VENTURA COUNTY WEEKEND : Wild Surf on Ventura Turf With ‘Pacific Rim’ : Scott Aichner’s newest video makes its theatrical debut with long-board footage shot from here to Tahiti.

Kowabunga, finheads, surf’s up, and a really big swell, too. It will reach all the way from the blue Pacific to the Ventura Theatre on Friday night when Scott Aichner’s fourth surf movie, “Pacific Rim,” debuts. Local rockers Raging Arb & the Redheads will open the 9 p.m. show.

Aichner’s first effort, “Ventura--The Surf Movie,” debuted to a packed Ventura Theatre in 1993 with Raging Arb and Lion I’s providing live music. “V2 and Beyond” was a similar hit in November 1994, with those Redheads once again working the locals into a frenzy beforehand. In between, Aichner made a bodyboarding video, with still another video, “Propaganda,” due in May. A do-it-yourself kind of guy, Aichner saved a lot of money by avoiding all those expensive film schools.

“I just basically didn’t like all the surf videos I was seeing in the late ‘80s because there wasn’t enough action in them,” he said. “I didn’t go to school for any of this, I just started doing it, and now I get to do what I like.”

Aichner has expanded his horizons considerably for “Pacific Rim.” The 30-minute video contains footage from Mexico, Tahiti, Hawaii and locally, including action from the pier-killing storm from last week. The all-ages show will cost 10 bucks. The new film will be on sale for 12 bucks, and the first two films are 10 bucks apiece.

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They could have named the bar after a more applicable science-fiction movie, but perhaps “Night of the Living Dead” or “Predator” were a bit too close to reality, so “Stargate” it is. Is what? Why, the newest rock ‘n’ roll venue in the Conejo Valley. Actually, the place was formerly the Red Onion, then Avenues, then Red Onion again. Now it’s named after a Kurt Russell movie, and there is a new guy booking the entertainment, Dave Hewitt, formerly of Pelican’s Retreat in Calabasas.

Pelican’s, after 14 years, is history. Most bars go away because no one likes them, but according to Hewitt, Pelican’s was different. The owner, he said, was getting tired of the place, “but it was doing business,” he said. “We had more volume than anyplace from the 405 Freeway to Santa Barbara except for the Sagebrush, which was a much bigger place. Our capacity was 400, and a lot of times, we’d have 800 or 900 people in the place on Thursday, Sunday and Tuesday, which tells you something.”

It tells you that Hewitt, a 12 1/2-year veteran of Pelican’s with a management degree from Cal State Northridge, must have known what he was doing. Almost every bar does business on Friday and Saturday nights, but the universal bane of most of them is what to do during the rest of the week.

The Boogie Knights, a retro disco cover band, started about five years ago, and Hewitt gave them Thursday nights and began packing the dancers in by the hundreds. These days, there are five such bands--the Boogie Knights, Bootie Quake, the Polyester Pimps, Grooveline and Disco Inferno.

Next, Hewitt got a KROQ ‘80s cover band, usually Vomit or the M-80s, to pack ‘em in on Sundays and Tuesdays, and reggae band Urban Dread was doing well on Mondays.

“You have to pick something and you have to stick with it,” said Hewitt. “You can’t expect overnight success. Then after that the weekends were easy, because there were about 10,000 bands in L.A.”

Expect more of the same for Stargate, but don’t expect to lurk in the dark corner.

“Stargate has a half-million-dollar lighting system, plus they have an intense sound system. So, we’re going to start with the Boogie Knights on Thursdays, then have Vomit on Tuesdays, and by springtime, I hope to work Urban Dread into the mix,” Hewitt said. “There’s not a live venue between the Valley and the Ventura Theatre, so we expect big things.”

* The venue is at 130 W. Hillcrest Drive in Thousand Oaks. Call them at 496-3755.

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If I had a real job, after a long week--much like Elmer Fudd--I would wike some west and wewaxation. Wock ‘n’ woll-wise, here’s where I’d be:

TONIGHT: Simple Phunkshun (Bombay Bar & Grill, Ventura), Patrick Landreville (Joe Daddy’s, Ventura).

FRIDAY: The Buds (Hungry Hunter, Thousand Oaks), majority DOG (Record Outlet Annex, Thousand Oaks), Finnhead (Harbor Lights, Oxnard), Randy Rich & the Ravens (Doubletree Hotel, Ventura), Raging Arb & the Redheads (Ventura Theatre), Simple Phunkshun (Ventura), Buddah Heads and Guy Martin & Rude Mood (Nicholby’s, Ventura).

SATURDAY: The Buds (Hungry Hunter), Bloody Mary Morning, Alkaline, Officer Negative (Ventura Theatre), Simple Phunkshun (Bombay), Russell Scott & the Red Hots, Extract, Big Wednesday (The Bar, Ventura).