Grateful Revival

They may not look much like Deadheads, but the five dudes in Stunt Road can play like the Grateful Dead--probably even better--and that’s the general idea.

The band, whose own long strange trip began almost 15 years ago--or about as long as a Dead version of “Sugar Magnolia”--will be at Season Ticket in Simi Valley tonight.

The Grateful Dead, the world’s best party band, stopped in the county a few times. The first time was in 1982, when about 13,000 Deadheads met about three cops. Their last gig a few years later featured about 13,000 cops who treated the love-in like an outbreak of cholera, handing out jaywalking tickets by the ton.

The Ventura City Council and the Fair Board were later convinced that the Deadheads were not, in fact, the right kind of tourists for the Poinsettia City. Exit the Dead around here.

Enter Stunt Road, named for a party spot in the Santa Monica Mountains off Mulholland Highway. The band lineup has changed as often as the lunch crew at McDonald’s. The current version includes Andy Roth on lead guitar, founding member and lead singer Mark Watson on keyboards, Tom Atkins on rhythm guitar, Dave Nelson on drums and John Oestman on bass.

Stunt Road started gaining popularity after Jerry Garcia died in 1995, which was shortly after Watson decided to make the group a Dead-friendly band. Since all those swirling Deadheads still needed a soundtrack when Phish wasn’t around, they began playing regularly at the Cobalt Cafe in Canoga Park and Pelican’s Retreat in Calabasas.

Season Ticket, which sits between Rite-Aid and Vons in a shopping center, is a neighborhood sports bar with a fair-sized dance floor, pool tables and lots of televisions.

Even though there’s not a herd of VW vans in the parking lot, Season Ticket becomes the Deadhead center of the county a few times a month when Stunt Road plays there.

“It’s a neighborhood sports bar, so we get the regulars, plus we get some people in tie-dyed shirts,” Roth said. “We’re really glad we’re so well-received there. During our last gig, a couple of guys were shopping next door at Vons next to Season Ticket and just happened to hear a Dead song as they drove by.”

The boys in the band have done their homework. Atkins has seen the Dead about 200 times, Roth about 20 times, with Watson somewhere in between. The band knows upward of 120 songs, with 70 or 75 Dead songs. For example, the Deadhead version of “Not Fade Away” got the Season Ticket bartender dancing on the bar, and it wasn’t even 10 o’clock yet.

“All of us were, at one time, very much into the band, and we traveled around and followed the Dead,” Roth said. “The music is very good and there’s a lot of variety. We could go for two or three nights and not repeat any songs. It’s a hit--sometimes there’s 70 people still there at closing time.”

DETAILS

Stunt Road at Season Ticket, 5835 Los Angeles Ave., Simi Valley; 9 tonight; free; 520-1166.

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Beavis & Butthead like GWAR, but so would Vlad the Impaler, Freddy Krueger and Jack the Ripper. Sort of like a slasher movie meets a thrasher band in Sam Peckinpaugh’s garage, a GWAR gig is an all-out gore fest, not for the faint of heart or white of shirt.

Bleeding their way down the California coast, GWAR will headline a noisy gig at the Ventura Theatre tonight. Godhead and Black Opal will open.

In addition to the sonic onslaught, there’s a stage full of grotesque props, outrageous costumes and lots of really ugly people with sharp instruments. And there’s blood--fake blood, to be sure, but lots of it. Don’t stand too close to the stage, especially if you stole dad’s white shirt. But what can one expect from band members with names such as Oderus Urungus, Flattus Maximus and Beefcake the Mighty?

The band has been around for a long time, too long for many. Their biography claims that after they were banished from earth billions of years ago, GWAR returned and killed the dinosaurs, made Stonehenge into a croquet court, sunk Atlantis and invented hair spray.

Obviously these six Richmond, Calif.-based maniacs have either no redeeming social value or are pretty funny in a warped way. Whichever, GWAR has fans--lots of them. But doesn’t all the grotesque imagery--stuff that could scare Marilyn Manson--detract from the alleged music?

“It enhances it if anything--the fury of the bloodletting and the musical onslaught,” Oderus said during the band’s last trip through town. “We try to approach what Sam Peckinpaugh did in ‘The Wild Bunch.’ We’re just degenerates in these big dumb costumes that keep getting more elaborate. It’s still dumb, but now, we pretend it’s smart.”

DETAILS

GWAR, Godhead and Black Opal at the Ventura Theatre, 26 Chestnut St.; 8 tonight; $15; 653-0721.

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One of the most famous bluegrass bands in all the land, the Virginia-based Lonesome River Band, will headline a pair of shows Saturday at Cafe Voltaire in Ventura. Opening will be their California counterparts, Lost Highway. Shows are at 2 and 8 p.m.

Superstars in their chosen genre, the Lonesome River Band has won a ton of awards, both as a band and individually from the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Assn.) and the SPBGMA (Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America). Their latest album is “Finding the Way.”

DETAILS

The Lonesome River Band and Lost Highway at Cafe Voltaire, 34 N. Palm St., Ventura, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; $10 advance or $15 at the door; 641-1743.

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The largest and cheapest annual party in Santa Barbara will return Saturday when the appropriately named Extravaganza unfolds at Harder Stadium at UC Santa Barbara. This annual wingding is presented by the A.S. Program Board and is free.

Rap and punk will predominate once again as legendary rapper Run DMC headlines along with hilarious punk rockers the Vandals. Local groups will be well represented by those manic rockabilly rockers in Blazing Haley. Gates open at 11 a.m.

The line is long, so get there early. There will be booths selling food, T-shirts and the usual stuff germane to a college education.

DETAILS

Run DMC, the Vandals, Hepcat, Del the Funkee Homosapien, Tight Pants, Blazing Haley, Dial 7, 4 Degrees Kelvin and the Cannons at Harder Stadium, UCSB, 11 a.m. Saturday; free; 893-3536.