Grass-Roots Scene Is Fertile, but Drought’s Coming : Pop music: Offspring has a smash with ‘Smash,’ but Costa Mesa club Our House is closing.

The national success of the Offspring, whose “Smash” album has lived up to its name by cracking the Top 20 on the Billboard pop chart, represents a new breakthrough for Orange County’s grass-roots rock scene.

Unfortunately, back on the home front it’s business as usual: Another promising alternative-music venue on the chronically anemic club scene is about to fold.

After eight months of adventurous bookings of local bands and touring underground acts, Our House in Costa Mesa will cease its regular concert programming at the end of this month. The club’s independent promoter, Chris Fahey, said there may be occasional concerts at Our House in the future, but nothing approaching the schedule that had seen one to three shows a week at the 182-capacity club at 720 W. 19th St.

The problem, Fahey said, is that Our House’s daytime operation as a coffeehouse and restaurant stopped a few months ago, and the owner, the Wahoo’s Fish Taco chain, will no longer provide staff on concert nights.

Fahey said that his own company, Stab You in the Back Productions, is basically a two-man operation (with partner Mike Torribo) and can’t muster enough staff on its own to run regular shows.

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Fahey said he hopes the types of acts he has booked--among them Drive Like Jehu, Claw Hammer, the Muffs and John Doe--will find a place at the Foothill in Signal Hill, where veteran promoter Steve Zepeda is now booking alternative and roots-rock concerts on Thursday and Friday nights.

“I’m sure he’ll see a lot more of the touring bands we’ve been splitting up,” Fahey said. “Now everybody’s got to drive to Long Beach.”

The remaining shows at Our House are: the Women, the Meices, Sasabe Giants and South Bay Surfers, Aug. 13; Fluf, Loraine and the Summer Hits, Aug. 19; Claw Hammer, Custom Floor, Tanner and Grasshopper, Aug. 20, and aMiniature and No Knife, Aug. 26. All shows are for ages 21 and up and cost $4 or $5, except for the Fluf concert, which is open to all ages and costs $8.