Coach House Looks More to Its Own Back Yard for Acts

Local music nights are no longer the rarity they used to be at the Coach House.

The current schedule at the county’s highest-profile rock club is testimony to that: Starting tonight, the Coach House will feature local-dominated lineups on three consecutive nights. Another local show on Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day, makes it four out of five for unsigned Southern California bands, with only Toy Dolls, a reunited British punk band that plays the Coach House on Sunday, breaking the streak of home-grown headliners.

Necessity has had something to do with the club’s new look-homeward angle. Ken Phebus, the Coach House’s concert director, says fewer club-level bands are touring because of the recession. Up to 1 1/2 years ago, Phebus said, the club was booking about 25 national-touring shows a month. The total has dropped to about 15, creating an opening for more local nights.

At first, Phebus said, Coach House management turned to the locals “out of desperation,” hoping they could fill some otherwise empty nights. But “now it’s no longer desperation. It’s doing beautifully.”

Phebus and Gary Folgner, the Coach House’s owner, give the credit to Marc Solferino, who took over last July as the club’s booker for local talent. Solferino, 23, is a local rocker himself, who plays lead guitar in the band Loveless.

“He’s one of them. He’s been on the scene. He knows the players and he speaks their language,” Phebus said.

In the past, Coach House officials had complained that the club’s infrequent local shows didn’t draw well enough to make them worthwhile.

Solferino cited an expanding local scene in South County, a low ticket price of $5 and band members’ willingness to hustle to promote their own shows as reasons for the club’s newfound success with local rock. Local bands have been drawing an average of about 300 fans to weeknight concerts, Solferino said, and more on weekends.

“I’d like to do at least four a month. One a week would be great,” Solferino said. So far, bands from South County have been the mainstay of Coach House local nights. Solferino said he hopes to mix in more acts from the fertile Long Beach and North County rock scenes. If those bands were to build a Coach House following (as the popular Cadillac Tramps have already done), it would give the club even more options for local nights, Solferino said.

Phebus said this week’s glut of local band nights resulted when planned dates by national headliners fell through. The Edge, Bronx Style Bob and Soul Scream play tonight, Gunslinger, Kind Age and Skin the Cat play Friday, Big Bang, Blacksmith Union and Kalliopi (a little-known Australian act) play Saturday, and Hammerhead Blue and Terry Lee Poole appear Tuesday.

Michael Marckx, drummer for the Edge, said Solferino first scouted his group at a smaller local club. That led Solferino to book the Edge as opening act for the International Beat, a national act, and to a return engagement on a bill with Standing Hawthorne, another popular local draw. Tonight will be the Edge’s first headlining show at the Coach House.

“I really appreciate it, because it’s more of a respected establishment,” Marckx said. “Big-name acts play there, and when people go there it’s to see an act and be entertained. They’re not there to get hammered or be part of a scene. It’s a place where you go to listen to music.”

MONTE MOVES GARAGE: Monte’s Garage, the showcase for grass-roots local bands at Bogart’s in Long Beach, has moved from Monday nights to Wednesdays. The club uses the shows partly as a tryout for less-established bands, with the ones who show promise being called back for more prominent gigs. Sensefield, Sand Puppets, Dean, and Peace, Love & Death (with former Adolescents guitarist Frank Agnew) make up the Garage bill next Wednesday.

FURY RETURNS: Speaking of garages, Jack Grisham of Tender Fury is finally ready to come out of his. The charismatic singer says Tender Fury will hit the road for a two-month tour starting in April--the first tour for Grisham since 1983, when he was in T.S.O.L.

“I’m scared, but I’m looking forward to it. We’ll see what happens,” Grisham said. Favorable reviews for Tender Fury’s fine new album, “If Anger Were Soul, I’d Be James Brown,” helped persuade him that it is time to take his show back on the road. A new Tender Fury lineup includes just two musicians who play on the album: Grisham and bassist Randy Bradbury. The new recruits, who Grisham said were chosen after extensive auditions, are drummer Gary Gersh, keyboards player Ronnie King, and guitarist Tony Scalzo. Grisham said the band’s shows will include material from Tender Fury’s three albums, as well as a cover of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” and a few songs from “Beneath the Shadows,” the progressive-punk album that was Grisham’s last with T.S.O.L.

The new Tender Fury lineup debuts at Bogart’s on March 28. To lend further interest, the second-billed act will be Orange Wedge, the T.S.O.L. offshoot fronted by Joe Wood. Wood replaced Grisham in T.S.O.L. nine years ago and is now his brother-in-law.

TV MARQUEE: The Marquee club in Westminster is turning its stage into a television set on Sunday afternoon as it prepares to launch a cable television series. Bob Pepper, the Marquee’s manager, said “The Marquee Rock N Roll Series” will be seen Tuesdays at 11 p.m., starting April 7, on Paragon Cable’s Metro Market station, Channel 12. Madd Hatter and Hari Kari will perform in a taping Sunday at 1 p.m. The performances are free and open to the public. Hail Mary and Rough Angel were taped for the series last Sunday.

Pepper said the Marquee will produce four half-hour segments that will be seen in rotation for 16 weeks. After that, he said, “We’ll re-evaluate and see if we want to continue.”