Reggae Beat Enlivens New Venue : The Charleston Club Cafe is a chummy place for a really young crowd, drawn in by a positive message and a rocking sound.

The Charleston Club Cafe in Ventura becomes a cool new music venue every Saturday night. Vintage movie posters and 8-by-10s of movie stars fill the walls around life-size cutouts of Laurel & Hardy, while fans of the reggae band Conscious Souls cover the dance floor. For live music fans, this is a vast improvement over The King and I, the geezer watering hole this place used to be.

The venue is rather small, not unlike the late, lamented Charlie’s on the beach in Ventura. The seven-piece band is composed of Randy Ranks (percussion, vocals); Tommy Walker, aka Bassie T (bass, vocals); Brian, aka Drummie Judah (drums); CJ (keyboards, vocals); Ras Lenny Dread (guitar, vocals); Jim (sax); and Hollie (vocals). They all squeeze into the place each weekend to get close and personal with the dancers.

The weekend gig is one of the few music events open to the under-age, at least those who pass the dress code. None of those stupid no-tank-top rules apply--just no obvious gang stuff and no bad attitudes allowed. Then again, a fight at a reggae concert is like a bake sale at a Raiders game--pretty unlikely. Last weekend, the joint was packed, and bassist Walker didn’t mind at all.

“We started the under-21 idea,” he said. “It’s Ventura’s only 18-and-over reggae club. We did it a couple of times before the New Year, then took a couple of weeks off, but now we’re back. Hopefully, it’ll get more and more packed. We’re not trying to be pretend we’re big rastas or anything, we’re just trying to get the Conscious Souls’ positive message out that all races and all cultures are one. Our message is to get the drugs out, and you don’t have to be out on the streets hating each other. The 18-and-over idea really helps us, but if you look like a troublemaker, you’re not going to get in.”

The band started in the usual way--a couple of guys sitting around, then some friends joined, and so on. The bass player and the guitar player (who has toured with Big Mountain) once left the same band together.

“Lenny and I started playing together after we left the Irie Ites last year,” said Walker. “Then we got Randy, then Brian, then CJ, and we just got it going. Our first gig was at a party, a wedding. Now we get people of all ages, and even the owner digs us.”

The Conscious Souls play rockin’ reggae. It’s none of that one-beat, one-song, one-week stuff. Ras Lenny Dread’s guitars play off the keyboards, and shimmer and slide across the whole thing. Meanwhile, the back beat hits seismic proportions.

“We have a good foundation. We do some covers, but we have an original sound and about nine of our own songs,” said Walker. “We do California reggae, sort of like Big Mountain. Locally, the Lion I’s and Ska Daddyz play some reggae songs, but both of them have more of a ska edge than we do, although we do some up-tempo songs.”

*

Reggae, particularly in California, seems in a holding pattern. Club owners really don’t know what to make of reggae music, and much like blues, it’s usually relegated to Sunday or an afternoon when whatever profit made is gravy. Reggae, generally, is not on the radio, not on MTV, but that’s not a problem.

“I’d say it’s getting a little bigger after a slump,” said Walker. “Big Mountain getting signed really helped the reggae industry. Up here, it’s usually just Sunday nights, but in L.A., you can find some reggae every day.”

The Conscious Souls, together for only nine months, are already nurturing CD dreams. That’s because club owners, after apologizing that they can’t pay much, always ask for a tape or a CD. In addition to their very danceable originals, they do some memorable covers by artists such as Bob Marley and Junior Reid.

“We will be recording a CD in March, which we hope will be out by summer,” Walker said. “We have about nine original songs so far--songs like ‘Ghetto Reality’ and ‘Drive By’--but we’re only going to put four on the CD so we’ll have something to give club owners. We get along in the band. We just want to make the vibe right.”

DETAILS

* WHAT: Conscious Souls.

* WHERE: Charleston Club Cafe, 2819 E. Main St., Ventura.

* WHEN: Saturday night, 9:30 p.m.

* HOW MUCH: A fiver.

* FYI: 643-4849.