10 minute read
Rock-less Roll
THE COVID CONCERTO, Rock-less Roll
By Bill Locey
much to the detriment of live-music venues. Since live music has been basically dead, or at best, sporadic, many musicians now play on-line, so it’s kinda like watching MTV (back when they still had music) except that now you have to pay. It’s like going to the drive-in except you don’t have to drive. A better example is Coachella. OK, so you pay a zillion dollars and drive a million miles to Indio to see Paul McCartney, but there’s so many people there and you’re so far away, you end up watching Sir Paul on a big screen. Then again, by rocking at home, you probably won’t waste your few remaining good years waiting in line to return that rental beer; also, there are no bartenders that can’t see or hear you and no bouncers that hate your face — then again, you probably won’t meet your next future ex-boyfriend/ girlfriend while sitting in front of your computer. Then again, you will avoid those 2 a.m. buzz-kill conversations with the cops. Yet, there’s clearly something magical about live music — that opportunity to experience the transcendental power of the words and the beat — especially if the band does not suck. OK, to review: Live music may not be dead, but at least, for now, it’s missing in action. Will it come back as before or is the future soundtrack of our lives watching music on some device, and not drinking to excess in a bar? Stay tuned. Meanwhile, Ojai Valley musicians, like musicians everywhere, are still at it despite the pandemic. It all boils down to a few easy questions: How have you survived? When was your last gig? When is your next gig? Just as Charlie don’t surf, Char-Man don’t rock — neither the hot sauce nor the scary legend lurking in the dark near Camp Comfort on Creek Road — but then there’s Char-Man the band, at it for almost 20 years and they definitely do rock. Even still, sort of … according to frontman Maher Zaidi it’s the same, only different. SURVIVAL: “There’s still a Char-Man. It’s thriving at this time. We did put out our third album last year, “The Power of the Night,” and people seem to really like it. We recorded it right before the pandemic and released it in July, and we also went into the studio at the beginning of the new year and recorded a single. We still practice — working on our chops and also working on a new album. We can’t play shows but once a week we get together to work on new music. LAST TIME: “The last show we did was at the end of 2019, so we’re waiting for all that to open up again. We also did do a Ventura Theatre live stream on Halloween — it wasn’t really before an audience but it’s up on YouTube. NEXT TIME: I guess the only way you can support the band is to buy our records and when we can, we’ll play for you, but we’re still here, working on new material and we’ve never sounded better. Keepin’ the faith and keepin’ it alive, you know?”
Everyone in a mask besides the Lone Ranger, pretty much, looks the same. How many times have you struck up a conversation with someone wearing a mask that you thought was somebody else? That scenario will be very unlikely at Cindy Kalmenson’s next gig. Kalmenson is an Ojai-based singer/songwriter, a former Banana Slug from UC Santa Cruz, she not only survived but thrived for over a decade in Songwriter Central, Nashville. She’s working on her fourth album with local legend, Bernie Larsen. We know her as fronting her band, the Lucky Ducks.
SURVIVAL: ‘I don’t need an audience in order to play, so I can keep playing — it’s just that nobody’s listening, so there’s that. I have been working on my music a lot but I haven’t really tried to reach out to the venues, and they haven’t reached out to me.’
LAST TIME: ‘I actually played at the opening of my friend’s store — it’s called Mud Lotus, and it’s behind Bonnie Lu’s in Ojai. So far, I haven’t really made the e ort to go beyond my garage because I’m actually enjoying learning the bass and playing some old country standards, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of that.’
NEXT TIME: ‘Maybe I could open up my garage in the spring. I could move the cars and use the driveway. Hopefully in the spring I’ll be out there one Sunday a month with a little p.a. and make people laugh and dance and cry.’
Ojai’s favorite band, the Rose Valley Thorns, had a recurring gig at the Vine on Thursday nights, supplying energetic bluegrass with a 93023 twist as a soundtrack for the chilled sippers. Frontman Josh Bergman had this to say about all that.
SURVIVAL: “We had all sorts of tours planned and festivals booked and all that got cancelled until 2021; so yeah, it’s been really tough because all of us have had to put what we really love on hold. We started making a lot of videos and we started a YouTube channel. There’s a decent amount of Rose Valley Thorns music up, so we really stepped up our game mediawise.”
NEXT TIME: ‘Also, another really good project that’s encouraged me to start is Patreon — that’s been my main means financially of coping with this whole thing and getting something out of it — Patreon is a subscription-based platform tool — people pay monthly whatever they want.
You know, there’s nothing we love more than sharing our music with people — we’ve just added another avenue. There’s no live music, pretty much, anywhere. It’s mostly been a bummer, for sure.’
