Deja Two: Willie, Leon Winging It Again

Without so much as a glance at the textbook, Willie Nelson and Leon Russell pretty much aced the exam two months ago at the Coach House when they played--sans rehearsal--their first concerts as a duo.

Of the two old friends, Russell was considerably more nervous about making it up as they went along--which is pretty much how the four-show, December stand unfolded.

Now, Nelson and Russell are back for more, playing at the Coach House tonight through Sunday and again Monday at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, with two performances each night.

“I think we’ll just sit down and wing it, like we did before,” Nelson said last week. “The first show [in December] was the rehearsal for the second, and so forth. By the time we got to the fourth show, we were too slick. Just kidding.”

This time, Nelson said, “Leon called me and said, ‘On this tour, I want to be a little more prepared, so send me a [tape] of your live show and your new album,’ so he could get an idea of what I was going to do, approximately. I sent it to him, and there was nothing on the tape. Once again, he thought I threw him a curveball, but it was an accident.”

Two new songs from Nelson’s next album, “Spirit,” were highlights of December’s opening performance. Nelson was expecting a Valentine’s Day release for the stripped-down, simply recorded album, but Island Records has pushed it back until spring.

The country veteran was recently in Nashville, recording a song with Steve Earle and Waylon Jennings to be added to the 20th anniversary re-release of “The Outlaws,” 1976’s influential collaboration between Nelson, Jennings, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser. The new version will also have vintage tracks not on the original album.

THINKING BIG: Club 369 in Fullerton is celebrating its third anniversary Saturday while hoping for bigger things to come. 1000 Mona Lisas, Burnin’ Groove, Stain and Nine Days Wonder play the gig.

“We’ve been here every day, paying our dues and getting to meet people,” said Randy Cash, who books and manages the 369-capacity venue for owner Greg Howell. “To stay alive and become one of the top clubs, you can’t have that get-rich-quick attitude. You feel the scene out, and people get to know you and what you’re about.”

The club, at 1641 Placentia Ave., has enjoyed a stability rare on the Orange County alternative-rock scene, where most venues either run afoul of local officialdom or program live original bands only sporadically, using outside promoters rather than in-house bookers.

At the same time, Club 369 has not filled the void left by Bogart’s, a showcase club that developed local talent while also featuring a steady diet of interesting touring acts.

Cash thinks that day is coming. He points to Korn and Sponge as higher-profile bands that have headlined at Club 369 and to signed local bands that have used it as a springboard, including Burnin’ Groove, X-Members and Stain. The Offspring played Club 369 in its earlier incarnation as the 8 1/2 Club; John Pantle, the promoter then, once joked that he was the last promoter ever to lose money on the band, which exploded to stardom a few months after that late-’93 performance.

Club 369 has had to eradicate the lingering bad taste left by Goodies, the notorious pay-to-play palace that previously occupied the same site under different ownership.

“This three-year anniversary will maybe let people know that we’re for real,” said Cash, who grew up in Irvine and has intermittently fronted bands of his own. “If they haven’t heard [that Club 369 has nothing to do with Goodies], maybe they’re not in the scene enough.

“I think we can be what [Bogart’s] was, and a lot more. What I want to do is take these [local] kids and help them to get deals. If we’re not getting directly involved with [helping] the bands, then we’re not doing our job.”

TRIBUTE ‘DELUXE’: Singer-guitarist Walter Trout performs the old Jeff Beck / Rod Stewart nugget “Blues Deluxe” on “Jeffology,” a Beck tribute album released in Japan and Europe. Phil Collen of Def Leppard, Steve Lukather of Toto and heavy-metal guitar slingers George Lynch, Mick Mars, Warren DeMartini and Jake E. Lee are among the players on the album, whose producers are shopping for a label to issue it domestically.

Trout also has cut “Say What?” for a tribute album to Stevie Ray Vaughan planned by Triage, the Santa Monica production company that coordinated the Beck homage. The Walter Trout Band plays hometown gigs tonight and Saturday at Perq’s in Huntington Beach.

CLOSING UP SHOP: The promising local rock band Factory has shut its assembly line. Differences developed among band members after a failed courtship with Giant Records.

Former Factory laborers Gordon McGrath and Brad Wilson are now the bassist and drummer for Five Ton Mary; fronting the band is Wallace Talbert, formerly of Homeland and Loose Screws. Guitarist Greg Stoddard, best-known locally as the front man of Psychic Rain, is moonlighting as a Five Ton Mary guitarist.

Where Factory liked to stretch out instrumentally a la the Police, McGrath reports that Five Ton Mary is devoted to the pleasures of the ‘60s-style three-minute pop tune, with such influences as the Turtles and the Left Banke.