Monday Grooves at the Red Onion

For those die-hards who don’t want their weekends to end (or just like to get a very early start), the current hot spot to shake your groove thang to old and new disco and house every Monday night is Grooves in the, well, uh, Huntington Harbour Red Onion.

All right, so that hasn’t been a place to connect hip with happening. Mention the Onion in hoity-toity H. Harbour and longtime clubbers conjure nightmarish scenarios of crowds long on gold card credit and short on taste, stale pick-up lines, giant/frightening hairdos and an abundance of silicone parts.

Although a tiny few of those types still show up, their numbers are minor compared with the 500 to 600 def night-crawlers who come every week--a very good showing for winter Mondays.

Much of the crowd appears to be mostly 18 to 22 and has donned the refreshingly dress-down costumes of the day: the grunge, skate wear and urban rave looks. And sure, the fashion police could make some arrests (especially some of the go-go dancers, for very unflattering and unsexy ensembles), but who’s noticing? As for garments best left at home, the dress code doesn’t allow baseball caps with team logos, hooded sweat shirts, tank tops, sleeveless shirts, beanies or bandannas. The walls are dressed for the night with the currently ubiquitous club decor of sheets airbrushed with surreal scenes, apocalyptic robots and trashy bimbo pin-ups lit with black lights. The club boasts a VIP area for all those “special” insiders (actually, the VIP passes are thrown out to the dancing masses around midnight, along with Tees and caps from 26 Red and Euro Funk clothing companies). The VIP corner, dubbed the Dog Pound and fenced away behind a chain-link wall, has a pool table, foosball and cushy chairs.

Everyone else can rack them up at one of four pool tables at the opposite end of the dance area. Dividing the two sides is a large oval bar, behind which are what have to be the fastest working tenders in the area.

The 2-month-old club takes part of its style and patronage from another Red Onion-based club, in Orange--Unity, which can boast an average of 1,100 partiers every Thursday. Like that club, Grooves packs them in by 10 p.m.; the dance floor, especially, becomes close to impossible to enter or escape as the night progresses.

Promoter Alton Aksu is the mastermind behind both dance haunts, although co-conspirators Paul Hein and Eddie Rogers take some credit for activating Grooves. Word is that a second Grooves will open sometime next month at the swank Rhythm Cafe in Santa Ana, on Wednesday nights.

In contrast to Unity, the deejays at Grooves spin a dosage of ‘70s dance hits, some with a techno beat dropped in, thereby speeding ‘em up some from the originals. The disco and house mixes are played in blocks, presumably to give those who came to hear one or the other a chance between sets to sit out or make it over to the bar.

Those of legal drinking age can benefit from the $4 cover charge (ages 18 to 20 have to pay $6 before 10 p.m, $8 thereafter--those lines are long so get there early). Drinkers also get a break on the prices: All drafts and well drinks are $1 all night long. Nonalcoholic beverages, such as sodas and mineral water, sell for $2.