MUSIC / ZOO STORY : Westmont Sound : They may be from a small liberal arts college in Montecito, but they can still rock the joints they play.

Zoo Story vocalist Ray George couldn’t hit notes any higher than he already does because physics is against him: Anything higher and he might float into the stratosphere only to be shot down by the Air Force, making for a bad ending to a so far happy beginning for this new band.

Ethereal and near-perfect describe his high notes, notes most of us can only dream of, except of course when you stub your toe on a cold morning.

Zoo Story formed at Westmont College, a small liberal arts college in Montecito. That’s the place where all the roads are tree-lined and look exactly the same. You can drive around for hours and find nothing and get nowhere.

Besides being based in Montecito, Zoo Story is unusual for two other reasons: Two of the five members--bassist Kevin Rentz and saxophonist-flutist Ron McCarley--are actually locals, and none of the quintet has anything to do with UC Santa Barbara or Isla Vista. The other members are George, guitarist and songwriter Will Rainbow and drummer Stephen Niednagel, who attends UCLA but drives up for the gigs.

According to Rentz, Zoo Story was created two years ago by George and Rainbow, who lived together on campus.

“They used to have a bongo player for a while and played at the campus coffee shop, The Study,” he said. “The band’s sound really changed four months ago when Ron and I joined. Originally, I was a trumpet player and played mostly in jazz bands. We all just kinda met and started practicing. We all have different influences and are musically pretty diverse. Personally, I like the Cure and Primus, and a lot of the guys in the band like the Grateful Dead.”

No one’s going to mistake Westmont for Party Central Bicycle State U. (UCSB); it’s a Christian school. It’s also the school that doesn’t keep the neighbors awake or have cops circling like buzzards.

“You get a really quality education there,” said Rentz, Westmont alumnus, now in the hotel business. “The professors are excellent.”

Besides George hitting those high notes, the band also has Rainbow and McCarley singing backup, making for some spiffy three-part harmonies. Besides that, McCarley wails on sax and when he’s not doing that, he plays flute. This gives the band a distinctive sound.

“I think we’re a mix between folk-rock and jazz,” Rentz said. “Some of our guitar chord changes are from jazz, but we rock. There’s a simplicity to our music that appeals to the populace, but also some technical stuff that appeals to musicians. We do all originals except for one Dead song, ‘Deal,’ which is a lot faster when we do it. Lyrically, the songs aren’t real serious; we’re just kinda having fun. Sometimes we have some dancers, but most of the people just stare. They’re just reserved or else too drunk to get off the stool, but I think our music is danceable.”

At this point, it’s much better to be a new band in Santa Barbara than, say, Ventura, where bands are many and venues are few. Of course, in Santa Barbara, everybody’s in a band, wants to be in a band or was in a band.

But that’s OK because from the 100 block of State Street and The Dolphin Tavern up to the 600 block and Alex’s Cantina, there’s almost no end to the bars with live bands playing every night.

“There’s certainly a lot of opportunity to play in this town,” said Rentz. “This month we’re playing twice a week, which is a lot, and we have a big following from Westmont. Nobody in town seems to pay much, but we haven’t played the big-money places like the Brewhouse or the Beach Shack and we haven’t had a weekend gig yet. We’ve played ay Alex’s, Toes Tavern and Buster’s in Goleta, and we really like Joseppi’s because there’s a real homey atmosphere there. We used to play at Kaldi’s in Montecito, but we had a falling out with them.”

OK, there are a million other bands and daddy doesn’t own Capitol Records. So now what?

“When we play at Westmont tomorrow night, we’re going to have an engineer make a live recording,” said the pensive bassist. “Then, we want to go into the studio and do three or four songs on a 24-track and send those demos off to record companies. We’re going to be on a compilation CD of S.B. bands. It’s going to cost $300, but it will give us studio experience, which we don’t have.”

Named for a typically neurotic piece written by Edward Albee, the band doesn’t seem to have any Madonna-sized ego problems.

“We’re just in it for the music,” Rentz said. “We think it’s a gift from God to play and we share it. It’s great just playing music and making people happy with the abilities you’ve been given. We’re just going to finish off the year, send out our demo and see if we can get signed. We work well together.”

* WHERE AND WHEN

Zoo Story at Toes Tavern, 416 State St., Santa Barbara, 965-4655, 9-ish, free admission, free pizza--that’ll work! Also Friday night at Porter Hall on the campus of Westmont College, 955 La Paz Road, Montecito, 565-6200, two bucks.