The Ziggens: Just Another Weird Surf/Country/Ska/Punk Band

On the Weirdo Scale, the Ziggens can hold their own with anyone who comes before them alphabetically. They write really funny songs, and as a tight trio they can play up a storm, which they will no doubt do when they make their Ventura debut Saturday night upstairs at Nicholby’s, on a bill with Dieselhed.

And for a bunch of guys from Wisconsin who moved to Orange County, the Ziggens play pretty good surf music. They also play pretty good country music, pretty good ska music, pretty good rock music and pretty good punk rock--all of which is most evident on their most recent and fourth album, “Chicken Out!” There are songs about waitresses, the joys of unemployment, the joys of having a massive heart attack on your girlfriend’s front lawn, junk food, creeps in Huntington Beach, well, the usual.

There is “Tent City,” the best ska song in years, but also enough straight country stuff to get pickup truck loads of pointy-shoed pardners to aim reverently away from Nashville and toward Buena Park, the Ziggens’ new home.

Are the Ziggens confused? Undoubtedly, but it’s inspired madness, and the band has more than 100 original songs by Bert Susanka, who sings and plays guitar, Brad Conyers, who drums and sings, and Jon Poutney, who plays bass and mostly shuts up. Also, it doesn’t hurt to be label mates (Skunk Records) with college rock gods Sublime, a band that recently packed the Ventura Theatre.

“On ‘Chicken Out!’ every song except “The Cheese in Wisconsin” has charted on college radio, either one point above or one point below Sublime,” said Conyers. “We’re working on our fifth album right now, which will have more punk and hard-core surf stuff on it and not so much country.

“Still, we’d like make it onto the country charts, go to Nashville, then play ‘Tent City’ and have them throw stuff at us.”

Now if getting the wahoo crowd whipped into a posse-forming frenzy isn’t enough, songs like “I Hate Girls and Cars and Ice Cold Beer” is reason enough to get 90% of the remaining menfolk to sign a petition to deport these guys back to Cheesehead Central.

“We’re just poking fun at all those new-wave rockabilly bands, as well as country and those other types of set pattern music,” said Conyers. “So we just took every subject they sing about and made it into sort of a punk song. I think people don’t always realize that our tongues are planted firmly in our cheeks. Also, we’re much better live than we are on our records.”

* Nicholby’s is at 404 E. Main Street in Ventura. Talk to them at 653-2320.

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Medical Update Department: Chris Pinnick, guitarist for the Buds, near death a few weeks ago, left UCLA recently after making something of an amazing recovery. According to his publicist Honey Weiner, Pinnick is getting stronger every day at his Reseda home but remains on the heart transplant waiting list.

Pinnick has lost a considerable amount of weight since his heart attack, which also forced him to give up the evil weed. Getting a heart attack, he said, “is the easiest way there is to quit smoking, no withdrawals at all.”

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Looking for something to do on Monday? There is some good music being played at Cafe Voltaire in Ventura. This week’s fab offering is none other than those peerless purveyors of obscure acoustic blues songs, Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan. They have about half a dozen or so albums in the last 15 years, including the answers to such timeless questions as “Who Drank My Beer When I Was in the Rear?” and “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?” Cafe Voltaire is on Palm Street at the foot of the steepest hill in downtown Ventura. Call the cafe at 641-1743 to find out more about this 7:30 p.m. shindig.

Bill Locey, who writes regularly on rock ‘n’ roll, has survived the mosh pit and the local music scene for many years.