moves stage. Downstairs there’s the ubiquitous bar. Upstairs, there’s a railed observation rim and a chichi VIP room where most of the British accents can be found. There’s little sign of the crazy costumes and jumpy dancing and no sign of the drugs that permeate the rave scene.

Shades of the underground are revealed, however, in a separate room void of light and filled with Mark Lewis-spun funk and rap music. Oddball film loops and an over-capacity throng of teen-agers and twentysomethings that the doormen pack into the 299-capacity Troubadour also recall warehouse parties.

Seaman, 21, admits Joy is “a bit underground, but with a different crowd.” Kind of a safe taste of the rowdy subterranean scene.

But club-goer Eva Feather, a 19-year-old from England, complains: “Too many Beverly Hills little kids and not enough proper ravers go here.”

Christian Ferry, a 21-year-old from San Pedro counters: “It’s a small but happy club.”

Where everybody knows your name?

Not in L.A.

Club Notes: Jumping on the bandwagon, the upscale Roxbury and Spice nightclubs have launched underground-style theme nights. Roxbury (8225 Sunset Blvd.) plans to start a Friday-night club called Pure this weekend, featuring (who else) Doc Martin behind the turntables. London Underground, a Thursday night club opened last month, features rave deejays Barry Weaver and Moon Pup among others at Spice (7070 Hollywood Blvd.)

The spot: Joy. Thursday nights at Doug Weston’s Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. (213) 957-4727.

Cover: $10, $8 with membership. Must be 18; 21 for drinking.

Door policy: Lax. The Fire Department wouldn’t like it.

Price of beer: $3.25 through $3.75.