GOING OUT / BUZZ CLUBS

One closes down, one opens up

Just as one speak-easy closed for good last week downtown (The Spot), Los Angeles is getting another one in the form of Spider Club/Avalon co-owner Steve Adelman’s anticipated underground lounge, 86. The bar, named after Chumley’s, a New York speak-easy at 86 Bedford St., is finally set to open in the next month, after nearly two years of renovation. The basement was once an honest-to-goodness Prohibition-era speak-easy owned by silent film star Rudolph Valentino. Although the deco-inspired bar with dark floors is small (under 300 capacity), 86 has multiple nooks and crannies to get lost in, including several smoking areas, two bars, a tiny stage perfect for torch singers or small jazz trios and a secret VIP room within the subterranean space that features a skylight looking up at the Hillview Apartments above. Former Les Deux promoter/lifestyle guru Audrey Bernstein is already on board as creative director of 86. Adelman’s restaurant inside the same building, Lift, opened up for dinner last week.

Strip takeover

USB flash-drive heavyweights SanDisk are dropping some big cash to take over three of the Strip’s better-known rock venues Oct. 26 to hype a forthcoming music-related product. The “Sunset Strip Block Party” will take place simultaneously at the Viper Room, the Key Club and the Roxy. The Silicon Valley company dropped over $300,000 to secure venues and performances by Linkin Park, Common, the Crystal Method, Cut Chemist and DJ Z-Trip. . . . Good Magazine’s one-year anniversary bash Friday at the National History Museum is an invite- and subscriber-only fete with The Postal Service’s Jimmy Tamborello among the DJs. Drew Barrymore, Spike Jonze, Daryl Hannah and Ryan Gosling are on the list.

It’s for a good cause

Friends are rallying to the aid of Kime Buzzelli, the artist, fashion designer and owner of the Echo Park boutique Show Pony. Buzzelli is undergoing surgery today for a bladder tumor and the cost of surgery will exceed what insurance will cover. Next Thursday, the DJ collective Dublab and friends will mount a show at the Echo, hosted by Illeana Douglas and featuring indie rockers Lavender Diamond, Entrance and Blank Blue, among others. . . . The stretch of La Cienega between Sunset and Wilshire, already out of control on weekends with cars lined up at valet stands at Koi and paparazzi camped outside of hot spots like Area, is about to get even busier. STK, a dark and sexy NYC meatpacking district export with an exclusive yet-to-be-named lounge component (the Manhattan STK houses the well-liked lounge TenJune), will open up at the old site of the Bridge restaurant and lounge (755 N. La Cienega Blvd.) in late November.

-- Charlie Amter