Spurs, a once-popular country dance nightclub in...

Spurs, a once-popular country dance nightclub in the Marina Pacifica mall, is being renamed and converted into a venue for live and recorded rock, alternative and disco music, according to general manager Jesse Cisneros.

Cisneros says the 6-month-old country format was dropped on New Year’s Eve in hopes of drawing bigger crowds. The room will reopen Tuesday as Club Acapulco and will feature live local bands on Tuesday and Thursday nights. (Bogart’s, a club in the same mall that had been a focal point of the area’s live rock scene, closed last month.)

Spurs isn’t the only club around here switching away from country. Cactus Jack’s in Anaheim recently converted to Fritz That’s Too, a semi-nude adult entertainment venue.

However, neither change signals an end to the country dance craze, according to Tom Mattox, a longtime dance instructor in Orange County who says his nightly classes continue to draw 600 people a week.

What’s happening, Mattox says, is that smaller venues (with smaller dance floors) are being squeezed out while larger clubs are thriving. “When disco got real big,” he recalled, “every club in the world turned into a disco, but it was the big clubs with the best music and biggest dance floors that lasted. It’s the same thing with country.”

In any case, the news on the country dance front isn’t all bad: The Silver Bullet in Long Beach, closed last fall, has reopened under new management as Bronco Billy’s and is offering country dancing to live bands nightly.