Token Angel Serves Up CD With Coffee

Sharon Benson will again do double duty Saturday when her band, Token Angel, has its CD release party at her coffeehouse, Coffee Junction, in Tarzana.

Benson, who has owned the club with partner Linda Sherlin for more than five years, is the lead singer and violinist for the five-woman band. The group’s CD, “Let It Go,” was recorded live in the studio in only three months. “Live?” you may be muttering. “But aren’t all albums recorded live?”

Most modern recordings are assembled piece by piece in multitrack studios. Guitars might be recorded one day, vocals on another day and background vocals a few weeks later. Passages are rerecorded until they are note-perfect. After that, all the different elements are mixed down or volume-balanced to make a final recording.

In a live studio recording, everything--instruments and vocals--is recorded and mixed all at once, just as if it were a live concert.

Benson says she and her band did their album the “old-fashioned way.”

“It’s all one take,” she says. No rerecording. Just direct to the mixing board and then to the digital audiotape.

The album, produced by Benson with Lewis Wolfe, captures the energy of a live performance. But along with that vibrant energy come a few minor miscues that are also common to a live performance. All things considered, Benson says, she’s satisfied with the album.

The acoustic group’s sound, signatured by Benson’s violin, is evocative of the 1960s group It’s a Beautiful Day but with a more bluesy, smoky quality. Benson says the group’s sound is truly a group effort.

“Everybody writes, everybody plays more than one instrument,” Benson says. “We want to hook everyone with our music.”

* Token Angel performs at its CD release party at 8 at Coffee Junction, 19221 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana. No cover. Call (818) 342-3405.

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Blues Invasion: After the release of their first CD, “100 Miles to Go,” on Spitfire Records in 1989, the Pontiax hit the road. The Santa Barbara-based blues band, which is playing at Smokin’ Johnnie’s on Saturday, performed in Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and other faraway places. But for the last couple of years the band has stayed a bit closer to home.

“We’re running around the southern half of California.” says lead singer and harp player Mitch Kashmar. “There are more than a few agents who would love to send us out on the road. But you’ve got to lay some groundwork--it’s like an invasion plan.”

Part of the band’s invasion plan is a new album with a bigger label. They’ve already cut the tracks, and they’re shopping it around to labels with better distribution networks. The new album was produced by Chuck Malone, who previously worked with Canned Heat, Stevie Wonder and Eric Clapton.

“It’s our first experience in the studio with a coach,” Kashmar says. “He kicked our butts a bit. He’s got good performances out of us.”

Other new touches on the album include some horns, something the band didn’t use on the first record. Kashmar does most of the vocals.

Over the years, the band has opened for, backed up or jammed with an impressive list of blues artists, including the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, William Clarke, Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Witherspoon, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Charlie Musselwhite and John Hammond Jr. But septuagenarian Lowell Fulson made the biggest impression.

“Fulson was so much fun to play with,” Kashmar says. “He retained all this youthfulness--a guy who is that old and still wants to put his finger on the note. Nothing much has changed for him from day one.”

Besides shopping for a label deal and laying invasion plans, Kashmar has been in the news in recent months as speculation casts him as the latest flame of O.J. Simpson case prosecutor Marcia Clark. Clark sightings have been reported at Pontiax gigs in the Santa Barbara and Ventura areas.

Will the Pontiax get their deal?

Will Clark show up at Smokin’ Johnnie’s to hear her blues man?

Tune in Saturday.

* The Pontiax play Saturday night at Smokin’ Johnnie’s, 11720 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, No cover. Call (818) 760-6631.

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Eclectic Electric: Pat Byars, who plays with his band, Eye, this Friday at Mancini’s, describes his music as eclectic.

“It’s a cross between bluegrass and psychedelic rock,” says Byars who’s originally from South Carolina.

The band has a self-produced CD that is receiving some airplay on several local stations. Byars, the primary singer and writer of Eye, lists some influences that are somewhat eclectic as well: the Grateful Dead and Frank Zappa.

“I like the way the Dead mixed in country elements [into rock],” Byars says. “I was a Deadhead for about four or five years in the late ‘70s.”

But while the Dead influenced his music, Zappa altered Byars’ entire world view.

“I heard Zappa very early--when I was in the sixth grade,” Byars says. “It blew my whole head open.”

* Eye plays Saturday night at Mancini’s, 20923 Roscoe Blvd., Canoga Park. $6 cover. Call (818) 341-8503.

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Yeah, Yeah, Yeah: The Beatles’ tribute band Imagine is not just a bunch of guys who decided to play some Beatles tunes for nostalgia’s sake. For these guys, the Beatles are a cottage industry.

“Everybody in the band strictly does Beatles,” says band leader and drummer Neil Burg.

Burg, 43, has been performing Beatles music, and Beatles music only, for more than 20 years. Other members of the show also have been doing Beatles tributes exclusively for several years.

“We try to look like them as much as possible, and we try to sound like them as much as possible,” Burg says.

The band performs a three-act show with costume changes representing three distinct periods of the Fab Four’s musical career. Imagine even uses the same brands of instruments that John, Paul, George and Ringo used in their stage performances.

Burg is the drummer, but does he look like Ringo?

“I don’t think I do much,” Burg admitted. “But I try to make up for it on the talent end of it.

“After we get dressed up and we use the same instruments,” Burg says. “It makes it look more real”

* Imagine plays Friday night at the Players Lounge, Radisson Hotel, 30100 Agoura Road, Agoura Hills. Call (818) 707-1220.