Bluegrass Basics

For more than a decade now, the Iron Mountain Boys have played bluegrass Thursday evenings at Frulatti’s Seafood and Pasta in the Ventura Harbor.

They strum and pluck the sorts of instruments everybody likes--Patrick Musone on banjo, Harold Heuser on stand-up bass, Norman Mallory on mandolin, Dennis Arnold on guitar and Carl Blevins on fiddle. And everybody sings.

The band plays traditional mountain music, folk, gospel and leg-slappin’ instrumental songs, which combine to form a mild uproar at the all-acoustic shows. At times, band members poke fun at famous dead people such as Amelia Earhart, famous sunken ships such as the Titanic or famous workaholics such as John Henry.

There is also plenty of chatting with the audience and each other between songs. And no one was paying any attention to “3rd Rock From the Sun” on television at the bar inside.

Band CEO Musone got the bluegrass bug first, started the band and is to blame for all this fun.

“I was teaching English in Connecticut and some bluegrass musicians played at the school,” Musone said. “This was when ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ and ‘Deliverance’ came out, and that kind of music was popular. I was just taken by the simplicity of it all. Along with the blues, bluegrass is the purest form of American music. We could probably play for about five hours and not play any song twice.”

When the band members leave the seaside and head inland to play a festival, wedding or a party, they dress to impress. At one time, the Iron Mountain Boys used to play on the back of a Model A dump truck, and later, a 1940 Packard, dressing as turn-of-the-century musicians. These days, the cool ride of choice is a vintage 1946 Dodge firetruck, and the band members dress up like firemen. But the Frulatti’s gig is casual and the boys come as themselves in civilian clothes.

“We started out down at that restaurant in 1986--back then it was located where the dive store is now,” Musone said. “I used to live on a boat in the harbor, and the owner of the restaurant--a good friend of mine--invited us in, and we’ve been there ever since. I even met my wife at the restaurant.”

This is a low-budget operation consisting of five guys sitting in the corner of the patio of a restaurant. There’s no stage. No mikes. No endless guitar solos. No “Howzit goin’, Venchura?” from the players. No bouncers. No attitudes. Just good, clean fun. No kidding.

“We’re a very high-energy group that just has a really good mix,” Musone said. “We enjoy playing together and I think that gets through to the audience, and then that energy bounces back to us. People have fun when we play, and when we leave, it’s sort of like turning off the radio. A lot of other musicians may be better players than we are, but we have that high energy.”

The Iron Mountain Boys are threatening to release a live CD sometime in the year 2000. If that’s too long to wait, or if even Thursday is too far off, the band will play at a pair of weekend shows at the Tierra Rejada Family Farms, a small oasis in the yet-unpaved portion of Moorpark.

DETAILS

The Iron Mountain Boys at Frulatti’s Seafood & Pasta, 1559 Spinnaker Drive, Ventura, Thu., 5:30-8:30 p.m.; free; 658-9153.

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Sex 66 is the latest in a long series of memorable bands brought to Ventura for the first time by Nicholby’s. As if the dance-inducing wild men from the Young Dubliners weren’t enough, this Sacramento-based band is more reason not to be fashionably late to tonight’s gig.

Imagine raunchy ‘60s Rolling Stones and newer country rock like the Old 97s with a dash of vintage Van Morrison--that’s Sex 66. Local equivalent: Raging Arb & the Redheads.

Nicholby’s, the upstairs dance club in Ventura, has been the place for new music for years, introducing and/or popularizing such bands as Eve 6, Southern Cross, Barrelhouse, the Uninvited, Swamp Boogie Queen, Kathleen Wilhoite and Tito & Tarantula. Sex 66 will fit in nicely with the above collection.

Band members got started in 1991, but after the inevitable creative differences and the like, it took them all this time to finally release their debut album, “Grew Up Down.” The band has been touring relentlessly all over California and the West Coast in a thinly veiled effort to unload copies of it, garnering lots of swell adjectives from seemingly astute critics. Some people will do anything to get out of Sacramento in the summertime.

DETAILS

Sex 66 and the Young Dubliners at Nicholby’s, 404 E. Main St., Ventura, tonight, 9 p.m.; $6; 653-2320.

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The members of REO Speedwagon sure didn’t go to college to learn how to be poor.

Since their beginnings 28 years ago at the University of Illinois, the band has released 17 albums, with sales of 40 million units. They will bring their vast repertoire of rockers and ballads to the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks for a Saturday night show.

The Midwestern work ethic is unmistakable when it comes to these incurable road dogs, who have been touring since the band’s inception. REO Speedwagon has a new album titled “The Ballads,” which features a dozen classic REO songs plus two new ones. According to bass player Bruce Hall, “Our band has two sides. We rock out when we play live, and ‘The Ballads’ CD is for when you want to kick back with that special person.”

While not quite as expensive as a flight back to Champaign, the tickets to hear songs such as “Only the Strong Survive” and “Keep the Fire Burnin”’ can cost up to $51.50. Maybe the REO stands for “Really Expensive Outing.”

DETAILS

REO Speedwagon at the Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks, Sat., 8 p.m. COST: $51.50, $41.50 or $31.50. CALL: 805-449-2787.