Reggae Takes Root : Music: The Jamaican import can now be heard almost every day of the week, but the bands have made some modifications.

Has the 805 area code been secretly annexed by Jamaica? Why is all this reggae everywhere? You can’t go out to a nightspot these days without tripping over a dreadlock.

Reggae bands are proliferating in the Ventura-Santa Barbara area. Reggae can be found regularly at such happening venues as Splash in Simi Valley, Cisco’s and the Left Bank in Oxnard, the Elephant Bar and the Bombay Bar and Grill in Ventura, the Brewhouse, Toes Tavern and the Beach Shack in Santa Barbara, and at Caribbean Cuisine in Goleta. Larger reggae shows are held from time to time at the Ventura Theatre, the Santa Barbara County Bowl and the Anaconda Theater in Isla Vista.

That’s the way it is as of, say, 10 minutes ago. Within the local music scene, band members and venues turn over more often than the Rams’ offense. Still, reggae can be heard up to six times a week if you’re willing to drive.

Reggae is, after all, a compelling and peculiar musical form. Like the blues, it was born in poverty, this time on the island of Jamaica. Its performance was an act not only of syncopated, danceable joy but a deed of black liberation. As it swept worldwide markets, however, reggae’s rustic melodic structures and protest lyrics were blunted for mainstream, multiracial tastes.

That’s how it is in Ventura County. Reggae moderne: progressive and changing and fusionesque while staying faithful to basic feel-good rhythms. It is practiced by racially mixed bands. And just as the music and its practitioners have changed, so has reggae’s market. It goes up and down, but it never goes away.

Reggae, it is clear, is here to stay.

To understand the profusion of mostly white Ventura youths clotting the bars that feature reggae, first consider the music. It has less humor than the Jamaican Bobsled Team, but a much better beat. Part African rhythms, part jazz, part New Orleans R & B hogged off American radio--it all came together in the early ‘60s in Jamaica to form reggae music.

There are several varieties of reggae--the one-song, one-beat, one-week reggae is the slower, rootsy, rock-steady stuff. Ska music is upbeat reggae. With toasting, a DJ talks fast over an instrumental track. Dance-hall and hip-hop reggae, the latest incarnations, are basically rap with a reggae beat.

Reggae hit its stride in 1973 with the release of the film “The Harder They Come,” which put its star, Jimmy Cliff, on the map. The Wailers soon after put Bob Marley and Peter Tosh on the map; death took them off. Marley died of cancer in 1981 and Tosh was murdered in Kingston during a robbery attempt.

Reggae was at its peak for a couple of years, faded away, then resurfaced as a ska revival around 1980, fueled by such racially mixed bands as Selector, the Specials and the English Beat. Even the Police and the Clash trumpeted their reggae influences.

Reggae comes and goes and Marley remains the only consistent seller on an international basis. Reggae never really catches on and never really goes away. In general, reggae seems more pervasive as an influence than in its pure form.

Locally, it’s more or less the same story. Up-tempo, danceable ska is the major influence. And while there are so many local reggae bands that one could lay their dreadlocks end to end and reach Tierra del Fuego, only a handful of them do really well.

Urban Dread is big in Simi Valley and elsewhere in the county and is cultivating a foothold in Santa Barbara. The Irie Ites do well in their hometown of Oxnard and in Ventura as well. Common Sense and Crucial DBC and The Ska’s the Limit are big draws in Santa Barbara. The Ventura-based Lion I’s do well everywhere in the area.

“We don’t go for the hard-core reggae, but the mellower stuff,” said David Schupbach, co-owner of Stingers, a newer Ventura club. “The Irie Ites were dynamite at first, but then they started playing all over town, and it fell off for us. But Lion I’s, now that’s a different story.”

Since every group can’t be the Lion I’s, that also means every club owner can’t have them every night. And that means that not every club is doing well, and that the vast majority of club owners have yet to retire to Maui with their reggae income.

Eric Ericsson’s in Ventura, long the reggae hangout, closed its bar over a year ago. Now it rocks about as much as your average fish restaurant. The Bermuda Triangle, Club Soda and Stingers, all in Ventura, recently gonged their weekly reggae shows.

Michael Levine, the man to blame for the gigs that used to be known as the Levine Scene, has been booking reggae acts in Ventura for a decade, long before anyone mispronounced Lion I’s or Irie Ites.

His groups appeared at Eric’s, then at Bombay Bar and Grill, the Bermuda Triangle and finally at Club Soda. But Levine quit booking his weekly reggae show at the end of September.

“There used to be eight reggae shows per week in Ventura, and now there’s about half that,” he said. “It seems that each summer, everybody gets real involved, then it falls off. Stingers was doing two nights and now, none.”

Club owners generally are not too daring when it comes to booking acts with uncertain drawing power. That’s why, with the exception of a few bands, reggae is played on the deader nights of the week.

The Bombay is doing well with its reggae show on Sundays. The Brewhouse and Toes Tavern in S. B. also have Sunday reggae programs. Splash in Simi Valley and the Elephant Bar in Ventura are doing the reggae thing on Wednesdays. The Irie Ites usually play somewhere in Oxnard on Thursdays.

Up the road in Santa Barbara, with its large population of students, reggae is popular. But according to Robert Antonini, who books the Anaconda Theater, the trends are mixed.

