NEED A CURE FOR SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER? : HEAD OUT TO THESE RETRO CLUBS AND SHAKE YOUR GROOVE THING.

Byline: Janet Weeks Daily News Staff Writer

For jaded baby boomers who came of age in the '70s and remember it as a decade of big hair, big clothes and a big cultural void, the thought of dancing to disco just, well, sucks.

But for teens and young 20-somethings who experienced the decade as children - if at all - disco music is fun and high camp, kind of like a bowl of Cap'n Crunch and an episode of ``Eight Is Enough.''

``It's just great music,'' gushes 26-year-old Brent Bolthouse, producer of Saturday Night Fever, a retro disco night at the trendy Roxbury club on West Hollywood's Sunset Strip.

Bolthouse's shows attract young hipsters in tube tops and polyester who dance the night away to such anthems as Wild Cherry's ``Play That Funky Music'' and Gloria Gaynor's ``I Will Survive.''

(Saturday Night Fever moves to a new location - the Hollywood Grand - beginning June 22 and switches from recorded music to a live, disco-tribute band.)

``The '70s were the first decade people really danced,'' says Bolthouse, apparently oblivious to the swing music craze of the '30s and '40s or the twist of the '60s. ``Seventies music was all about dance.''

Many of today's club kids were exposed to disco by their parents or through popular hip-hop tunes, which frequently include ``samples'' of '70s music.

``The '70s were a golden time,'' says Bolthouse. ``I don't think there will ever be another decade like it.''

Some, of course, mutter ``amen'' to that.

But others say disco will never die, in part because it has - as any good ``American Bandstand'' hoofer will tell you - a good beat that you can dance to.

``People have a new appreciation for a lot of disco songs. They stand out as classics,'' says Tracy Austin, music director for top 40 KIIS-FM (102.7), which broadcasts disco on Saturday nights under the program name ``Club KIIS.''

``Everything goes in cycles,'' she says. ``You see trends in fashion going back to the '70s, so why not music, too? People don't want to hear it all the time, but it's great to dance to.''

According to Steven Daly and Nathaniel Wice, authors of an encyclopedia of '90s trends titled ``alt.culture'' (HarperPerennial; $17) the '70s retro fad began in the late 1980s with fadish college kids who witnessed the '70s growing up but were too young to partake in the fun.

`` '70s nostalgia serves many purposes,'' the authors write. ``Evoking drug culture and the sexual revolution, self-consciously embracing disposability and un-self-consciousness, and flouting the tyranny of good taste as represented today by the Gap.''

Reached by phone in New York, Wice says it's nothing new for young adults to get wistful about the past. After all, baby boomers brought back the 1950s in the '70s with ``Happy Days,'' ``American Graffiti,'' ``Laverne & Shirley'' and ``Grease.''

``As a new generation comes into its own in musical and cultural terms, they have a chance to be nostalgic about their childhood,'' he explains. ``And part of getting to be nostalgic about your childhood is romanticizing the era, although it seems absurd to think of the '70s as a simpler time, with gas lines and Watergate and the Vietnam War.''

Bolthouse, in fact, is a good example of a dance fan who has romanticized the '70s.

``The '70s were all about freedom,'' he says. ``We're too cautious now to ever live that way.''

Wice also says he's surprised at how long '70s nostalgia has remained a part of modern culture. He predicted its demise five years ago, but admits now that he was wrong.

``The '70s revival started as kitschy and arch, and it's been mainstreamed now. It's a standard,'' he says. ``The new hot thing in New York right now is roller disco.''

Which we can only expect to come to a skating rink near you soon. No matter. If you're bent on revisiting the decade of pet rocks and Ditto jeans, here's a list of some clubs that feature '70s disco music.

This is not - we repeat NOT - all-inclusive. But if you're in the mood to do the hustle, get out your boogie shoes (platforms, natch) and check out these spots:

Aftershock, 11345 Ventura Blvd., Studio City; [phone]. Get down Sunday nights with the '70s cover band Disco Inferno. $6 cover.

Century Club, 10131 Constellation Blvd., Century City; [phone]. Disco Inferno plays Friday nights. $15.

Club '70s at the Probe, 836 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood; [phone]. Sunday nights are all funk, punk, disco, soul and rock from the decade that won't go away. $7 for members; $8 for nonmembers.

Crush Bar, 1743 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood; [phone]. Motown and '70s dance hits on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. $8.

FM Station, 11700 Victory Blvd., North Hollywood; [phone]. Wednesday nights are Boogie Nights, starting with a Partridge Family tribute band followed by Disco Inferno (them again). $3 before 9:30 p.m., $6 after.

Hollywood Grand, 7070 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; [phone]. Brent Bolthouse Productions presents Saturday Night Fever, an 18-and-over '70s dance music club, beginning June 22. Cover charge not yet determined.

R.J. Grins, 100 W. Glenoaks Blvd., Glendale; [phone]. The Red Lion Inn presents retro disco dancing 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. nightly.

Roxbury, 8225 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood; [phone]. Brent Bolthouse Productions presents Saturday Night Fever with DJs Mike Messex and Scott Oster from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Saturdays (of course). $12.

The Viper Room, 8852 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood; [phone]. Saturday nights are '70s Disco Fantasia with DJ Cornelius and house band Bootie Quake. $15.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) The Polyester Pimps rock out to the sounds of the '70s at one of FM Station's disco nights.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News

(2) Wearing platform shoes and lots of synthetic fabric, Angela Stone, left, Maureen Collins and Tiffany Guimond spark a disco inferno at FM Station in North Hollywood.