The Fairest of Voltaire : Afternoon and evening with the cafe’s female stars will feature eight acts and a guy named Marty.

On tap for Saturday: the Women of Cafe Voltaire, a musical celebration featuring several of the ladies who frequently grace the stage at the popular Ventura venue.

Actually, it’s the Women of Voltaire and Marty, but more on that later.

At least eight acts will participate in owner Todd Winokur’s latest promotion, which will begin Saturday afternoon.

Most of the players are solo acts such as Cory Sipper, Susan Sheller, Wendy Bucklew, Suzanne Paris and Teresa Russell--the last three having nearly as much hair as Voltaire himself but better singing voices. Also on the bill is the most famous band in all of Foster Park, Left of Memphis, plus the Tatters and Atticus, featuring heartfelt love songs by Wendy Johnson.

This will be one of the last Big Deal shows at the former site of the city’s bus barn, which is being converted to offices. The music venue will relocate temporarily at Ash Street Gardens until the new home for Cafe Voltaire, near the corner of Palm and Main, is ready.

Left of Memphis will probably end up going on about 9 p.m. Just finishing its second CD, “A Little Bit of Rain,” the band is a duo featuring the diminutive Leslie Merical and tall guy Marty Van Loan, no woman of Voltaire by any stretch. The pair submitted to a brief grilling during a break at a recent gig at Zoey’s in Ventura.

So why not Left of Oak View?

Van Loan: We were originally called Papa Krishna Marty & the Omnipresence, but nobody really got it, so we changed the name to Memphis, after Memphis, Egypt. Then we changed it to Left of Memphis--Oak View was out from the very beginning.

How did the band get started?

Merical: Marty was in another band, Vuja De that kept changing its name every gig just to stay one step ahead of the fans. I invited myself into the group. Next, I dissolved the band, sort of like Yoko, and Marty and I went off on our own to do weirder stuff.

How weird?

Merical: We play rogue folk.

Van Loan: It’s just her and I, us and the songs, plus various sidemen. Ideally, I’d like to see guitar, bass and no drums. The more stuff you add, the more it becomes about the production and less about the lyrics and the songs, and if we have anything going at all, it’s the lyrics.

Who writes the songs?

Merical: This is what we really do: We grump at each other and commit partner abuse. On a good night, people will catch us fighting onstage about a song Marty and I wrote apart. We co-write in a weird way. We don’t write in the same room, but we leave things lying around for the other person to find. Also, Jeff Evans of Hyperplush writes about 30% of the songs.

How do you see the local music scene these days?

Merical: More people lately have been coming out to listen.

Van Loan: Musicians still aren’t getting paid. I was making more 10 years ago playing at Charlie’s.

So what’s the plan for Left of Memphis?

Van Loan: We’re going to keep writing songs, maybe get a different band together. We like the acoustic thing, but we want to do the electric rock thing, too.

Merical: We want to try to get our songs out there on soundtracks and television shows. We believe in passive income.

Van Loan: Right. We want famous people to record our songs. We don’t want to go on the road for 300 days a year, but we’d be willing to let someone else do that.

Marty, how does it feel to be the tallest guy at the Women of Voltaire festival?

Van Loan: I’m going to wear pumps. Sitting down, I’m still taller than she is.

DETAILS

The Women of Voltaire with Left of Memphis, Teresa Russell, Cory Sipper, Suzanne Paris, Wendy Bucklew, the Tatters, Susan Sheller and Atticus at Cafe Voltaire, 34 N. Palm St., Ventura, Sat. 3 p.m. $3. 641-1743.

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Fishin’ and campin’--that’s Lake Casitas. Add dancin’ on Saturday, when C.J. Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band bring their brand of foot-friendly zydeco to the shore. Opening the 6 p.m. show will be the popular and talented local jam band Euphoria.

Chenier has the zydeco thing figured out--after all, he’s the son of the king himself, the legendary Clifton Chenier, who not only used to wear a crown onstage but popularized zydeco and even invented the Z word. Since his father’s death in 1987, the young Chenier, sort of a zydeco Ziggy Marley, has been carrying on the zydeco legacy, even inheriting his dad’s accordion and his players, the Red Hot Louisiana Band.

C.J. wasn’t totally unprepared for the job--he had been in bands before joining his father’s group in 1978--but he had never heard zydeco music and had never played an accordion. The youngster embarked on an aggressive on-the-job training program and learned his trade by standing next to his father during a zillion gigs on an endless road trip. And to this day, the band is still on the road more than Burt Reynolds in one of those car chase movies, but attracting fewer cops and infinitely more dancers.

DETAILS

C.J. Chenier and Euphoria at Lake Casitas, 11311 Santa Ana Road, Oak View, Saturday, 6 p.m. $15 adults ($13 advance) seniors $10. 646-7230.

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The bathing beauty up to her thighs in water depicted on the dance poster probably won’t be there, or if she is, she’ll probably be wearing different clothes. In any case, four Latino bands will rock the Casa del Mexicano in Santa Paula tonight. The lineup will include Los Muecas, Cadetes de Linares, Banda el Limon and Firma del Norte.

Tickets for the 8 p.m. show are $15 in advance or a serious ten bucks more at the door. Tickets are available at Perfect Cuts locations in Fillmore, El Rio, Oxnard and Ventura. To find out more, call 487-0102.

DETAILS

Los Muecas, Cadetes de Linares, Banda el Limon and Firma del Norte at Casa del Mexicano, 218 S. 11th St., Santa Paula, tonight, 7 p.m. $15 advance or $25 at the door. 487-0102.

* Bill Locey can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]