Ventura Music Scene
Ventura is Just That Cool!
by Pam Baumgardner
VenturaRocks.com
Pam@VenturaRocks.com

Photo by Seth Brandes

I’ll be honest, I was not familiar with Casey Abrams until Adam and Josh, the owners of Squashed Grapes, informed me that they had booked Abrams for a show, which was to be on the “downlow.” They said to YouTube “Casey Abrams and the Gingerbread Band,” so I did and within the first few notes I could see what the fuss was all about. Abrams played to a sold out show Saturday, July 26, which was solely done by word-of-mouth. Viewers of American Idol will remember Abrams from season ten, and although he didn’t win, the audience fell in love with him.

Self taught on eleven musical instruments, and by ear, the man clearly has talents, including what could possibly be the world’s biggest flirt (see photo).  Abrams told me they did the Squash Grapes gig without any rehearsal.  He explained, “It’s a giant experiment. We were actually supposed to have a trombone player/keyboard player with us tonight, but he couldn’t make it. So we decided to not replace him and to just be The Gingerbread Band.  We said, ‘Let’s see what we can do with just horns, bass and drums.’ It feels really good. It feels good to rock hard.”

And rock hard they did.  I have to admit it was one of the coolest nights of music ever and has earned a spot on my Top Ten favorite shows list.  That being said, I may be adding another show soon as I recently learned that Squashed Grapes has an ever bigger attraction on the books, Saturday, August 23, Doug Webb featuring none other than Danny Carey of TOOL will be in the house.  Yeah, you heard it here.

Speaking of rocking hard and I mean REALLY HARD, Chiodos played the Ventura Theater Friday, August 1.  The band is based out of Davison, Michigan, and just released their fourth studio album.  They have had some personnel issues over the years, but Craig Owens is back as their lead singer, and their fans couldn’t be happier.  Bradley Bell, keyboardist, told me about the new record “Devil” and how they released it on 4-1-1-4, which of course was April Fool’s Day, but he swears it wasn’t planned out that way.  There were label issues, and they were finally able to release it having to persuade fans it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke that Owens was back on board.  I sat down with Bell before their show to talk about “Devil.”  Bell said, “The release went really well, above our expectations and we have a new music video coming out in the next couple of weeks so there’s a lot of exciting things coming up.”  Chiodos is currently co-headling with Blessed the Fall.

Hot off of two huge tours backing Jennifer Lopez and Stevie Wonder this summer, Fausto Cuevas stopped in town for a free show at Pancho’s which is located in the former Zoey’s spot.  It’s small, intimate, and honestly who would have thought you’d find Cuevas there; but Ventura is just that cool of a place for this caliber of artist to come play.  The room was packed and the Latin jazz was hot!

Music Under the Stars at Olivas Adobe continues to entertainment to the delight of concert goers.  Don’t forget it’s the final show for Jeff Hershey and the Heartbeats on August 9 when you know Hershey will pull out all the stops. The following weekend you can take in the Neil Diamond tribute band on the 16th, and then the next afternoon at 1:00 the Ventura County Blues Society presents Rod Piazza & the Mighty Flyers.

And finally the concert lineup is as popular as ever at the 2014 Ventura County Fair.  Music lovers were thrilled to see actor John Stamos join the Beach Boys last week, which was cool and got the girls hooting and hollering, but it was extremely cool to have David Marks back playing with the band.  There’s still plenty of music to come and I’m looking forward to catching Deep Purple, Seether and Jake Owen

Do you have any music related news or upcoming shows you want help publicizing?  Send all information short or long to  Pam@VenturaRocks.com.