Ventura Music Scene
by Pam Baumgardner
VenturaRocks.com
Pam@VenturaRocks.com
The 3rd annual 1 Love Day bar crawl will be held on Friday, April 17, with four bands at four bands. The participating venues are Café Fiore, Sans Souci, The Saloon and KJ’s Neighborhood Bar. Bands performing will be OnePeople, We Roll, Jacob and the Good Vibes and Irie Nature. If you want to be a part of the crawl, you’ll need tickets which will get you specials at each venue and a wristband designating your relationship status: green for you’re ready to mingle, yellow for it’s complicated and red means you’re in a committed relationship. The reggae themed event suggests you bust out your dreads and rasta threads and feel the love as you raise your vibrations by dancing to the reggae music drinking good libations. And though this is a ticketed event (1loveday.com), I bet you dollars to doughnuts, without a ticket, you can still enjoy the music.
It’s that time of year when a group of music fans gather for Stecklestock at Steckle Park where bands play all day, someone is cooking up an awesome barbecue and family and friends enjoy each other’s company. This year it will be held on Saturday, April 18, and rumor has it, this could be the final installment. As always, there is no fee though donations are appreciated to help cover the costs of rentals, permits, insurance, etc. This year’s line up includes Premonition, Lowered Expectations, Buena Onda, No Biggee, Chicano 7, Only Obvious and Tommy Foytek. Fun starts around 11 am and runs until dusk.
April 18 also happens to be the day the City of Ventura will celebrate Earth Day (it’s officially Wednesday, April 22). This free event runs 11 am to 4 pm at Plaza Park downtown Ventura. Feel free to bring chairs or blankets so you can comfortably enjoy the musical entertainment from Dark Current, Van Allen Twins, the Ventura High Jazz Band and a Mariachi band.
Thursday, April 23, Tony’s Pizzeria will host a special guest for their weekly reggae night bringing British reggae artist, Pato Banton to town with his positive message. Also performing will be Kainoa tiger & Aloha 805.
Quick Notes: due to the overwhelming response, the Ojai Underground has added a second show (5 and 7:30) for Kerri Climer, Tara Jeffery and Lois Mahalia on Saturday, April 18; Grateful Dead cover bands at the Crowne Plaza on Saturday, April 18, with the Alligators and Natural Dead on Sunday, April 19; Robert Cray’s at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center on Friday, April 24; Aaron Orbit with the Blurry Stars play the Deer Loge on Friday, April 24; Paul Stookey and daughter AS Aubrey perform at the Rubicon on Saturday, April 25; and the new Safe Space venue downtown hosts Fantuzzi Tuesday, April 28.
Do you have any music-related news or upcoming shows that you would like help publicizing? Please send all information, short or long, to Pam@VenturaRocks.com. For updated music listings daily, visit www.VenturaRocks.com.