NIGHT LIFE : When Raging Arb Plays, the Bar Makes More in a Night Than in a Week

They may be 30 minutes late for their 9:30 gig on Saturday night, but when local rock legends Raging Arb & The Redheads kick off their set with a scorching cover of “I’m a Man,” the tiny dance floor at Charlie’s Seaside Cafe in Ventura will be transformed into a sweatbox of relentless dancers. And forget about the New Sobriety. Raging Arb & The Redheads are, in fact, the sound track for beer. Their live shows are the local equivalent of a Grateful Dead concert, except psychedelic drugs and dancing are replaced by drinking and dancing. And drinking. Usually, when the band plays, the bar makes more in one night than it does all week.

“We’re just a straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll band with a little beer on top,” says lead singer John Drury. “When we play, it’s more than a job. It’s an adventure. As the crowd celebrates, so do we. It’s taxing on everyone.”

“Usually we have one doorman,” notes Drew Setterfield, bartender at Charlie’s and survivor of many an Arb show, “but when Raging Arb plays, we have five bouncers and no waitresses. It’s so crowded they couldn’t move anyway.”

The band, mostly surfers and all Ventura High locals, has been playing together since 1983 and consistently draws large, raucous crowds.

“Our crowd is made up of die-hard Redhead fans,” Drury says. “When we play, it’s like a little pressure cooker. Sometimes, it just boils over.”

Not only will the band never play at a Mothers Against Drunk Driving function, but they don’t play much at all--maybe once a month. Maybe that’s all anyone can stand. Raging Arb has played every area venue at least once, sometimes only once: They’ve been 86ed from everywhere. In fact, two years ago the Easter gig at Charlie’s ended with the Ventura Police Department pulling the plug after some parking-lot fights. The band was banned from Charlie’s for more than a year.

A few years ago Raging Arb made it to the finals of the Battle of the Bands in Santa Barbara. Not surprisingly, a Santa Barbara band, Five Cool What, won. That was the last time the Arbs played Santa Barbara.

“Only half the busload made it back to Ventura. The other half were in jail,” recalled Drury.

But perhaps the local rock bad boys are mellowing. After all, a few of the band members got married last year, and at last month’s gig at Charlie’s, the police only came once.

Despite the band’s reputation, the fact remains that Raging Arb & The Redheads are a blazing hot rock ‘n’ roll band, specializing in electric, nasty blues--sort of like the Rolling Stones from 1966 or so. In fact the band does a few everybody’s-gotta-dance tunes the Stones made popular--”Around and Around” and “Not Fade Away”--when, as often happens, they are joined by their musical mentor, guitarist Chris Byrd.

“Our influence? Let’s see,” says drummer Ross Emery, “there’s the Stones, Aerosmith, the Blasters, the T-Birds when they were good, Charlie Pickett and Top Jimmy.”

Back in 1985, the band released an eight-song album of original material. It’s pretty hard to find these days but worth looking for. Intense bluesy rockers in the Georgia Satellites’ style that your feet will love right away include “Johnny Ray,” “Did You Get Your Fill?” and “Strut.” The band has a repertoire of about 45 songs, about half originals, and is working on a demo tape.

The band features Drury on vocals, Emery on drums, Billy McGraw on lead guitar, Guy Martin on second guitar, John House on bass and Glen Ansberry bad to the bone on harmonica. Martin is a fill-in for Toby Emery, who’s surfing his way around the world for a year.

Charlie’s is next to the Ventura Holiday Inn on the Promenade. Be early or be left outside.