'Hit Your Soul'

Arcadia's Toby Semain Band throws
CD release party at the Scene Bar
with guests Zachariah, Williams G

By Bliss

Making the Scene: The Toby Semain Band plays Saturday in Glendale.

Just as many actors ambitiously proclaim "What I really want to do is direct," so do a number of musicians harbor dreams of producing.

Arcadia's Toby Semain is no exception. His self-named band, a six-man funk-rock-blues outfit, remains his foremost and most gratifying priority. But he's excited by the challenges of sculpting sound.

"I like producing because I like hearing all the instruments coming together," he says. "One of my strong suits is being able to hear all the instruments before they're recorded. What I like about recording is when I write something and I start layering guitars and instruments and harmonies and hearing everything come together because I picture it that way in my head. " I love playing live [too]."

Come Saturday, Semain will hoist his electric guitar and front his band — bassist Richard Guttenberg, drummer Scott Lorenzini, keyboardist Jere Krischel, backup vocalist Scott Pitts and percussionist Joel Chouinard — at the Scene Bar's CD release party for their just-released third album, "Hit Your Soul." Semain, of course, produced it; he's also produced tracks for various singer-songwriters in the area. (It's tougher to "make it" as a band when you're competing in one of the world's central media markets — "There're just too many darn people who want to be rock stars," Semain laughs — but that proximity to opportunity is a boon for wannabe producers.)

Unlike their last album, "Hit Your Soul" forgoes instrumentals and jams in favor of more tightly focused, thumping hook-and-chorus-structured songs — a nod to Semain's inner producer, or perhaps a reflection of self-proclaimed main influence Scott Weiland and Stone Temple Pilots.

"Hit Your Soul" conveys the vibe of a bar band in the best sense of the term: the songs are by turns funky, soulful, rocking and/or grooving and bluesy. Semain's guitar churns, Krischel's organ runs ring, and the performances snap with the elasticity that comes from players comfortable with riffing off of each other and whoever happens to be listening.

"We have two different live settings that we do," Semain explains. "The one is the bar band, where we do funky music [like] 'Got Me Runnin.' Then there's the other side, with a song like 'Boundless,' where it's more straight-ahead rock, but more based on lyrical content. "[Those] songs always sound better on the album, and the funky blues ones [are] a lot easier to pull off live. It's hard to choose which direction to go in, because I love all of it."

Toby Semain Band CD release party with guests Zachariah & the Lobos Riders and Williams G at the Scene Bar (806 E. Colorado Blvd., Glendale); $5 (includes copy of CD), 10 p.m. Saturday. For information, call (818) 241-7029. www.tobysemainband.com.