Ventura Rocks in the Ventura Breeze 9/22/21 – 10/5/21

Posted on September 22, 2021 by venturarocks

Ventura Music Scene
by Pam Baumgardner
VenturaRocks.com
Pam@VenturaRocks.com

While I’m not going to guarantee an opening date for the Grape, they are oh so very close to opening their doors to what I’m sure will be the hottest jazz club in the County. I got the grand tour and the place is amazing!!!We’ve been very fortunate to have Will Breman performing at local venues downtown Ventura (Winchesters and Grapes and Hops with a Twist) having been a semifinalist on NBC’s the Voice just a couple years ago (season 17). His mentor from the show, John Legend, just did a concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl last week and Legend brought Will on stage to perform Joe Cocker’s version of “With a Little Help from my Friends.” I spoke to Will about it and he told me, “Singing with John was literally the most perfect timing. Before the pandemic, I had bought tickets for my mom, because she was celebrating her 50th birthday. Ultimately my entire family got to go, which was wonderful. Mom and dad had zero clue [he’d be performing], and I could see them freaking out from their floor seats. Working with John in any respect has been straightforward and easy. At this point it was like catching up with a dear friend. I didn’t expect the nerves I got in the moment, but it had also been the first time in two years that I ever sang for an audience that big.” Freakin’ awesome, right?!! Will was kind enough to do an episode of VenturaRockSpot with me earlier this year, you can view it at VenturaRockSpot.com (along with dozens of other interviews). Will Breman will also be featured at the Topa Mountain Music 2021 Benefit Concert coming up at Ojai’s Libbey Bowl on October 9. Headlining the show will be the White Buffalo along with performances from Bryan Titus Trio, Lee Koch Band, Jems and more. Go to TopaMountainMusic.org for ticket information.

Social Distortion (including long-time band member and well-known musician in numerous bands around town, Brent Harding) just got added to the list of concerts for October at the Majestic Ventura Theater playing a date on Wednesday, October 6. Other shows include Drakeo the Ruler on October 1, Black Label Society on October 2, Yung Blue on October 5, two Pennywise shows, the one with the Dead Kennedys on October 7 and the one with Strung Out on October 8, and then it’s Elefante, Inspector on October 15. The venue is now requiring a negative COVID-19 test result within 72 hours of the event you’re attending or proof of vaccination for entry. Masks are also required at all times except while actively eating or drinking.

I’m also happy to report there will be live music at Bombay’s on Saturday, September 25, starting at 6 pm in the back room and this one is all ages. With a small $5 cover, you’ll get Brian Mikasa with Ardi on drums performing new music along with opening sets from Kyle Hunt and Hol!day (Tyler Treves’ new project). It’s being branded as a listening party, so respect and give them your attention; should be a great way to kick off a Saturday night downtown.

Ojai Nest Fest scheduled for Lake Casitas on October 2nd has been postponed.

Quick Notes: Maria Calire is out touring with Martha and the Motels; with less daylight, Margarita Villa has adjusted their live music to 7-10 on the weekends; Tony Ybarra is opening for Blood Sweat & Tears at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills on September 24;
Tuesday Blues Day continues past summer at the Copa Cubana with Jerry Mcworter, Shawn Jones, Ed Berghoff and Sam Bolle; the Temptations play Libbey Bowl in Ojai on Sunday, September 26; Kyle Smith record release party will be held at the Six Chow House on Thursday, September 23; the monthly Bubbly, Brunch & Latin Jazz at the Ventura Harbor Comedy Club will feature Justo Almario, Abraham Laborial and Bill Maxwell on Sunday, September 26 was cancelled; and Surf ‘N’ Suds returns to San Buenaventura State Beach on Saturday, October 9, with music from Jacob Marquez and the Good Vibes along with Mestizo & DJ Hecktik.

Do you have any music-related news or upcoming shows you want help publicizing? Please send all information short or long to Pam@VenturaRocks.com, and for updated music listings daily, go to www.VenturaRocks.com.

