Riding the Wave : The Irie Ites do rockin’ reggae just about every night and everywhere. They’ll be at the Club Soda tonight.

So what is the sound of Silver Strand? Out-of-area surfers screaming as they run from local finheads eager to raise so many knots on their heads that a pocket calculator is necessary to count them all? Sure, there’s always that, but there is a more musical explanation. Thrash bands Agression, Dr. Know and Stalag 13 all came from Silver Strand. So do the Irie Ites, a bunch of local finheads doing the rockin’ reggae thing.

They’re also riding the reggae wave. Locally, there is reggae music somewhere almost every night. There seem to be more reggae musicians around here than real estate agents. Perhaps Jamaica secretly owns California.

“Reggae’s in demand,” guitarist Darren Cruz said, stating the obvious. “We’ve always listened to it because it goes with surfing and we like the attitude. It’s a fun, positive thing. It’s better than busting each other up and slam dancing, and waiting around to beat up everybody with green hair. We write about beach stuff and not so much of the heartbroken stuff.”

Ever notice the Optimist Surf Club at your local beach? There are chapters everywhere. They are made up of finheads waiting for the perfect wave that never comes. If it’s a six-inch shore break, it doesn’t matter--they’re still out there, waiting, hoping. Since there are no waves, there’s plenty of time to talk things over.

“We were out surfing and someone said, ‘Hey, let’s start a reggae band,’ ” Cruz said. “This was a little over a year ago. We played our first gig at a Westlake Village graduation party for about 800 people. Soon after, we got Dustin (Maddelone) to sing for us. He had never sung before in his life. We practiced about three times, then got our first professional gig at Port Royal in Oxnard.”

Now they won’t go away. You can’t swing a dreadlock without knocking over one of the eight musicians in the Irie Ites. It seems as if they play every night. Everywhere. The band recently played eight days in a row (one was a practice), making them the hardest-working band in the 805 area code. Some local bands don’t play eight times a year.

“There are some unreal local musicians,” Cruz said. “We all need more exposure. The bands here, most of ‘em, are just garage bands. I grew up with Mike Fishell of the Convertibles--great band. I used to be in Ill Repute for eight months. My brother, Brandon, was in Dr. Know.”

All right, pay attention now. This week, you can catch the Irie Ites at Club Soda (tonight), at the Bombay Bar & Grill (Sunday), at Stingers (Tuesday) and at the Elephant Bar (Wednesday). They may also be at Charlie’s on Friday and at Chuy’s in Oxnard Saturday.

This is sort of a low-budget Lion I’s, but improving in musicianship and getting more popular. The Irie Ites know more than 30 songs, half of them originals. They’re working on a tape of all originals. They do the usual Bob Marley songs, an English Beat song (“Ranking Full Stop”) and the Peter Tosh version of “Johnnie B. Goode.”

The boys in the band include: Cruz and Maddelone, Dan Skene on bass, Thomas Walker on percussion and backing vocals, Mark Hashimoto on keyboards, John Mitchell on drums and Kenny Villenueva on sax. The woman is Teri Hunt on backing vocals.

“We do more of a jamming, upbeat-style reggae,” Cruz said. “It’s more ska, more up-tempo. To me, it’s my self-expression. I’m in another world. It’s my time, and I dig it. I also like to watch my friends get enthused.

“We usually drive away the trendy, happy-hour crowd, then it’s wall-to-wall people.”