ENTERTAINMENT : King of Clubs : House bands, many with world-class players, bring their music down to a very personal level.

That’s Mouse Johnson in the corner booth, happily crowded behind his drum kit on the same makeshift stage he’s on every Monday night about this time. And it’s as intimate as a living room here at Skoby’s in Chatsworth, with the small crowd around the bar drinking, smoking and clapping just inches away from Johnson’s quintet and its passionate rumble of jazz, blues and pop.

The band’s guitarist and bassist may have to stand just outside the tiny stage area, but none of that is bothering Johnson now. He’s already seen professional glory and traveled the world playing with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Lou Reed, Chuck Berry and other major acts. The veteran drummer is here for other reasons, satisfied enough to play an endless list of standards and original material to a crowd of regulars he knows by name.

“This is always interesting,” says Johnson, who devotes the rest of the week to his recording studio in Mission Hills. “I find it much more interesting than being on the road doing the same songs 180 days a year.”

Johnson’s Toy Band is just one of an endless rotation of musical acts that perform as house bands in clubs scattered across the San Fernando Valley. And to a large degree, many of these bands include players who continue to perform on the road and in the studio with well-known musical artists.

Digging deep into the blues on those same Monday nights at Pelican’s Retreat in Calabasas is Dirty Pool, a quintet of veteran musicians that includes David Lee Roth sideman Brett Tuggle on keyboards and guitarist Steve Hunter, who has played with Reed, Peter Gabriel and Alice Cooper. Dirty Pool was created so its members could return to their blues roots between other projects, Tuggle says.

But in the two months that Dirty Pool has been the Monday house band at Pelican’s, the shows have already turned into weekly jam sessions, with unannounced musician friends joining the band on stage. Among the regulars have been actress-singer Katey Sagal of “Married With Children” and pop star Rick Springfield, whose band in the ‘80s included Tuggle and Dirty Pool drummer Jack White.

“I hadn’t really done clubs since the ‘70s,” Tuggle says. “I’ve been doing more concerts and records, really. So it’s been a change to go back, and we’re having a ball doing it. It’s good because it gets us in a whole different frame of mind, which is especially good for playing the blues.”

Bassist-vocalist Marco Mendoza performs in a Brazilian jazz trio Wednesday nights at La Ve Lee in Studio City. But he also plays regularly in a variety of other bands, including a couple of hard rock acts signed to major record labels. “It’s a different kind of energy when you do bigger venues,” Mendoza says. “You learn not to expect that when you’re doing steady gigs. You get that energy happening within yourself, no matter what.”

The house band shows are also a matter of survival for some musicians, even for those who work regularly with larger acts. “We’ve all done major gigs,” says drummer Eddie Tuduri, who has toured with Dwight Yoakam, the Beach Boys and J.D. Souther and played on more than 40 albums in the ‘70s. “But when you’re in town as a sideman trying to make a living, this is the only way to do it.”

For the local clubs, one benefit to adding a house band to its schedule is the creation of a regular clientele attracted to the band and the subsequent musical identity it gives the club, says Jesse Rusmisel, entertainment manager at the Village Bar & Grill in Glendale. The live blues venue devotes Sundays to Chicago blues player Arthur Adams, and Wednesdays to the funk/rhythm-and-blues of Doc Huck-A-Buck & the Bazooky Brothers.

“There is a certain kind of patron who finds comfort in seeing the same person performing every night,” Rusmisel says. “The club becomes a hang for people who are like-minded. And there’s a different kind of vibe that happens because of it.”

Pelican’s Retreat also devotes several nights a week to house bands, including the Valley-based reggae act Urban Dread on Tuesdays. But talent coordinator Dave Hewitt insists that finding the right band with the right qualities is not always easy.

“There’s thousands of bands out there,” Hewitt says, “and let me tell you something: I’ve seen a lot of top-quality bands that don’t have the personality to have close encounters with people. That’s why they have managers.

“If you’ve got a house band, after two or three weeks people just aren’t going to come back every single Monday. So it takes a little bit more to keep them. And there aren’t a lot of those bands out there.”

Consequently, some live music venues on the Valley have chosen not to book house bands. Like most local country music clubs, the Longhorn Saloon in Canoga Park ultimately abandoned the house band concept in 1984. The club still rotates a pool of about 15 bands through its schedule, says operations manager Bill Allen.

“It’s too much of a problem if you book a house band because of the old ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ sort of thing,” Allen explains. “People are so used to seeing new music. Country music changes too rapidly. You really have to get new bands in there to get maximum exposure for the club.”

Even if other clubs do schedule house bands, the musicians often find the venues lacking in certain basic accouterments.

Stages that are too small, too close to glass, or lacking adequate equipment are a few of the recurring headaches that confront musicians.

“If you don’t want to do it, there’s always another group of kids that might do it,” Tuduri says. “The places that consider what’s necessary, do some advertising, understand the musicians, they are the ones that thrive and last for a long time. The other places fall by the wayside.”

“It has to be a system of things working together,” adds pianist Jim Hession, who has held the weekly Sunday slot at Jax in Glendale for eight years with his wife, vocalist Martha Hession. “You have to have the support of the management, the physical acoustics and advertising. It all matters. That can make you or break you. Noise or chitchat can work against you. A lot of things need to be working together to be successful.

“If you and the place have a rapport, you can build up a following and can keep the place happy by bringing people in,” says Hession, whose jazz group also has worked regularly at such venues as the Regent Beverly Wilshire, the Beverly Hills Country Club and Disneyland. “And your following will end up supporting you in different situations.”

Since beginning his career more than two decades ago, Tuduri has toured the world, stopping to perform at such massive venues as the Forum, Madison Square Garden and the Houston Astrodome. In Australia, he played in front of a sea of 110,000 people and remembers watching that huge crowd move along to the music he was a part of.

“That’s amazing,” he says, waiting for a gig with his Nickle Shade band at Santo Pietro in Studio City. He pauses for a quick hug when a friend walks in. “See, you couldn’t do that at the Forum. Playing in a place like this where you can see the same people, it’s like ‘Cheers’ on television: everybody wants to go somewhere where you know somebody, where you feel comfortable. That’s what being in a house band is about.

“You get to those big gigs in a Lear Jet. I drove my old Chevy down here.”