Rose Valley Thorns
Teresa Russell is the hardest working musician in the 805. She’s played everywhere often, including all those places that aren’t even there anymore. Although she lives on the beach in Oxnard, she could make a compelling case for being a local in any and every city in the 805. Since she’s not playing a zillion gigs a month, she now has time for other stuff.
Cindy Kalmenson
SURVIVAL: ‘I get out and hike and ride my bike, hang out with my family a little bit and I still practice — there’s a lot of great songs just waiting to be played. I still love to play even if it’s just for myself.’
LAST TIME: ‘My last real gig was at the Deer Lodge, and that was the 15th of March. It was on a Sunday and everyone was looking at their phones, getting messages from the governor that everything was going to shut down in a couple of hours.’
Teresa Russell
NEXT TIME: ‘I’ve played a few gigs since then — I just make them up —driveways, dock parties, some private little events; you know, small stuff — I’ve always liked playing afternoons outdoors — so just making it up as I go along.’
The Ojai Underground was one of the coolest local venues, providing music fans a steady diet of underappreciated and/or under the radar artists, many of the singer/songwriter persuasion. Guitar legend Bernie Larsen was/is to blame for all that and has found a way to keep on keeping on
Bernie Larsen
SURVIVAL: ‘Things are good — we have a new location on Pearl Street in Ojai but there’s still about a thousand little projects before we get this thing up. We switched to broadcasting instead of attended shows. The new place has an enclosed studio which is right next to the dance floor, so now I can do the broadcast and use my best recording set-up which means higher quality audio — and the rent is less than half than what we were paying before. This whole thing is just an opportunity to change it up and make things different. We did a lot of broadcasts — I don’t know if you caught any of them — I was doing four camera, multi-track audio.’ NEXT TIME: ‘I’m going to start streaming again around Valentine’s Day. We did it before on a YouTube channel as an unlisted event and we would just ask for suggested donations — 5, 10 or 15 dollars — and that’s how we did it, so we’re going to do the same thing. If someone doesn’t have money and can’t afford it — and the same with our shows — just come on over, but if people can donate, that’s cool. I send them a link about 20 minutes before the show — and it’ll be on-line for at least a month, so they can go back and catch it if they missed the fi rst time. So far, it’s worked out.’
Upbeat has been making people dance funny for about 35 years with their ska-from-the-beach tunes, sufficiently motivational to turn an impeachment hearing into a dance party.
SURVIVAL: ‘We still live but there’s not a lot going on except talking about hopefully what will go on.’
LAST TIME: ‘I guess our last gig was for the 2020 Avocado Festival. It was a virtual event and they streamed it on Vimeo, but it’s hard to tell how many people actually watched it. We love that festival. I don’t wanna say it’s kept us together all these years but it’s definitely one of the highlights — feeling all the love. It’s just a great event for us.’
NEXT TIME: ‘We were trying to get together out here in the Valley with Eric (Vallen), the guitar player, myself and Nathan (Dowdall) on keyboards once every week or two with the focus on writing new music. It’s such a long process for the Upbeat — some of these songs stay in production for five or 10 years. So we were feeling pretty good about these small group rehearsals when COVID hit.’
Another thirty something band, Raging Arb & the Redheads, has been the Party People’s choice for decades, sort of like the soundtrack for beer or the Rolling Stones drunk on the beach. Frontman, John (JD) Drury lives on the Ojai part of Creek Road and is to blame for Ventura’s best annual party, the Surf Rodeo. SURVIVAL: ‘I started playing some music last night, I stumbled onto some Demi Marley and some Upbeat stuff. I started tapping my foot — it was like I came out of a deep sleep and realized that there’s music inside me that I need to play. So I got into a real music mode last night and it kind of made me feel melancholy.’
LAST TIME: ‘Raging Arb played at the Bombay in Ventura on a Friday whenever that was because the next day they shut down the bars.’ NEXT TIME: ‘We’re all starting to text each other. We’re getting the itch, so hopefully it’s coming around and we’ll at least practice. As to the Surf Rodeo, we’re just kinda waiting for the city and the state to loosen up — things change almost daily, you know, but Hopefully — God willing — we have a Rodeo this year. We had a lot of bands committed in 2020 and a lot of them are willing to carry over to this year. We’re all long overdue to get together, play some music and have some fun. ‘We haven’t really thought about streaming a gig, but maybe playing on the back of a flatbed truck around town — sort of a mobile gig. There’s nothing like a live gig, you know? For the Redheads, the crowd is what it’s all about.’
And finally, don’t be the drunken fool shouting for ‘Free Bird;’ you’ll feel weird in the morning, plus the band probably won’t play it, anyway.
Upbeat
Raging Arb & the Redheads
