Raised in Arizona : The Gin Blossoms’ pop rock evolved from years of playing bars. They’ll share the Ventura Theatre with the Neville Brothers.

Is that a tomato on your face or is that your nose?

--Charlie McCarthy to W. C. Fields

Gin blossoms are a bloom generally indigenous to that well-worn stool at the end of the Skid Row dive that opens promptly at 6 a.m. This type of blossom aptly describes the capillaries that blow up on your face when you drink your dinner too often. Gin Blossoms is also a pop-rock band out of Tempe, Ariz.

No one particularly needs either kind of bloom this week. Not to be the spokesman for the unwelcome wagon, but the Gin Blossoms will be as unnecessary as another Jello mold at an Oklahoma family reunion when they share a Ventura Theatre gig with the Neville Brothers, a certain moneymaker with or without an opening act.

It’s basically overkill, like teaching the Hulk to use a bazooka, then buying him steel-toed boots for Christmas.

Yet any Ventura locals who can remember the I-Rails or Durango 95 will appreciate the musical Gin Blossoms.

The five Blossoms have been driving around quite a bit of late trying to induce the musically minded masses to buy their latest, “New Miserable Experience.” They’ve been on the road since summer and have done more than 80 shows with, among others, those Santa Barbarian popsters Toad the Wet Sprocket.

“We’ve been on the road since July and sometimes just sitting in the van traveling from town to town can get really old,” guitarist Scott Johnson said during a recent phoner. “Once in a while, we try to play our guitars, but there’s always one guy who wants us to shut up. Just sitting there is the most boring thing I can imagine.”

Strangely enough, “just sitting there” is what constitutes a well-behaved crowd to many a bouncer. Anyway, on a swing through rural North Carolina with Toad, the Blossoms got into trouble because bands and bouncers rarely see eye to eye.

“Once, in another band, I played at a buffalo chip throw, but with the Gin Blossoms, we started a riot,” Johnson said matter-of-factly. “It was a really small town and there were only three security guards and 1,200 kids. There was a space between the security guys and the kids, and our singer said something like, ‘There’s only three of them; why don’t you come down in front?’ Anyway, they did, and Toad ended up cutting off our beer for three weeks.”

Nothing like a good riot to whip those fans into a suitable frenzy. All it takes is four walls and the right kind of people. Besides, having people falling asleep in the audience looks bad on a band’s resume.

If a band wants to get ahead, it seems, riots are a bad idea. According to Johnson, a better idea is for the group to get out of Dodge.

“It may be easier to get signed (living in California) because L. A. is closer,” he said. “Everyone else has to travel. We did some showcases in L. A. because the record companies don’t come to Arizona. Things really got rolling for us at a local Southwest Music Festival, then later on a college music awards show, which was on MTV.”

The band will be staying in Tempe over the holidays to celebrate its fifth birthday along with a bar full of fans getting a jump on their own crop of gin blossoms.

“Tempe is really pop-oriented,” Johnson said. “There’s just a lot of guitar bands here. We’ve been traveling so much, we’re hardly home anymore. We used to play locally about three nights a week because no one had a day job. That’s probably why so many of our songs are about alcohol, because we’ve played in bars for so long.”

“New Miserable Experience” resonates with jangly guitars, happening harmonies and tight pop-rock tunes that--enjoyably--have beginnings, middles and ends. There’s a little country twang on a few of the songs (hey, it’s Arizona) plus some ragin’ Cajun accordion by C. J. Chenier on the aptly named “Cajun Song.”

“It was our producer, John Hampton, who recorded that part. I don’t know if he knew him or not, but I think it was just a paying gig for Chenier. Hampton wanted a Texas sound but Chenier insisted on a Cajun sound and that’s how it ended up. The band wasn’t even there. We came home for the weekend, went back and it was done.”

OK, sports fans, here’s the part you’ll want to read: How ‘bout those Phoenix Suns and would Charles Barkley wear a Gin Blossoms T-shirt?

“I hope so,” Johnson said. “Well, I dunno if he would, but he should because our singer is a hard-core Suns fan and always wears a Suns shirt.”

The Gin Blossoms will be opening for the Nevilles at the Ventura Theatre on Wednesday night about 8. They may also be playing the night before at Club Soda in Ventura. Call 652-0100 to check it out.

Look in the usual dive bars or in the mirror tomorrow for the other kind of gin blossoms.