Ventura Music Photos – March 2019

Posted on March 3, 2019 by venturarocks

The Blue Room – March 28, 2019
Gypsy Blues Band w/ special guest Jimmy Calire

Grapes and Hops – March 6, 2019
The Swillys w/ special guest Jon Gindick

Ventura Theater – March 2, 2019
Pennywise

Ventura Rocks in the Ventura Breeze – 4/12 – 4/25

Posted on April 10, 2017 by venturarocks

Ventura Music Scene
Local Music and More!
by Pam Baumgardner
VenturaRocks.com
Pam@VenturaRocks.com

This year’s California Jazz & Wine Fest was another sold-out success; it was held Sunday, April 9, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Westlake Village. The event helped to benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Conejo Valley. The music was exceptional, headlining was The Danny Janklow Quintet; other bands of note included the Lao Tizer Quartet, Bruce Forman’s Cow Bop, and Ventura’s own, The Barrelhouse Wailers.

Keeping with jazz, don’t miss Mike Garson (Bowie, NIN, Smashing Pumpkins) when he returns to Squashed Grapes bringing with him this time, Emmy and Grammy nominated Gaby Moreno on Thursday, April 13; Paul McCallum and Friends return on Saturday, April 15; and Gary Herbig (Harry James, Elvis, Tower of Power) and Bill Spoke Quintet be in the house on April 19.

Our local artists have been busy producing new music. Hot off the presses is the latest CD from Hot Roux called Hometown Blues. You can pick up a copy when Hi Hat Entertainment hosts their CD release party on Friday, April 21, at the Hong Kong Inn. You won’t want to miss this one as the band will feature not only lead man Jerry McWorter, but Ed Berghoff, Brent Harding, Jimmy Calire and Bill Flores.

Congratulations to local musician Travis Greer for landing a gig on the highly popular Criminal Minds television show on CBS. He’s well-known for his improv work here in town as well as playing with the Los Dudes.

Eric Burdon joined Robby Krieger of the Doors for “Roadhouse Blues,” Saturday, April 8, at Libby Bowl. They then played “House of the Rising Sun” from The Animals. Tommy Marsh’s Crooked Eye Tommy warmed up the crowd.

The next One’s to Watch Productions will be held Wednesday, April 19, at the Plaza Playhouse in Carpinteria with Matt Duke, Jay Nash, Tony Lucca and Tim Curran. You can get tickets at OnesToWatchProductions.com.

I caught up with Ross Emery of Roadshow Revival as he ramps up for this year’s show. It’s going to look a lot different this time around with the whole event being held on one day and at Discovery Ventura, but he told me who the headliner is, and I promised not to tell until May 1st, but between you and me, I’m pretty jazzed about it. Watch for social media news, and get your tickets now!

Here’s a couple of one-liner notes of interest: Jade Hendrix will be opening for Berlin when they play the Libbey Bowl April 22; Face to Face will be at Discovery on May 7 with Bad Cop/Bad Cop opening; Paddy’s is celebrating their 23rd anniversary on April 21st with DJ Pat Harper who will be playing classic house music; the Ventura County Spring Fair will be held at the Fairgrounds April 14 – 16 with carnival rides, petting zoo and music from The Velveteen Band; and finally, I’m looking forward to hearing new music from 8Stops7, they just signed with Wendigo Records and will be back in the studio in July.

Do you have any music-related news or upcoming shows you want help publicizing? Or would you like to submit your music for possible inclusion on my radio show? Please send all information short or long to Pam@VenturaRocks.com, and for updated music listings daily, go to www.VenturaRocks.com.

Ventura Music Photos – March 2017

Posted on March 12, 2017 by venturarocks

Squashed Grapes – March 25, 2017
Denny Seiwell (Founding member Paul McCartney & Wings)

The Patio at Player’s Casino – March 25, 2017
Natalie Gellman

Amigo’s – March 24, 2017
Bad Leaf (Photo: Louis Olachea)

Squashed Grapes – March 18, 2017
Doug Webb Group featuring Danny Carey (TOOL) playing Johnny Be Goode tribute to Chuck Berry who passed away earlier that day at age 90.

Doug Webb Group featuring Danny Carey (TOOL) with Jacob Scesney

Discovery – March 17, 2017
50 Sticks of Dynamite

The Tavern – March 15, 2017
Witchstone (Photo: Louis Olachea) #MetalWednesday

The Tavern – March 15, 2017
Spell (Photo: Louis Olachea) #MetalWednesday

St Patrick’s Day Parade – Downtown Ventura
Squashed Grapes Parade Band
RJ Root, Trey O’Toole (Pulse Drumming), Dirk Shumaker (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy), Karen Parkhouse (Barrelhouse Wailers) Pam Baumgardner (VenturaRocks.com) Drue Drew & Andrew Conchelos (Barrelhouse Wailers).

