Valley Weekend : ROCKTALK : Bands Are Disseminating a Sound That’s Distinctly Simi : Suburban groups such as April’s Motel Room are making a name for themselves from Calabasas to Hollywood.
First came Memphis (with Elvis and Jerry Lee). Then there was Liverpool and Detroit (a.k.a. Motown). And more recently it’s been Athens, Ga., and Seattle. So could the next great wave of pop music be emerging from Simi Valley?
Of course not. But a growing scene of rock acts there has begun to assert itself, spilling over into venues in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood. One band, April’s Motel Room, is already working on songs for its second album, following up on “Black 14,” which last year made the upper reaches of the college radio charts.
And other Simi bands are not far behind, with such names as Amber’s Will, Budget, Tree of Love, Skip and Go Naked, and Chump as well as a host of newer, more punk-flavored acts.
“Simi has its own little scene,” says Dave Hewitt, the talent coordinator for Pelican’s Retreat in Calabasas, where April’s Motel Room will perform Friday night. “There is a lot of great talent coming out of there now.”
Hewitt feels strongly enough about what he has dubbed “The Simi Sound” that he’s now planning a special all-Simi Valley night for this November.
What connects many of the acts, says April’s manager Doug Campbell, is their source of inspiration: the suburban isolation of Simi Valley. It was exactly that focus on intergenerational conflict (e.g., parents, religion and suburbia) in the lyrics of singer Tom Kelly that first attracted Campbell to April’s Motel Room.
“It was all based around Simi life, and I really enjoyed that,” Campbell says. “It was so much more original than what I was hearing at the time. Very few ‘I love you’ songs. Just very intelligent, introspective lyrics.
“That was so meaningful and so important, especially to any kids who would eventually listen to this music.”
When he first met the members of April’s Motel Room in 1992, he found them rehearsing (usually about six hours a day) in a crowded 8-by-8-foot room. “I would have to stand in the hall just to hear them.”
The band had never played Los Angeles before, though he would soon book them at such L.A. clubs as the Scream and the Club With No Name, opening for such up-and-coming acts as Eleven and Veruca Salt. And there were few places, even in Simi, where the band’s big rock sound could find a home.
“Out in Simi, they just had their buddies,” Campbell says. “It was more of a back-yard party sort of situation. They really didn’t have any venues to play there.”
Adds April’s guitarist Sam Nickell: “We all just go in and jam and hang out with our friends and make music. We never really consciously tried to go after any certain sound.”
On its next album, the band--which also includes bassist Mike Hoolihan and drummer Aaron Zidenburg--plans to narrow its focus from the first record’s broad strokes of punk, straight-ahead rock and quieter tunes in favor of a more up-tempo and aggressive sound.
Meanwhile, April’s Motel Room will continue commuting from Simi Valley to its gigs, along with the growing crowd of other hometown bands. “They all know each other, and they all go to each other’s gigs,” Campbell says. “We all try to keep them together.”
* April’s Motel Room performs with Shellfish and Wooden Circus, 9:30 p.m. Friday, Pelican’s Retreat, 24454 Calabasas Road, Calabasas; $5; call (818) 222-1155.
Schoolhouse Rock: Back at Pelican’s, Dave Hewitt continues his seven-year quest to bring live pop, rock, reggae and funk to the western edge of the Valley. “It’s a mom-and-pop organization,” says Hewitt of the club, “but it’s run the very best that we can. We’re just a rockin’ roadhouse.”
Pelican’s Retreat is located in a former Calabasas schoolhouse, built in 1924. In the years since, the old wooden structure has seen duty as a dance hall, a preschool and a club called the Mineshaft--where members of Canned Heat, the Byrds, the Animals and even Bob Dylan are said to have passed.
While Hewitt has watched dozens of other Valley clubs rise and fall, the 400-capacity Pelican’s Retreat has survived in part by offering a schedule that features regularly appearing acts such as the reggae band Urban Dread on Monday nights.
Most recently, Hewitt has added a band called the M-80s on Tuesdays, playing nothing but New Wave hits of the 1980s, from Duran Duran to the Go-Gos and Depeche Mode. “They’re a really wacky band,” Hewitt says.
He’s also recently had rising punk acts such as Sublime (whose song “Date Rape” is now a KROQ-FM hit), but says he generally stays away from the moshing crowd.
“We’re kind of crazy,” Hewitt explains, “but we don’t want people to get their heads knocked in out here.”
