Cheesy Tunes

An intriguing yet bizarre double bill will unfold at the venerable Ventura Theatre tonight featuring Flogging Molly, a bunch of raucous Irish rockers, with the American Cheese Band--an eclectic local group of hillbilly rockers--kicking off the festivities.

The Cheese Band is made up of five friends who have survived countless gigs at just about every dive bar in the area. The group has now graduated to the big stage and is even opening for one of its favorite bands.

The Cheeseheads are fronted by Brian Parra, also known as “Saturday Night Bob,” an Oxnard local and Cal State Northridge graduate.

When not doing the band thing, he is a tireless promoter of the local music scene, with an up-to-date Web site listing bands and gigs. He also promotes his own shows. One of Parra’s most successful efforts is his Young Songwriter’s Showcase held at 66 California in downtown Ventura on the last Wednesday of each month.

The Cheese Band performs a bunch of odd originals and plays a few of its favorite cover tunes in a unique way. Parra is not averse to playing a ukulele in a bar, so you know the guy is fearless. He’s also one of the growing number of musicians who believe the local music scene is actually improving. He discussed this and more during a recent interview.

What should everybody know about the American Cheese Band?

Well, we all started out as friends working together at Boy Scout summer camp, and we basically started making music, writing music for the campfire entertainment--jokes and skits and stuff.

The first song we ever learned was “Ghost Chickens in the Sky,” which was a parody of “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” That was the first Cheese Band song. Originally, this was a solo gig until I invited some of my Boy Scout buddies to help out, and as it turned out, everyone liked our campfire songs more than they did my original solo stuff, so we decided to stick with it. That was 2 1/2 years ago.

So who’s in the band?

I hope you don’t mind, but we all have goofy names. I’m “Saturday Night Bob,” and I play ukulele, lead guitar and vocals. There’s Howard on saxophone, bass, washboard, the Indian flute and harmonica. Opie plays bass guitar and banjo. “Spanky” plays drums and “Sticky” is on jug and jew’s-harp.

How many Cheese Band songs are there?

Oh, we have a lot . . . about 10 or 15 in our current set. But over the years, we’ve done a lot of different material like Marilyn Manson stuff and bluegrass. Most of our stuff is original, but we do an occasional cover--then make it our own.

What do you think the band sounds like?

Oh, wow. We sort of take the worst parts of the music we love and adapt it. We’ve never stuck to a particular style, but we do have a double helping of the rockabilly-hillbilly stuff. It’s everything from funk-punk to straight-up rock to a bunch of hokey hillbilly stuff. Usually, it’s just sort of anything goes, whatever takes us at the moment.

Tell me about this gig. Is it going to be happening?

We’re really excited to be playing with Flogging Molly. Actually, three of us--myself, Howard and Opie--saw them at the Warped Tour. We were just blown away, and personally, I haven’t really listened to much else since I bought that CD. For us, it’s like playing with our favorite band, and very few artists get that chance.

So what’s the Cheesy plan?

We all have our chosen professions. We do this because we enjoy playing--we’re not looking for any [record] deal or to do this for the rest of our lives. And, realistically, I don’t really think anyone thinks we can, anyway. We are planning a Cheese Band tour late this summer. We’re scheduled for several gigs up the coast all the way to Canada and Washington, Idaho and Montana.

What is your chosen profession?

I have an English degree from Northridge, and I’m a substitute who teaches English occasionally. I have my [California Basic Educational Skills Test] and I’ll probably be teaching somewhere next year under an emergency credential.

What’s your musical background?

I started late. I loved music as a kid, and I actually got a guitar for my high school graduation. I didn’t really know anything. I was doing the Scout camps for about six years, learning all the Scout songs and hanging out with a couple of other guitar players in that environment.

A big influence for me was the Dead Milkmen. They weren’t really popular, but they made their rounds underground. They were appealing to the less popular kids, the goofy kids, the kids who were sort of open to a lot of different things. Anyway, a friend gave me one of their albums. It killed me the summer I discovered them--when I came back from camp, I found out that they had played the Ventura Theatre two weeks before. They were real goofy with a lot of songs about having fun, a real sort of “anything goes” aspect.

What do you think of the local scene?