St Patrick’s Day Parade – Downtown Ventura
Diana Boydstun5, RJ Root, Pam Baumgardner

Majestic Ventura Theater – March 7, 2017
Social Distortion

Ventura Rocks in the Ventura Breeze 2/15 – 2/28

Posted on February 13, 2017 by venturarocks

Ventura Music Scene
One Degree of Separation
by Pam Baumgardner
VenturaRocks.com
Pam@VenturaRocks.com

If you follow Ventura’s music scene, then you most likely know Brent Harding who can be heard playing bass in bands like the Whiskey Chimps, the Gypsy Blues Band, Hot Roux and others, but did you know he’s been Mike Ness’s bass man for Social Distortion since 2004? Brent will be back on the road with Social D the next few months and you can see him when they play at the Ventura Theater on March 7. That’s all awesome, but I just found out that during one of the many private parties during this year’s NAMM (National Association Music Merchants) event, Brent got a call to play at a Gretsch Guitars event with Jeff Beck. Yeah, THE Jeff Beck. I had to talk to Brent about it, because you know, that’s HUGE! Plus, that’s only one degree of separation for me! Anyways, Brent was so funny when he told me there were moments where he couldn’t look at him because he’d freak out and he had to concentrate; but he said Jeff Beck was a wonderful guy, really sweet and kind. Now that’s what you want to hear about guitar gods, no?

Grapes and Hops will once again host a special evening with Shawn Jones, Jeff Silbar and Suzie Candell. Of course, we all know and love Shawn who recently competed and made it to the semi-finals of the International Blues Challenge in Memphis this month, but Suzie is returning to Ventura from Switzerland; Shawn produced her first CD the last time she was out here called, California Streets. The two will reunite with the one and only Jeff Silbar (Grammy award winning songwriter, “Wind Beneath My Wings”) for an evening of swapping stories and tunes on Thursday, February 16.

Here’s a couple of one-liner notes of interest: Ruben Estrada returns to the Copa Cubana Monday evenings 6-9 pm through April 10; The Ventura Breeze is sponsoring the Equinox jazz band at Squashed Grapes February 24; The Johnny Cash, Cash Bash will be held on Sunday, February 19, 4-7:30 pm at Bombay’s featuring the Mighty Cash Cats and Jade Hendrix; another Cash Bash will be held on Sunday February 26 at Discovery with Hard Six, Jackass and Inazuma; Rey Fresco will be at Now Ventura on Saturday, February 25; and along with their normal Friday concerts, Hi Hat Entertainment has a special show on Sunday, February 26 at the Hong Kong Inn featuring the 2016 Muddy Award Winners, “Performance of the Year,” Karen Lovely with Lisa Mann and Ben Rice (downbeat at 7).

And finally, the all new CAPS Media radio station, KPPQ-LP has officially launched and is live on air 24 hours a day at 104.1 FM. It’s a low-powered signal so it only reaches most of Ventura, but they’ll soon be available on the internet as well; the staff is working out the programming as you read this. Keep in mind, this is local area access and along with covering our City Council meetings and other events (parades and such), the programming is open up to CAPS members like myself. I hope you’ll tune in when I’ll be hosting a one-hour mostly local music show, tentatively on Tuesdays 5-6 pm.

Ventura Music Photos: December 2015

Posted on December 30, 2015 by venturarocks

Amigo’s Surf Cantina – December 31, 2015 NYE Party
Dive Bar Messiahs (photo credit: Candance Marshall)

December 18, 2015
Ran into the one and only Albert Lee downtown!

VenturaRock’s Pam Baumgardner w/ Albert Lee

Downtown Ventura – December 5, 2015
Ventura Winter Wine Walk with The Bomb

The Livery Theater – December 4, 2015
Kinky Friedman

Amigo’s Surf Cantina – December 3, 2015
Gypsy Blues Band
As I walked into Amigo’s last night with my dear friend Tammy Myers, I was curious to see who was sitting in for Jerry who is currently in Japan; I was super jazzed to see that it was Mario Calire! I told her that Mario use to play with the Wallflowers and Ozomatli…and then quickly added Oh! there’s Brent Harding who plays with Social Distortion, and of course Jimmy Calire who was a member of Raven and toured with America in the 70’s. Rounding out the band were local Blues legends Morganfield Burnett and John Marx later joined by Tom Buckner.

