New Club Could Energize O.C. Live Music Scene : Peppers Golden Bear's breaking the monopoly of the Coach House may lead to concerts by more adventurous, less established bands.

By MIKE BOEHM

Aug. 16, 1990 12 AM PT

Peppers Golden Bear has been trying to draw heavily on the public memory bank.

The soon-to-open nightclub near the Huntington Beach Pier alludes at every turn, from its name to its advertising campaign, to the old Golden Bear and to the marquee names that played there over the years.

But fans of live pop music in Orange County can only hope that Peppers Golden Bear will mark a break with the good old days, not a continuation.

Monopoly and, too often, boredom are what the good old days meant on the Orange County club scene.

From the early 1960s when the Golden Bear opened until today, with the Coach House in its last 10 days of monopoly power, Orange County has been a one-horse town when it comes to all-purpose clubs booking nationally known pop talent.

Monopoly brought security for the reigning venue--the original Golden Bear until it closed in January, 1986, and after that the Coach House, which began booking national acts the same week the old Bear died. It also meant that conservative booking policies would be rewarded. Why exert the extra promotional push it takes to sell tickets for an interesting but unestablished act when you can sell out a few nights with Robin Trower instead?

With two clubs in the county, only one of them will be able to book Robin Trower, or Dave Mason, or whatever old warhorse happens to be coming through to graze in the clubs now that dwindling fortunes have taken it off the arena or theater track.

There is nothing wrong with booking Trower and Mason and other old reliables. They obviously keep their fans well-pleased enough to be able to return time and time again, and they mean a proven night’s profit for the club booking them. But with two clubs on the block, the one that loses out on the sure thing with Robin Trower is now going to have to scout around for something that’s harder to sell, perhaps, but also more adventurous. At least that’s how local music fans should hope it turns out.

The question is whether Peppers Golden Bear and the Coach House are willing to risk more adventurous bookings, and whether Orange County audiences will support shows by less established acts (Coach House officials have long bemoaned the lack of an Orange County album-rock radio station that would play music by newcomers and do promotional tie-ins with the club; judging from the slack turnouts at some of the Coach House’s more recent on-the-edge bookings--Marti Jones, Tom Verlaine and Shawn Colvin--promoting new acts or cult favorites here won’t be easy).

The first round of booking announcements for Peppers Golden Bear two months ago didn’t exactly make one’s heart race with anticipation of adventure to come. There were a couple of reliable jazz-fusioneers in Stanley Jordan and Al Dimeola (both of whose shows, scheduled for next week, were canceled after Peppers announced this week that construction delays had pushed back its first concert date from Aug. 21 to Aug. 26). There also was an array of rockers--A Flock of Seagulls, Ronnie Montrose, Eric Burdon and Robbie Krieger, Edgar Winter and Rick Derringer, Jon Kay & Steppenwolf--who fall in the Trower/Mason old-warhorse category.

Rick Babiracki, the former Golden Bear owner who has been brought back by the San Juan Capistrano-based Peppers Inc. to serve as the new club’s entertainment director, says that more adventurous stuff is in the works.

The Coach House pretty much had its choice of acts through September because Peppers Golden Bear was still gearing up its booking efforts, said Babiracki, who began working for Peppers in June. He predicted that bigger and more adventurous names will start turning up regularly this fall, after the club has had time to establish itself. More recent additions of shows by Steve Wynn (since canceled because of the construction delay), the Paladins, Koko Taylor, Tony Macalpine and Bad Manners, and the Skatalites point in a more adventurous direction.

“We can afford to take chances with bands that may not sell a lot of tickets, but are excellent bands,” said Babiracki, a tall, husky, red-haired man who sold stocks and mutual funds before Peppers brought him back into the concert business.

What makes that possible, said Babiracki, is Peppers’ all-purpose format. According to Peppers’ plan, income from an adjacent restaurant and post-concert nightclub crowds will help subsidize some risks on the concert end--an advantage not enjoyed by the Coach House, where the club only serves meals to concert-goers, and shuts down right after the final encore.

“Maybe we only sell 150 tickets (for a still-emerging band),” Babiracki said. “But we know we’ll still make thousands of dollars after the performance” by selling food and drinks to the dance crowd. “That will allow us to stretch out a little bit more.”

Peppers’ plan calls for booking big names on weeknights, and lesser-known Los Angeles and Orange County bands on the weekend. The reason is economic: why pay thousands to a national headliner when the dance-club operation figures to draw a large weekend crowd without the lure of a big name? Babiracki said those weekend nights should provide a forum for local original acts with a danceable sound. Ken Moon, a Peppers Inc. vice president, said the club’s policy will be to put on only bands that play at least 75% original material.

Ken Phebus, who books the Coach House, thinks that the end of the club monopoly in Orange County could lead to more choice and more adventure. Since the Coach House only has 380 seats to 500 at Peppers Golden Bear, the new contender figures to draw away at least some of the bigger names because of its size advantage, Phebus acknowledged.