I’ve been involved in the music scene for about 10 years . . . . But from where I’m at now, I can see a lot better responses from the audience. When we go out to play, a large number of the audiences are actual band members themselves. In this community it’s kind of weird, since there seem to be more musicians than actual audience. I think especially the last year, it’s been growing--the musicians are starting to support each other more and I can only see good things happening.

If you had the power, how would you improve the local scene?

I’d start two or three different all-ages places. Not just a garage or a little punk den, but something like the Living Room in Goleta. And Cafe Voltaire was nice, because it did have the adult crowd, but it was also accessible as an all-ages place. There’s nothing out there . . . like that now.

How’s your Young Songwriter’s Showcase going?

That’s going really well, actually, even though I was kind of worried about this last one. It was three artists that didn’t really know each other and were not particularly big themselves, but the place was packed. I’m hoping the word is getting out that songwriter’s showcase is where people can come every month and sort of sit and see young talent and a varied show. I love folk and Americana stuff, but there’s more to acoustic music than just that. There’s a lot of young singers out there who play acoustic, but aren’t folk singers per se.

Do you think local musicians have unreasonable expectations?

Honestly, I don’t think so. Everybody that’s really good in Ventura is really different. There are no bands that are alike in Ventura--the good ones, anyway. There’s a lot of little bands that have hopes and aspirations. For myself and the people that I play with, we want to kind of remind people that there are other reasons for playing music other than getting big. Music itself and playing live and being part of the community--I think more people should play because of that.

This is supposed to be fun.

It should be. It is for us. If there is a point for us to play music, it would be to open people’s eyes to differences, to accepting differences.

Usually when I haul out a ukulele at a bar, I get two responses: Half the people think it’s really cool while the other half just return to their beer. We’re just trying to have fun with our music and have fun playing it and interact with the audience and make it a real event. So our dream gig would be playing for hundreds and hundreds of friends who actually understood what we were doing. And if they all paid like 50 bucks to get in, that would be cool, too.

DETAILS

Flogging Molly and the American Cheese Band at the Ventura Theatre, 26 Chestnut St., 8:30 tonight. Cost: $15. Call: 653-0721.

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A new label with a funny name, Yapima Digg Records, will host a music showcase Saturday night at Thousand Oaks High School. This all-ages event will be a benefit for the label as well as for several local charities, including the Palmer Drug Abuse Program and the Avon Breast Cancer Walk.

Yapima Digg is the brainchild of Steve Connell, a T.O. High grad and a theater arts major at UCLA. Connell is a slam poet and performance artist who has played nationally.

Up to half a dozen acts will perform, including Connell; Anita Coats from Simi Valley, a singer/songwriter with an album coming out; and Danielle Bisutti, a singer/songwriter with a band behind her. Another singer, Danny Gomes, will also perform. It promises to be an evening of folk, funk, hip-hop, jazz, rock and everything in between.

‘Yapima Digg is . . . the only poem I ever wrote where I felt I was seized by something. It translates into revolution, in sort of the same way artists create their vision out of nothing. It’s about the personal power we have to create our world,” Connell said.

The Conejo Valley as a hotbed of revolution? Who would have thought it? “Yeah, well, we’re working on it,” Connell said.

DETAILS

Yapima Digg Records Showcase at Thousand Oaks High School, 2323 N. Moorpark Road, Saturday, 8 p.m. Cost: $12 or $10 for students. Call: 405-1460.

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No, the Psychedelic Furs are not a calico-cat fan club, but a Brit-pop group long on experience that will play at the Ventura Theatre on Wednesday night. All the original guys, including frontman Richard Butler, will be there.

The Furs create an intense, alluring wall of sound that Phil Spector himself could relate to, all a backdrop for Butler’s wry nasal tones that come across as half song, half spoken word, sort of like George Sanders fronting a rock band. The band has had plenty of hits, including “Love My Way,” “Here Come Cowboys” and “All That Money Wants.”

And the weird name? “I came up with it in a drunken stupor,” Butler said.

DETAILS

Psychedelic Furs and Tin Fed at the Ventura Theatre, Wednesday, 8:30 p.m. Cost: $25 or $35. Call: 653-0721.