Ventura County Star from Ventura, California • 87

I i i i i v-' One-man acoustic show gets away from Crocodiles Nerf Herder not just a pretty name i ill ti By Bin Locey Correspondent Preston Smith best known as the marquee portion of that long-running LA band Preston Smith the Crocodiles will be leaving the reptiles at home for weekend gigs in Ventura Asongsmitn of some renown Smith will play selections from his vast repertoire every Sunday in January at Wine Lovers The show starts at 2 pm In addition to the music there's all those little free pizzas they bake over an open fire in a kiln and hand out as fast as they can make them Smith will be doing the one-man-band thing which makes it easy to split the dough at die end of the night Smith is something of a rarity: a working musician who operates as an independent He's not signed but he makes albums He's not on MTV but he's had his songs in several films and he plays all the time Also he could play all the time for a long time He knows around 500 songs covering just about well you name it As for musical genes this transplanted Texan says he's third cousin Don't be surprised if Smith does a few of his distant relative's songs at Wine Lovers The singer discussed the latest during recent phoner So how' I the Preston biz? I've got a couple of CDs two or three on my own label My last cme Real came out year before last then I had a Christmas album last year I had another CD on CurbCapitol I had a soundtrack with the tom Cruise movie that sold 6 million Roseanne Cash had a hit with a song I wrote 'Black and it's on her greatest hits album I wrote music for The a Julia Roberts movie and I sang for Barbra Streisand's wedding Her wedding was pretty odd They let me do my thing whatever I wanted I just used my own discretion ByBMLocey Corespondent Laughter and rock 'n' roll will combine in strange and interesting ways when those wild and crazy guys in Nerf Herder entertain die locals during a hometown appearance Wednesday at Velvet Jones in Santa Barbara On the Goofball Scale members of Nerf Herder more than hold their own with the likes of the Rugbums the Ziggens die Uninvited and about a millkm other punk bands Named for a line in "The Empire Strikes Nerf Herder is frantic frontman Parry Gripp on vocals and guitar Steve Sherlock on drums Justin Fisher on bass and Dave Ehrlich cm guitar The band has been around for so long they used to be somebody else The band debuted on load label My Records then landed a Set NERF HERDER on Mgs IS Getting There Please see SMITH on Paps 14 Getting There NERF HERDER Punk band known for performing the theme song for the TV show the Vampire makes a hometown appearance with Plesiosaur and Loudermilk 9 pm Wednesday at Velvet Jones 423 State St Santa Barbara $6 965-8676 PRESTON SMITH Songsmith plays solo acoustic music 2 pm Sundays through January at Wine Lovers 1067 Thompson Blvd Ventura 652-1810 No cover For more information visit wwwprestonsmlthcom Named for a line In "The Empire Strikes the baad-Nerf Herder will play Wednesday In Santa Barbara aw JfJ The Star wbn3 isKS erfT wT 51 Friday Jan 18 2002 Time Out 13.