Local Bands Could Win the Club Wars

If necessity is the mother of invention, then competition must be the father of innovation.

Both axioms are at play in Coach House and Galaxy Concert Theatre owner Gary Folgner’s move to launch his own record company, mainly for unsigned local bands in need of an affordable way to make albums they can sell themselves.

The record company is an outgrowth of his decision to put more effort into focus more on promoting and nurturing local bands now that the new Sun Theatre in Anaheim is skimming the cream of the national touring acts that come through Orange County.

“We’ve been talking about doing this for a long time,” Folgner said. “Now this is the time. Since the Sun has opened up, we have to go in a different way with our business until they go away.

“The basic premise is that there are a lot of bands out there without record contracts,” he added. “A lot of them would like to make a record, but they can’t afford to. We have a venue where they could do a live album, and now we’re figuring out a way that we can record it and put it out for a very low cost. The bands who play around here can earn some money by selling their own records, and it gives them something for people to take a look at.”

The arrival in September of the 1,200-capacity Sun Theatre, which is owned by the giant Ogden Entertainment, has presented Folgner with the most serious challenge yet to his clubs’ long dominance of the Orange County concert scene.

Roger LeBlanc, the new booking agent for the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and Galaxy in Santa Ana--he replaces Ken Phebus, who was hired away from Folgner by the Sun’s owners--said he and Folgner consider local music to be their best avenue in the face of heightened competition.

“Let’s face it: The Sun isn’t going to be booking a lot of local bands,” LeBlanc said.

The new venture is “still in the start-up stage,” Folgner said. “We haven’t got [the details] down pat. “We’d be doing the recording and pressing of CDs, and after we find out all of the costs, coming up with a fee to charge,” Folgner said. “If the bands need 300 copies, they could buy 300; if they need 5,000, they could buy 5,000.

“The problem for local bands is that they don’t have money to record and press and do all that stuff, so they often don’t get that opportunity,” Folgner said. “I think we can shortcut that by setting it up in live situation, record them and mix them down very inexpensively, then cut some kind of deal with a local pressing company.”

Folgner said he also hopes to offer touring acts the ability to record live albums at his clubs. LeBlanc said they plan to outfit a van with the necessary equipment and then move it to either site.

“We’ve already recorded eight or nine albums at the Galaxy,” Folgner said, for bands including the rock en espanol group Jaguares, O.C. heavy-metal group Leatherwolf and Southern rock-style band Sunchild. “We have the capability to do it.”