Bar Band : The Tijuana Hound Dogs Are a Crowd Pleaser--Week In, Week Out

On a winter night about 20 years ago, my friend decided to take a walk on the beach. In those days, locals could still walk on the beach at night, build a fire or sleep without fear of mean bums, gangbangers or cops. The next morning, my friend returned and told me he had seen John Lennon perform at John’s at the Beach. Sure, and the Stones are gonna cook dinner and then play in the back yard. But he spoke the truth. Lennon did, in fact, jam in Ventura a couple of times.

These days, John is jamming with Jimi and Janis, John’s at the Beach is now Eric Ericsson’s; and my friend, ever the same, has moved up north with all those Giants fans. The Tijuana Hound Dogs--Frank Barajas and Chris Byrd--provide the soundtrack for the patrons at the Oyster Bar inside Eric’s.

If these two acoustic warriors brought their girlfriends, the place would be packed. Well, almost. These Dogs are cool cats, and they have fans. About 30 or 40 people totally jammed this place. It gets so crowded that patrons end up sitting by the musicians, in the corner.

The Oyster Bar, decorated in nautical themes such as the wall picture of a dolphin wearing shades, is mostly a thirtysomething bar serving Pierpont locals. Also, like a ‘40s movie but in color, everyone seems to smoke cigarettes, giving the Oyster Bar all the ambience of Chernobyl on a Saturday night. But fortunately, the ventilation system works well and non-smokers won’t choke.

John Prine, a smoker of chimney proportions, was on the sound system while the band set up. Football with the sound off amused the sports fans but not nearly so much as Oregon Honey Beer on tap.

Byrd has had this gig for about a year and a half, the past year with Barajas. Blues guitarist Randy Norris had the gig originally, then Byrd and his buddy Dave Henderson took over. After Henderson moved to Bakersfield, Byrd added Barajas, and Toby Emery of Raging Arb & the Redheads gave them a name.

Byrd has been playing guitar for a number of years and has been in a bunch of local bands such as the Killer Turtles, Evil Puppets and Back Against the Wall. He also must shoulder much of the blame for Raging Arb & the Redheads, since he taught a number of them how to play. When he goes to their gigs, he usually sits in for wild, set-ending renditions of “Sweet Jane” and “Not Fade Away.”

“Those guys had the name before they had the band, and I was giving Toby, J. D. (John Drury) and Arb (John House) guitar lessons,” said Byrd. “When they first got together, they had all this raggedy equipment in Arb’s garage. The first song they learned was ‘C’mon Everybody,’ by Eddie Cochran. They had Arb and Toby on guitar. I played bass, and we got J. D. to sing it. We scared all the neighborhood cats.”

Barajas is also well known on the local music scene. For one, he’s worked at the same place for so long, they should give him top billing, as in Frank’s Music Plus. Barajas’ past bands include Film at Eleven, Crashing Plains, the Strangers, Durango 95 and now JuJu Eyeball.

“I started playing guitar when I was 17, but I always wanted to play before that,” he said. “I was scared until I started seeing all these New Wave bands. After I saw the Ramones, I thought, ‘Hey, I can do that.’ With Chris, I let him play all the leads and I just sing over them and just play chords.”

The duo knows about 50 songs with almost a set of originals. Plus there’s nowhere else to hear Durango 95 songs such as their classic pop rocker, “Bound for You.” Then again, in bars as the beer flows, so do ideas for some geeky song someone thought was cool once. Translation: The inevitable “Play ‘Freebird,’ dude!”

“A lot of times people will ask for a song, and usually we know some part of it, so we give them as much as we can,” said Byrd. “One night one guy offered us 50 bucks to play a Rod Stewart song, and, fortunately, my mom was there and she knew the words and wrote them down for us and I knew the music.”

For influences, Byrd likes Ry Cooder, Jimi Hendrix and the Stones. Barajas likes “one of my favorite guys with glasses from Lubbock, Tex.: Buddy Holly,” also Chuck Berry, Elvis and the Beatles. Besides their originals, the duo plays songs by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Prince, the Stones and Holly, all of which go over nearly as well as free beer.

This is not brain surgery, just an unpretentious gig with a couple of guys who like to play and a receptive audience of regulars who like what they hear. The Tijuana Hound Dogs are also eminently affordable. The Friday show, which begins at 7 p.m. and goes on for four hours, is free.

“Our goal is to work some more originals once the holidays are over,” said Byrd.

Bill Locey, who writes regularly on rock ‘n’ roll, has survived the mosh pit and the local music scene for many years.