Crazy Horse Steak House

It can only be a country show when the song titles are as long as "Are You Lovin' Me Like I'm Lovin' You" and "What a Difference You've Made in My Life." And it is even more obviously a Ronnie Milsap show when the pat, medley-ized versions of such songs are scarcely longer than their titles. Even in such skimpy portions as Milsap was vending at the Crazy Horse Steak House and Saloon on Monday evening, many of his syrupy musical snow cones melted to goop long before they were finished.

FULLERTON 3:30pm Music When the Bachmann-Klibonoff-Fridman Trio made its Los Angeles debut in 1996, a Times critic said they made "a stunning, even merciless, display of ensemble and individual virtuosity." This time around, violinist Maria Bachmann, pianist Jon Klibonoff and cellist Semyon Fridman will play Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio, Paul Schoenfield's "Cafe Music" and Brahms' Piano Trio in C minor, Opus 101.

For a guy who has penned million-selling songs for everyone from Elvis to Ronnie Milsap to himself, Eddie Rabbitt doesn't take his accomplishments any too seriously. He has more greatest-hits albums than some people have underwear, but at the Crazy Horse Steak House on Monday, the 45-year-old singer displayed an easygoing, regular-guy manner as he knocked out hit after hit in his 16-song early show.

The Crazy Horse Steak House opened during the Urban Cowboy craze of the '70s and soon became something of an Orange County institution. Over the years any number of country stars have performed there, making it the Hard Rock Cafe of the tears 'n' beers set. But country music audiences are a different breed than they were 20 years ago, and Crazy Horse has changed with the times. It's now located in the imposing, neon-girded Irvine Spectrum--but don't worry.

It's appropriate that John Conlee performs at the Crazy Horse Steak House when he tours. Not only is he a solid country performer, but he's also got a voice that's a lot like a steak--big, basic and, of course, beefy. The stocky singer serves his songs up unadorned by finesse or variation. He has a limited range and does little to set one tune apart form another with changes in dynamics or inflection. But who wants to mess up a good steak with anything fancy?

Johnny Cash, his four-piece backing band, his wife, June Carter Cash, their son, John Carter Cash and her sisters, Helen and Anita--with that crowd on the stage of the Crazy Horse Steak House on Monday, it's no real surprise that the evening's show was a little ragged at the edges. But it was rock solid at the core, where Johnny Cash's eccentric hybrid of rock, folk and country mingled with the influential music of his in-laws to form a living link to some of American music's primary currents.

It is possible that, behind the bare-shouldered-embrace jacket art of a romance paperback, the great American novel waits, overlooked. Stranger troves have been found. Take Gary Morris, for instance. The guy is practically a walking romance novel: His smoldering good looks have been a staple on TV soap operas; women swooned when he took the lead in productions of "Les Miserables" and "La Boheme"; and his attempts at country music detail a gothic landscape where pickup trucks never tread.

The Crazy Horse Steak House launches a series spotlighting local progressive country acts with former surf-rocker WILL GLOVER. See WHAT GOES ON.

The Crazy Horse Steak House certainly looks a lot less crazy in its posh new Irvine Spectrum digs than it did in its faux-western home alongside the Costa Mesa Freeway in Santa Ana.

Most New Year's Eve concerts around the Southland will have built-in emotional impact as the clock strikes 12 and ushers in 2000. But when Diamond Rio plays the Crazy Horse Steak House--for two decades one of the nation's top country-music venues--on Friday, it will ring in not just a new year but a whole new Crazy Horse.

For tonight's final big-name concert at California's most-honored country music club, the owners turned to the prime architect of California country music: Buck Owens. While most people identify Owens as the co-host of the corny long-running variety series "Hee Haw," country music lovers know him as the man who used Chuck Berry-like stinging guitar licks and driving rock 'n' roll bass and drums on his records.

It's one of Garth Brooks' favorite Southern California hangouts. It's where Buck Owens made a dramatic comeback after cancer surgery, and where Merle Haggard renounced his retirement. And it's where Waylon Jennings almost left his heart. It's the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana, which evolved from a slightly kitschy Old West-themed red-meat emporium in a nondescript business park into one of the nation's most prestigious and beloved country-music showcases.

The Crazy Horse Steak House, one of the most admired country music venues in the nation, will relocate from its longtime spot in Santa Ana to the Irvine Spectrum Center, where the club will more than double its concert seating in hopes of landing more big acts than its current capacity of 250 will allow.

Jay Nuccio is open to suggestions. The new owner of the Crazy Horse Steak House is an unassuming, middle-aged man of medium height and build, with flecks of gray in his wavy hair and furrows in his brow. Last summer, he bought the restaurant and its attached 250-seat concert hall--a darkened box of scuffed wooden planks and floorboards that shines with one of the most gleaming reputations a small concert venue ever had. After spending seven years in Portland, Ore., operating two Carl's Jr.

Santa Ana's Crazy Horse Steak House & Saloon, often lauded as one of the nation's top nightclubs for country and western entertainment, is being sold to a Los Angeles restaurant owner. Jay Nuccio, co-owner of Little Joe's Italian restaurant in Chinatown, is buying the Crazy Horse, a 250-seat club that for 18 years has featured such stars as Johnny Cash and Tammy Wynette. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Nuccio said the club's format won't change.

FULLERTON 3:30pm Music When the Bachmann-Klibonoff-Fridman Trio made its Los Angeles debut in 1996, a Times critic said they made "a stunning, even merciless, display of ensemble and individual virtuosity." This time around, violinist Maria Bachmann, pianist Jon Klibonoff and cellist Semyon Fridman will play Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio, Paul Schoenfield's "Cafe Music" and Brahms' Piano Trio in C minor, Opus 101.

The Crazy Horse Steak House & Saloon, lauded for years as one of the nation's top country-western clubs, is being sold to a Los Angeles restaurant owner. The intimate 250-seat club, which has hosted a remarkable talent parade for 18 years, will continue its current format, managing partner Fred Reiser said Wednesday. The Crazy Horse is being purchased by Jay Nuccio, co-owner of Little Joe's, a landmark Italian restaurant in Los Angeles' Chinatown.