Emphasis on the Eclectic

The Gluey Brothers are a band with a weird name. They also play weird music that reflects a self-made weirdo wonderland.

The group moved from Los Angeles to Santa Fe a year ago, but now return to California to play with regularity. They’ll be at Nicholby’s in Ventura on Friday night and at Toes Tavern in Santa Barbara on Saturday. At the Ventura gig, in a double bill almost as odd as the Surf Punks and Journey, the Gluey Brothers will open for those smooth acoustic rockers in Southern Cross.

The Gluey Brothers, peerless purveyors of “Glue Age Music,” include two guys who aren’t brothers, and their musical pals. The guy with the goatee is MC Tahina, and his partner in a biz already overrun with royalty is King Hummus.

Their backup band, the Seasoned Originals, features Dollar Store Cowboy, Baby Jesus, D.J. Redwing and Cathy Propane. Needless to say, these aren’t their real names, but apparently the Gluey Brothers really are playing.

Except for the cowboy hats, the Gluey Brothers look like they went shopping with Herb Tarlek, the ad salesman from television’s “WKRP.” They wear mismatched clothes that are so loud and generally scary that they should be required to come equipped with dark glasses--for the patrons.

Now the music is another story. According to reviewers, it’s “dyslexic eclectic” or perhaps “the Blues Brothers on acid.” In any case, it’s stream of consciousness rapping and singing, while the band lays down some tight funk, jazz and rock jams.

They’ve all heard Frank Zappa before, or as the King himself said during a recent phone interview: “It’s Tahina and I looking through the human aquarium, using a lot of different styles. We’re all for breaking down the walls, and telling what we believe to be out there. We don’t judge people by the color of their neck. There is humor there, although we don’t intentionally write funny songs. People don’t realize how serious this is to us.”

Yeah, right. In any case and all seriousness aside, a Gluey Brothers gig features weird (there’s that word again) skits that start and stop for no apparent reason, much like a 16-year-old trying to figure out a stick shift.

“There’s a definite theatrical element to the Gluey Brothers,” said the King. “Before we started getting bigger gigs, we were more theatrical. We still do different sketches and characters between songs.”

After the songs are over, it is time to become another one of their major characters--the road dog.

“The music scene in New Mexico is pretty thin, but it’s a great springboard for us because we play the Southwest, Colorado and the West Coast,” said the King. “If we had more money, we’d get a bus so we could stretch out instead of sleeping knee to nose in the van. This way, we only get three to four hours of sleep per night. It’s tough.”

And so, said the King, is life in Los Angeles, at least for struggling musicians.

“It’s very easy to get lost in the shuffle in L.A. We’ve seen some of our friends--very talented people--not going anywhere, just waiting around. We weren’t waiting around, we decided to do it,” he said. “L.A. is not the be all and end all.”

The Gluey Brothers have been together for a few years. They worked the coffeehouse circuit with a 20-year-old drum machine in L.A. before heading East and forming the band. Their debut album, which took nearly a year to finish, is doing OK so far. The band recently ordered a second thousand of product.

“Basically we did it ourselves for financial reasons and we wanted total control. We put it out the way we wanted, from the length of it--it’s 75 minutes--to the cover art,” said the King. “My grandmother says she likes it, and she wouldn’t lie.”

* The Gluey Brothers and Southern Cross play at 9:30 p.m. Friday at Nicholby’s, 404 E. Main St., Ventura. $6. Call 653-2320.

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Best of Local Bands: Besides being what every native wishes for his hometown, “Locals Only” was also, once upon a time, the title of a gnarly Surf Punks album. These days, it’s the name of a TV show that features local bands doing their thing, and is on up to 17 times per day on a variety of local channels no one watches too much.

Former Surf Punker Denny Dragon and his partner Ian Stewart, owners of Reset Records, are to be blamed for all this.

Dragon and Stewart, a couple of guys with too much time and money, spent the last year wandering from San Luis Obispo to Ventura to tape local bands playing live in their favorite dives.

“So what?” you say. So this: Reset Records has just released a three-CD set featuring 24 of the best of the local bands. A CD release party is scheduled for Nicholby’s on Saturday night and will feature a few of the bands playing live--Enok, Nonfiction and Nada.

One of the best bands on the compilation--the Uninvited--are not locals, but from the Bay Area. Their live tunes taped from a Thursday at Nicholby’s are classic.

One of them, “That’s What You Get,” is a devastating reply to the old “Can’t we just be friends?” scenario. The answer is a resounding “Hell, no!” CDs will be available at the gig or by calling Reset at 566-3375.