It was one of those “I-am-so-lucky-to-live-in-Ventura nights.” Never take it for granted peeps. Support Ventura’s music scene!!

CAPS Media – December 3, 2015
Taping of Ventura Rocks with Medicine Hat

Ventura Rocks in the Ventura Breeze – 7/23 – 8/5

Posted on July 20, 2014 by venturarocks

Ventura Music Scene
Summer Music is Really Heating Up!
by Pam Baumgardner
VenturaRocks.com
Pam@VenturaRocks.com

We had two days of the best summer weather for Surf Rodeo. There was so much to see and do with Pato Baton doing a superb performance at sunset on Sunday to wrap it all up. Congratulations JD Drury on another successful Surf Rodeo!

Hi-Hat Entertainment’s Jerry McWorter’s 50th Birthday Bash was a blast at Yolies July 18. It was so cool to see so many top-notch artists in the room and up on the stage performing. When we swung by it was Jerry on drums, Brent Harding on bass, Jimmy Calire on keyboards and Albert Lee on guitar. Legendary!

It was great seeing so many ArtWalk 2014 venues supplementing this city-wide art event with live music this year! Bell Arts Factory, the WAV, Mission Park, Stoneworks Studios and many more featured such artists as Jonathan McEuen, Mitchell Blake, The Deer Leg Band, Rey Fresco, and SoulVang.

The fair kicks off July 30 with the ever popular fair parade on Main Street on Saturday, August 2. Ventura Rocks will be hitching a ride on the Squashed Grapes float with some of our favorite jazz performers playing the parade route: Fausto Cuevas, Jacob Scesney, Trey O’Toole, Andrew Hill, RJ Root and perhaps a surprise or two. Speaking of music and the Ventura County Fair, their entertainment lineup is amongst the best of recent history with the Beach Boys, Little Big Town, The Spinners, Barenaked Ladies, Deep Purple, Seether, Jake Owen and Creedence Clearwater Revisited. All shows are included in the price of admission.

The Music Under the Stars series continues with Spencer the Gardener taking over Olivas Adobe on Saturday, July 26. Joining his beloved cast of characters, um, I mean musicians, will be former members Cougar Estrada and Nate Birkey who will kick it up just a notch or two. The following week will be a Carlos Santana tribute band. Call (805) 658-4726 for ticket information.

Bombay Bar and Grill has nailed down the date for their 30th annual Indoor/Outdoor Beach Party; and though Diego wasn’t quite ready to share their music line-up, you’ll want to mark down the dates which cover the last three days of the month, August 29 – August 31. This is sure to be off-the-hook!!

Chiodos, along with Bless the Fall, will take over the Ventura Theater on Friday, August 1. They’ve been out on tour in support of their new CD, “Devil” which was produced by David Botrill (Tool, Muse, Stone Sour).

And finally, just added to the VenturaRocks.com Listening Station at Very Ventura store on California Street are Ashford Gordon, the new one from Mother of Dissension, and “Struggle Makes You Stronger” from Shawn Jones. You have no idea what it means to our local musicians when someone purchases their music. It really does make a difference.

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

Ventura Music Photos: July 2014

Posted on July 6, 2014 by venturarocks

Ventura County Fair – July 31, 2014
The Beach Boys w/ John Stamos

Amigo’s – July 27, 2014
Dave Gleason

W20 at the Watermark – July 27, 2014
Shawn Jones with Mario Calire and Jaymes Edward Felix

Squashed Grapes – July 26, 2014
Casey Abrams – with Zach Lodmer, Jacob Scesney, Adam Clark, and guest appearance by Karl Hunter.

Olivas Adobe, “Music Under the Stars” – July 26, 2014
Spencer the Gardener

Bombay Bar and Grill – July 25, 2014
Brothers Gow

The Wine Rack – July 25, 2014
Cakewalk Trio

Grapes and Hops – July 25, 2014
Funkaphonics

Saloon BBQ – July 25, 2014
The Deer Leg Band with Jonathan McEuen sitting in.

The Star Lounge – July 25, 2014
CRV

Panchos – July 25, 2014
Big Adventure

Museum of Ventura County – July 25, 2014
Sin Chonies – Screening of “The Big Lebowski”

Squashed Grapes – July 23, 2014
Nate Birkey, with Tom Buckner on Sax, Peter Buck on drums, Jim Connolly on bass and Rachel Flowers on piano.