“The major reggae artists are either dead or not performing. Radio doesn’t play reggae much anymore; when they do, they play the old stuff. I think reggae is declining in popularity, but it’s still strong among college students.”

Joey Summerville, who books both Alex’s Cantina locations in S. B. and Goleta, echoed the sentiments of many Ventura County entrepreneurs. The fans may like it, the club owners, maybe not.

“Each club has had their problems, but a lot of reggae fans drink water. We’re in the bar business, and water drinkers make it very tough.”

Nonetheless, fans seem to stick to their favorite groups, most of whom play up-tempo, homogenized reggae, not the hard-core roots variety.

Most local reggae fans are white and middle-class, as are many of the musicians in the more popular groups.

“Hey, most blues guys aren’t black guys from Mississippi,” said Darren Cruz of the Irie Ites. “Maybe it would be cool if we were black guys with dreadlocks, but race isn’t even an issue. There is no color involved in reggae in California.”

The issue is musical taste--hoards of people wanting to listen to and, more to the point, dance to feel-good music.

“Americans have an instant culture,” said Levine. “They take a pill for this or that. Brought up on TV, they want instant gratification, just like MTV. Rootsy reggae stays in the same groove for a very long time. Americans like more progressive reggae.”

Chris Jelly, who managed Charlie’s in Ventura, did well with local reggae bands--first the Lion I’s and later Urban Dread--until the club’s demise in October.

“I think reggae is still hanging in there good and strong,” Jelly said. “It’s a more reliable draw than rock ‘n’ roll, even though it draws the same crowd, a bunch of locals.”

Cruz, of the Irie Ites, said reggae is keeping his band very busy.

“People are digging it,” he said. “It’s even big in Japan. That’s because reggae is an easy-listening music. It’s easy to dance to and keeps a distinctive flavor, and it caters to young and old. Reggae is easy to play and it sounds good.”

And Jason Bourne of Urban Dread, based in the San Fernando Valley, said his group is playing almost every night.

“People like to come and hang out after their stressed-out day jobs.”

According to Gary Baldwin, who owns the Beach Shack in Santa Barbara, reggae is definitely happening. He regularly books Lion I’s and Common Sense. The reggae movement, he said, is part of a new old movement toward love and . . . you guessed it.

“Peace. I’m serious. That’s why reggae is so popular,” he said. “Things have just gotten so violent in the last 18 months--Desert Storm, the L. A. riots. I think when people go out, they don’t want friction, they want relaxation.

“There’s enough tragedy out there already--car payments, the rent, child support. I don’t think stuff like the (Red Hot) Chili Peppers will last. It’s too painful. The roots reggae has a loyal following, but the more homogenized reggae is happening for us. Every rich college kid with a thousand bucks of dental work is there.”

It’s Not Jamaica, But You’ll Need a Guide

* Bamiki Bandula: The McGregor brothers from Belize combine calypso and soca with their Central American brand of reggae.

* Common Sense: Yuppie homogenized reggae from 714 country by some former UCSB students who outdraw everybody at the Beach Shack in Santa Barbara.

* Crucial DBC: A longtime Big Time draw in S.B. These guys do the rockin’ ska thing, sort of an English Beat from S.B. by way of Ohio. They don’t play so much anymore, but when they do, it’s a hit. Incidentally, DBC stands for “Dread Beat Control” or “Dead Brain Cells,” depending.

* Das: Local reggae dude out of Philadelphia who’s been doing this for a decade at least.

* Irie Ites: This is upbeat reggae by a bunch of finheads from Silver Strand who used to play five nights a week. Quite the draw near their home.

* Jah Bone: Upbeat reggae by members of other bands. They’re on the Brewhouse, Beach Shack, Toes Tavern moneymaking circuit in S.B.

* Jawge & the Unknown Band: Not how they say “George” in Boston, but a mixture of calypso, soca and reggae from this St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, native.

* Lion I’s: The happening draw in the 805 area code, big in Ventura and Santa Barbara. Once a hard-core reggae band, the octet now incorporates R & B, soul, ska and rock.

* Love Masters: Bandleader and bass player Ras Lion trained under Robbie Shakespeare of Black Uhuru fame. This band has a powerful female singer.

* Manazart: Hard-rockin’ reggae from S.B., usually at the Beach Shack or Toes Tavern, occasionally at Bombay in Ventura.

* One Love Vibration: Ras David and the boys do the very rootsy, one-beat, one-song, one-week thing, which is very repetitious and relaxing.

* O.P. Stylee: Sort of a homogenized yup-scale band from--are you ready?--Bakersfield. They’ve torn up the Central Valley and are trying for a foothold on the coast.

* Professor Einstein & Sapadilla: Some rootsy reggae but mostly upbeat stuff from this Trinidad dude now based in L.A.

* Ska’s the Limit: Cleverly named upbeat band playing you know what.

* Underground Roots Syndicate: Another very rootsy outfit that does the slow stuff. In this band, the tall guy on the left without the dreadlocks is Luke McAuliffe, formerly of the band everybody misses, the Mudheads.

* The Upbeats: It’s ska music all the way from Carpinteria.

* Urban Dread: The hardest-working reggae band in SoCal, this Valley-based unit has about three days off a month. Upbeat danceable reggae, sort of like Lion I’s--sometimes they even use the Lion I’s horn section. They play Wednesdays at Splash in Simi Valley.