A Clean Break for Club 5902

Once the dingy, smoke-clogged bat cave of the local rock scene, the Huntington Beach club formerly known as Night Moves has gotten a thorough face lift and will try to make a comeback as a rock concert venue.

Overseeing the club’s attempted revival is the Concert Authority, a partnership of local rock promoters. It is now called Club 5902 after its address, 5902 Warner Ave.

“I don’t even mention Night Moves,” said Jay Sheridan, a Concert Authority partner who booked many shows at Night Moves during its days as primarily a punk and alternative rock palace. Now, Sheridan said, “we’re aiming for a nicer clientele. It’s not that dirty, smelly, rock ‘n’ roll club. It’s nice, it’s clean, the floors are shiny. I can do an Eddie Money show and not be embarrassed. You can bring your girlfriend or wife and she can go to the restroom and not come out with this look of horror on her face.”

Sheridan and partner J.P. Boquette will book and promote some concerts themselves, as well as coordinating the work of outside promoters, who will also be able to stage shows at Club 5902. A third partner, Ed Christensen, spends most of his time overseeing Concert Authority shows in Arkansas, Sheridan said.

Sheridan and Boquette said they aim to compete with the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and Bogart’s in Long Beach for touring rock and pop attractions. For now, though, they are launching Club 5902 with local rock, reggae and blues talent.

“We will be doing bigger acts, that’s our goal,” Boquette said. “But we’re going to start off slower and let the buzz get around town” about the changes at Club 5902.

Club improvements were made over the past year. Black remains prominent in its decor, as it was in the Night Moves days, but the floors are now a polished linoleum checkerboard pattern, ventilation has been improved, a good deal of scrubbing has been done, and new fixtures have been added. The stage has been enlarged, and the club has a more spacious feel, although its capacity remains unchanged at 295. Sheridan said that $250,000 has gone into the improvements, which include new lighting and an augmented sound system.

The most prominent acts currently booked are James Harman, the local bluesman who will play Sept. 19, and HR, the punk-reggae band featuring the former singer of Bad Brains, who will headline Oct. 6.

Sundays will be devoted to reggae, with the Trevor James Band beginning a weekly tenure this Sunday. Plans call for country bands on Mondays, blues bands on Tuesdays, and rave and techno dance music on Wednesdays and Thursdays (with mostly recorded music).

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Friday and Saturday bookings for the next month feature local rock bands as follows: On Aug. 28, Eli Riddle, Living End and Fwing Fung; Aug. 29, Ask Alice, Forever Young, Breathless, Wired and Shotgun Alliance in a benefit for Stop the Pain, an organization that helps abused children; Sept. 4, Blue Dyed Fire, Hinged and Eli Riddle; Sept. 5, Mr. Merengue, Voodoo Groove and Purple Bosco; Sept. 11, Lost Dog, Chattahoochee and Sweet Leaf; Sept. 12, Cubensis and Led Zep Again; Sept. 18, Sublime, the Goods and Get Back; and Sept. 25, Rage Against the Machine, Pinch and Hippafreaks.

Boquette said that the cover will be $5 or $6 for shows by local rockers.

During the daytime and early evening, the club, which has several pool tables and more than a dozen TV monitors, will cater to a billiards and sports-viewing crowd.

Night Moves closed in July, 1991. Its management was taken over by John Russo, whose mother, Eva Russo, had bought a minority share from Night Moves’ principal owner, Ezra Joseph. Russo launched the remodeling and renamed the club Double Take, with plans for a sports bar/Top 40 format. When that didn’t succeed, it took on a new name, Rock ‘n’ Reggae.

The latest changes were initiated by a new operator, Aaron Cuha, who took over as manager two weeks ago. Cuha, 23, said in a phone interview that he mainly earns his living from a family-owned home remodeling business based in Huntington Beach. He hired Sheridan and Boquette to handle concert bookings.

“We’re very patient. I’ve watched this club go up and down, and it could take a long time,” Cuha said when asked whether the new format will be given time to catch hold.

Joseph, who still owns a majority interest in the club and holds its liquor license, said Cuha approached him several weeks ago with his proposal for building an audience around live rock.

“I said, ‘It sounds good; give it a try and see if you can get the club going again,’ ” Joseph said. “Johnny Russo had it and he couldn’t do it. It has lost money over the last year.”

Joseph had run the club himself until about a year ago, when he sold part of his interest and turned daily operations over to others. Now busy running Rustlers Bar & Grill, a country music club in Temecula, Joseph said he is leaving it to Cuha to oversee operations at Club 5902.

The future of the Doll Hut is in doubt as its owners go through a divorce.

The tiny roadhouse at 107 S. Adams St., Anaheim, has featured a steady stream of local grass-roots rockers over the past three years. But lately live bookings have been reduced to one show a week--a rockabilly night each Monday with Big Sandy & the Fly Rite Boys. In fact, other bands wanting to play at the Doll Hut might find it difficult to inquire about gigs: the club’s phone has been disconnected.

Linda and John Mello bought the Doll Hut three years ago and began operating it as a hangout for the local rock scene. In a recent interview, Linda said that she and her husband continued to run the club amicably after separating in June, 1990. But more recently the relationship has grown severely strained.

“I just couldn’t work with him any more. He and I had very different opinions on how to run the business,” Linda Mello said. John has run the bar alone since June, she said. He was unavailable for comment.

Linda Mello said the Doll Hut’s future depends on the outcome of their divorce. “The judge will decide which one of us will get custody of it, or whether it will go up for sale. I’m hoping the judge will see who is more capable of running it, and who is more capable of paying off the debts that are due.” She said she would like to see the Doll Hut feature a full schedule of live music again.

Carmen Torzon, a friend of John Mello’s, was tending bar at the Doll Hut on Wednesday night. He said the phone had been disconnected after an employee ran up a large, unauthorized bill that the club has not yet paid.

“I can’t speak for John, but I think he’s going to look to book (more) bands again in the future,” Torzon said. “It’s just going to take a while to reverse the damage that’s been done” by divorce-related infighting that has hurt the business. “We’re still floating right now. We’re treading really deep water.”

Gary Folgner, owner of the Coach House, says he has won a $192,000 settlement in a lawsuit related to his ill-fated attempt to run the Raymond Theatre in Pasadena.

Folgner bought and refurbished the venerable, 1,900-seat theater in 1990, with plans to establish it as a competitor in the Los Angeles County concert market. But the November, 1990, opening and several subsequent shows had to be postponed or canceled when Pasadena fire officials said that there was no documentation that newly installed seat cushions had been treated with fire-retardant.

Folgner wound up losing control of the Raymond last November after falling behind on mortgage payments. He sued United Upholstery Fabric of Gardena in March, 1991, claiming that the company had falsely assured him that the fabric for the seat coverings met government fire safety regulations. Folgner maintained that the cancellations got the Raymond off to a poor start from which it never recovered. According to court documents, Folgner claimed direct financial losses of about $300,000, plus an additional $250,000 in lost goodwill.

Folgner said in an interview that he decided to settle the case for less rather than go through a long and costly trial. As it was, he said, more than half the settlement was eaten up by his own attorneys’ fees.

Reached by phone on Thursday, United Upholstery’s operator, Charles Petlak, did not confirm the amount of the settlement. “The insurance company is the one that settled it, not me. Whatever he got, he didn’t deserve,” Petlak said.