MUSIC / COMMON SENSE : Where the Reggae Is : The band is the big draw at Beach Shack in Santa Barbara. It’s been known to ‘put out a positive vibe and make people happy.’
Lion I’s is the biggest drawing band around these parts, packing dance floors, making bartenders run, paying club rents and tempting club owners to come up with a plan to get the band to play more often. Likewise those rockin’ reggae dudes in the band Common Sense are packing them in, but over a much larger area. They’re like the Lion I’s with more mileage.
The southers in Common Sense are smart enough to go wherever the money is, and that’s all over Southern California from Santa Barbara to San Diego and east to Phoenix.
According to owner Gary Baldwin, this six-piece rockin’ reggae band is the biggest draw at S. B.’s most happening night spot, the Beach Shack, which is saying a lot for a town that also boasts such popular bands as Spencer the Gardener, Tao Jonz, the Wedding Band, Crucial DBC, even Ventura’s Lion I’s. Common Sense will pack the Beach Shack next on Saturday night. They seldom play anywhere else, and never in Ventura, so far.
Last weekend, for example, Common Sense played (and packed) the Beach Shack on a Friday night. The band left right after the gig and headed for Jack Murphy Stadium to play a Saturday morning tailgate parking lot party for those San Diego State party animals whose Aztecs tied USC, 31-31.
“We like being able to put out a positive vibe and make people happy,” said singer Nick Hernandez, saying what band guys always say. “Sometimes dealing with the business part can be a problem, but we’re paid well. We make at least $1,000 per gig, we play five nights per week and we can make a living off this. It’s great to do something you like.”
Yeah, big problem, making five grand a week. What’s the problem, where to spend it? Maybe the government should start a Reggae 101 job training program. Beats working at K mart.
That wasn’t Hernandez’s major (reggae or K mart 1); he studied music composition at UC Santa Barbara and started the band six years ago.
“A guy named Marty Taub and I started the band,” Hernandez said. “I started going to college here in 1985-86; I only need four more units to get my degree. The band has always had the same vibe, but we’ve always had one loose wheel. One guy got killed, burned up; another guy left to be a doctor; another guy left to be a psychologist. I’ve had this group together for seven months now, and it’s the first time I’ve had so much confidence.”
Baldwin also has confidence-- that’s probably why he books Common Sense to play the Beach Shack nearly every week. By the time the 10:15 gig started promptly at 10:30, there were already a dozen people on the dance floor skanking away before the band had played a note.
By the time the band finished its first tune, a reggae version of Steve Miller’s “Fly Like An Eagle,” the large dance floor was packed and stayed that way. Everybody, very well-trained, screamed “Irie!” at the appropriate moment during one of the songs.
“We do reggae with a little rock ‘n’ roll and a little r&b;,” Hernandez said.
The band’s repertoire includes about half originals and half covers by artists as diverse as Jimi Hendrix and Marvin Gaye. At the Beach Shack, where they do two sets, they play mostly originals. The band has an eight-song tape for sale at their gigs. They sold 500 of them in two months and are on the second batch of 500 now, at five bucks each.
Also wishing to see their names in the paper are Billy Sherman (guitar), Jai Vatuk (guitar, keyboards), Drew Hester (drums), Harold Todd (sax) and Larry Young (bass).
* WHERE AND WHEN
Common Sense at the Beach Shack, 500 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara, 966-1634. Saturday, 10:15 p.m., $4.
