Club 369 in Fullerton to Offer Alternative Music : Venues: The facility, which is changing to 21-and-over, is a glimmer of hope to rock fans after Bogart’s closure.

The newest hope on a local rock scene diminished by the recent closing of Bogart’s is Club 369, which will occupy a room in Fullerton best known as the former site of the heavy-metal venue Goodies.

Club owner Greg Howell aims to feature a steady diet of local and touring alternative-rock bands at the club, which draws its name from the number of people it can hold.

Howell has owned the club, at 1641 Placentia Ave., since February. He previously ran it as an all-ages venue called NYC (for New Youth Club). Now he is changing to a 21-and-over format, with full bar. Howell, of Newport Beach, said Wednesday that Club 369 will open as soon as he has a liquor license in hand. He said that the license has been approved and that he simply is waiting for the actual document to arrive.

Tim Clark, supervising inspector in the Santa Ana office of the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, confirmed that the local office has recommended approval of Howell’s license but said the application awaits final action by ABC authorities in Sacramento.

Howell, 39, said he has owned bars in Orange County for 10 years, having previously operated Popeye’s and the Island Yacht Club in Costa Mesa. He acknowledged that his experience with booking and promoting alternative rock is limited.

“I’m pretty green in that area,” he said. “I plan to learn as much as I can about it. I see working with outside promoters in the beginning and feeling it out.”

At least for now, Howell said, he does not envision hiring a full-time, in-house booker, which was one of the keys to Bogart’s excellence. That club, in Long Beach, closed last month after a run of more than six years as the hub of the local grass-roots rock scene.

Howell said he intends to continue working with John Pantle, a local alternative-rock promoter who ran the twice-a-week 8 1/2 Club alternative series for him at NYC, as well as with other independent promoters. No firm bookings have been announced for Club 369.

“The plan will be to pursue alternative type music,” Howell said. “We may start out doing three or four nights a week live, and see how it goes from there. I would love it to work into seven nights a week.”

Howell closed NYC after a New Year’s Eve show, to “get the bar all tuned up” for its new incarnation.

In the 8 1/2 Club’s tenure, Howell said, “we (were) very successful with No Doubt, Pennywise, Firehose, D.I., those types of bands.” But 8 1/2 had trouble sustaining a steady draw among the all-ages audience, especially when school was in session.

“We put on six months of shows, brought a lot of bands in that never played Orange County before. The club did well for what it was, but we were losing money,” said promoter Pantle.

Younger fans are the biggest losers in the switch from all-ages to a 21-and-over format. But Howell decided that too many of those younger fans were too much trouble--whether they were rock fans attending 8 1/2 Club shows, or the hip-hop, rap and dance-music crowd that turned out on other nights.

“The younger kids, it was tough to handle them,” he said. “They’d break stuff. Man, they were terrors. It seemed like they came out to destroy things. They’d kick holes in the walls, generally abuse the toilet facilities, write all over stuff, and they tended to hang around in the parking lot and drink. You certainly have problems in every bar business, but (with a drinking-age audience) I don’t think we’ll have the types of situations and frequency of the problems we had with the kids.”

Howell said Club 369 will not have a pay-to-play policy: “I don’t believe in that.” However, he said untested bands who open shows will be expected to play for free until they have established that they can draw an audience.

“If they’re starting out, they want to play with the big names. They do play for nothing, usually, just to get exposure and a place for their friends to come see them other than a garage,” Howell said. If these novices show potential, “we book them higher up and on better nights, and they start getting a cut of the door.”

Howell that he is forming an alliance with Club Mesa, an alternative-rock venue owned by his friend Dick Smith. Howell said the two clubs aim to start a mini-circuit, offering local bands shows at each venue, most likely on successive weekends, and promoting the concerts jointly.

“The benefit of doing it is we can give the better bands more work,” Smith said. “Running them on (either) side of the county will work real well.”

Club Mesa, at 843 W. 19th St. in Costa Mesa, recently expanded its capacity from 200 to 358 by converting kitchen space into a room with pool tables. However, its small performing area has not been enlarged. Nevertheless, the club is going ahead with some higher-profile bookings of touring attractions, including a show Tuesday by Agent Orange, Boar’s Head and Drain Bramage, and a bill Friday with DOA, Guttermouth, Ragabash and Zero Hour. (714) 642-8448.

Across the street from Club Mesa at 720 W. 19th St. is Our House, a very promising new venue that recently began booking once- or twice-weekly alternative rock concerts.

The 200-capacity room is a combination bar and coffeehouse that has some of the coziness of Bogart’s side room, the Bohemian Cafe, but without the Bohemian’s dark, chilly cast.

A recent concert by Claw Hammer and a band from San Diego, Uncle Joe’s Big Ol’ Driver, drew a capacity crowd. There was no concert lighting, but the portable stage and hired sound system were more than adequate.

Best of all, the audience heeded promoter Chris Fahey’s suggestion that it forgo slam dancing, that annoying, so-trite ritual of the alternative-rock set, in favor of doing the pogo, the original form of punk dancing. With slamming, the small space would be unbearable (and some nice glass fixtures etched with figures of nude Asian dancers, left over from a past incarnation as a Chinese restaurant, would be in extreme jeopardy). Without it, the place works beautifully.

Among its amenities is a very large selection of reasonably priced beers. The Muffs, Flop and the Women play at Our House on Thursday, and Smile, Feeble and Just Plain Big perform Friday. (714) 650-8960.

Another new entry on the local grass-roots scene is Nomads Presents, an independent promoter based in Venice. Jennifer Kelton, who runs Nomads, operated a club of the same name in West Los Angeles until high rents drove her out of business about a year ago.

“I worked a lot at Nomads with Orange County bands,” Kelton said. “I realized there was a lot of good talent there.” She aims to book concerts at various clubs in Orange County and Long Beach as well as in Los Angeles. Nomads will present the Primitive Painters, Enduring May and National People’s Gang at the Electric Circus in Buena Park on Friday ((714) 827-1210) and Medicine Rattle, Michael Bay and Jimmy Stafford & Charlie Colin at System M in Long Beach on Jan. 22 ((310) 435-2525).