“We’ll lose some acts because their capacity is higher,” he said, which will mean turning elsewhere for talent to keep the Coach House active. “Acts we would not do (under current monopoly conditions), we’ll probably end up doing. The public will benefit in the long run. More talent will be booked. Instead of 22 to 24 (club) shows each month in Orange County, there will be 42 to 50.

“We’ll take the younger bands, some music we normally wouldn’t promote, and try to develop a market for it,” Phebus continued. “We’re going to have to think a little harder and promote a little harder. We haven’t had to have any ideas in the recent past. We haven’t had to do anything but run a Calendar ad and a Register ad. Now that there’s competition in the market, it’s forcing us to be better at what we do--which is not a bad thing.”

In a separate interview, Coach House owner Gary Folgner worried that it may not pay to be adventurous in Orange County. “If I try to do anything other than a national act, anything a little bit off the beaten track, I die,” he said. “The music industry in this market dictates very big names, or nothing at all.”

Competition for the big names figures to be keen, but bookers on both sides said they aimed to avoid the profit-draining bidding wars for talent that prevail between Irvine Meadows and the Pacific Amphitheater.

Babiracki, however, accused the Coach House of starting such a war by making “ridiculous” high bids to preempt Joe Walsh, Johnny Winter and Tower of Power from playing at Peppers Golden Bear. Phebus flatly denied that. The deals negotiated with Walsh (whose shows were subsequently canceled) and Winter called for the same money they received in their previous Coach House appearances, he said. Tower of Power’s guarantee did go up, Phebus said, requiring a $17.50 ticket price, up from $15 for Tower of Power’s previous Coach House appearance last February. But the blame for the increase lies not with the Coach House, Phebus said, but with the Peppers people. By paying Tower of Power a larger-than-usual guarantee for a date several months ago at the already-running Peppers club in City of Industry, he charged, they jacked up the band’s going rate in the local market.

The Coach House, which has an excellent reputation in the music business for giving musicians red carpet treatment and top-notch sound and staging, will try to draw on old allegiances to make up for Peppers’ advantage in size.

“We’ve built relationships over the years, with every act that has played here. Gary Folgner is very well liked, and there’s a certain loyalty involved,” Phebus said. “All cynicism aside--and there’s plenty of it--there’s a certain loyalty that doesn’t change.”

Babiracki thinks that the connections and loyalties he developed running the Golden Bear from 1974 to 1986 remain as a factor in Peppers’ favor. He also predicts that the music industry will quickly learn that the Coach House is no classier or better-equipped than Peppers Golden Bear (Peppers Vice President Ken Moon said the company has pumped more than $4 million into the club).

“We need to showcase the room for the agents and the record companies. After that, the phone won’t stop ringing,” Babiracki said. “You’re going to see a lot of big names, a lot of new music, a lot of things other venues aren’t getting. The balance of power, if that’s what you want to call it, will naturally swing in our direction. In the coming months, you will see a gradual shifting of artists into the Golden Bear, even though the Coach House has had four years’ unchallenged dominance.”

Regardless where the balance of power on the local club scene tilts, Orange County music fans can only welcome an end to “unchallenged dominance.” For the first time, it appears that freedom of choice won’t lie beyond the county line.

Gary Folgner said Tuesday that he has bought the 2,000-seat Raymond Theatre in Pasadena, a building that last operated about two years ago under the name Perkins Palace, hosting heavy metal and punk rock concerts.

“We’re fixing it up. There’s a lot of damage to the building,” Folgner said. He didn’t want to discuss booking prospects for the 1921-vintage theater, but if he continues to operate it as a pop concert venue it will put him in competition with such theaters as the Wiltern in Los Angeles and the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim. Folgner also owns the 1,000-seat Ventura Theatre.

The wait and anticipation grow greater all the time for Vinnie James’ long-awaited, much-anticipated debut album, “All-American Boy.” Because of a recent management shake-up at RCA Records, the album’s release date is being pushed back from October to January, 1991, according to Mike Jacobs, the Orange County folk-rocker’s manager. It’s the second delay for the album, which originally was to have appeared early this year on the independent Cypress label. RCA Records’ signing of James set back that release.

Jacobs said Tuesday that it is in James’ interest to wait some more: In the wake of RCA switching presidents (Bob Buziak is out, Joe Galante is in), an album released this fall probably would not receive the intense promotional effort needed nowadays to give a new rock artist a fighting chance to be heard. Instead of just waiting till next year, Jacobs said, James will tour Europe and pay a round of promotional visits to U.S. record retailers.

The Clints, the Orange County rock band whose members all wear black cowboy hats and go by the same first name, are down to three hats these days. Rhythm guitarist Clint Ambuter has left the band over musical differences, leaving Clints Wade, Harrison and Villalobos to ride on into the sunset. Villalobos said the trio, which plays Friday at the Meadowlark Country Club, is auditioning for a new rhythm guitarist willing to be known as Clint.