Musical Offspring

Ah! To be young, talented and busy!

Brian Wurschum and Laurel Hoffman are members of majority DOG, a Newbury Park-based band that’s one of the more popular rock groups in Ventura County. For most performers, one successful group would be enough, but not for Wurschum and Hoffman.

They also perform together as a duo--one guitar and two voices. They call themselves Zelig after the old Woody Allen movie. And Zelig is playing tonight at Common Grounds in Northridge.

Are these two: 1) workaholics? 2) dedicated artists? 3) megalomaniacs? or 4) all of the above?

“Majority DOG plays all original material,” explains Wurschum. “But Zelig lets us perform songs by Simon & Garfunkel, the Beatles, Peter, Paul & Mary, the Everly Brothers and even majority DOG.”

Three years ago, majority DOG was the first local rock band to perform at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. Showing a lot of chutzpah, the band forked over the $875 rental fee out of its own collective pocket. Showing a lot of business smarts, they sold out the place and managed a profit.

And now Zelig will follow suit: Wurschum and Hoffman are slated to perform at Civic Arts Plaza’s 400-seat Forum Theatre on Jan. 17. And the duo also has a CD titled “Race You to the Sun,” due out around that time.

And what about majority DOG, which also includes singer April Hoffman, bassist Scott Swanson and drummer Kevin Kirk?

Well, that’s going OK too, Wurschum says. The band continues to play regularly throughout Ventura County and elsewhere. And it recently signed a deal with Warner Bros. for its music to be used in some film and TV projects.

So, life is sweet, albeit busy, for Wurschum and Hoffman. So sweet that the two canceled earlier plans to move to London.

“It’s somewhere we’ve always wanted to go,” Wurschum said. “But life has decided we’re not going to be moving any time soon.”

* Zelig plays at 10 tonight at Common Grounds, 9250 Reseda Blvd., Northridge. (818) 882-3666. No cover.

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Blues Fever: It’s still spreading.

Finis Tasby and his band will bring their 12-bar sounds inside the rarefied atmosphere of the Universal City Hilton and Towers’ Lobby Lounge this weekend.

“We’re going to make him a regular, if enough people show up.” said Hilton spokeswoman Arlene Davidson.

Tasby, a native of Dallas, Texas, has been playing the blues since 1962. Over the years, he’s performed with such notables as Lowell Fulson, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Percy Mayfield and Big Mama Thornton.

After 30-plus years, Tasby’s first solo album, “People Don’t Care,” was released in 1995 and three songs from the album were included in the soundtrack of the 1995 film “The Babysitter.”

* Finis Tasby and his band play from 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday at the Universal City Hilton and Towers’ Lobby Lounge, Universal City. (818) 509-2030.

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Double Redux: Good news for all you Partridge Heads out there. Big things are also happening for Sound Magazine, the Valley-based Partridge Family tribute band.

The group will open for K.C. and the Sunshine Band in a ‘70s Retro Show on Jan. 2 at the House of Blues. If that was not enough, Sound Magazine has also gotten involved in a CD tribute to another ‘70s band, KISS.

Sound Magazine has just recorded a Partridge-esque version of the Kiss song “Shout It Out Loud” for the upcoming CD titled “KAOL 2--Creatures of the Net.”

So, for those who are keeping score, what we have here is: a tribute band to one 1970s act paying tribute to another ‘70s act, but performing the material as if they were the original ‘70s act.

Whew!

You remember KISS, the band that performed in Kabuki-style makeup led by a singer with the serpentine tongue? And the Partridge Family--Shirley Jones, David Cassidy--wholesome, pretty, all-American.

“It does seem an unlikely mix,” admitted Sound Magazine leader Howard Pattow.

Sound Magazine’s version of “Shout It Out Loud” was mixed by Bob Ezrin, who produced the original track for Kiss’ 1976 album “Destroyer.”

“It was a challenge to go into the studio with the original KISS version and then ask ourselves, ‘OK, now how would Wes Farrell [producer of the original Partridge Family records] have approached this tune?’ ” Pattow said. “In a way, our version of ‘Shout It Out Loud’ sounds like an unreleased Partridge Family song.”

Proceeds from the Kiss tribute album will go to the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in the name of Eric Carr, the former KISS drummer who died in 1991 of cancer. It’s due out in January.