oby
Duron was robbed, dammit.
At the 2005
Guitarmageddon Finals in Los Angeles, the
33-year-old musician competed against seven
other unknown axmen — whittled down from
thousands across the country — in one last
slay-off for nimble-fingered superiority. The
prize: a car, a 1959 Les Paul reissue, a $2,500
shopping spree at Guitar Center, and the honor
of standing victoriously inside the 2,300-seat
Wiltern Theater. While the other finalists
mostly just planted themselves in front of a
monitor, Duron worked the stage, stomping from
one side to the other and throwing winks at the
females in the audience as he burned through an
exhibition of the fiery blues rock he’s been
honing at dives across Ventura County for years
now. Even the writers for six-string bible
Guitar World took notice. In the end, however,
his victory was only a moral one: He lost to a
guy who put his guitar across his lap and played
it like a piano.
Still, the experience
gave Duron a taste of what he’s been craving
since he was a pre-pubescent teenager staring at
pictures of Gene Simmons spitting blood out of
his mouth: fame. “What I need is a big stage
like that,” he says from his home in Van Nuys.
For now, though, Duron
is going to have to settle for a cramped corner
at Champ’s, a small sports bar in Oxnard where
his group, the aptly titled Roby Duron Band,
performs every Sunday night. Previously, the
trio were regulars at Sans Souci in Ventura.
Before then, they gigged frequently at the Ojai
Deer Lodge. Yes, as his history makes clear,
Duron and the rotating cast of bassists and
drummers he plays with are a “bar band.”
It’s a label that can be taken several ways:
literally — as in, a band that mainly plays at
bars; pejoratively — as in, a band that’s
only good enough to do classic rock covers for
drunk people; or categorically — as in, a band
that plays chugging, blues-based, jam-heavy rock
’n’ roll. Duron falls somewhere between the
first and third options. His repertoire consists
of the obligatory material bar owners expect to
hear when they hire someone to entertain their
patrons, but Duron is far too skilled to merely
mimic other artists; as he puts it, he gives
“old songs new blood.” Besides, he also
writes songs of his own, which he sneaks into
sets from time to time. And although he’s
aiming for something larger, Duron isn’t
bothered by the “bar band” tag, whatever its
connotation. After all, he says, “The Rolling
Stones are a bar band.”
Duron, whose father was
a keyboardist, first picked up the guitar at age
13 during a time when AC/DC, Iron Maiden and, of
course, KISS were the idols of every aspiring
adolescent rock star. As propulsive hard rock
gave way to the soulless proficiency of wankers
like Yngwie Malmsteen, Duron discovered the
leaner virtuosity of Stevie Ray Vaughn, which
led him to the blues. At 21, he dropped out of
junior college to cut his teeth on the road with
a cover band, playing five sets a night, six
nights a week. He lived for extended periods in
Florida, Wyoming and Seattle, developing his
chops with different groups, before eventually
coming back to Southern California in hopes of
infiltrating the L.A. music scene.
As it turned out, Duron
wound up making a slight name for himself south
of Hollywood. After jamming with him at a show
in Santa Clarita, local singer Eddie Clark
invited Duron to sit in with him at Sans Souci.
Eventually, Clark quit, allowing Duron to take
over vocal duties and reshape the group in his
image. A weekly gig at the bar followed, as did
a spot opening for famed guitarist Johnny Winter
directly across the street at the Ventura
Theatre. Next to Guitarmaggedon, it was
Duron’s biggest concert to date, and not just
because he was sharing the bill with a legend
— it gave him the chance to reunite his father
and Winter, who played together in their youth
while growing up in Texas.
Today, Duron is putting
the finishing touches on a demo of all original
material, which he hopes will help him finally
penetrate Los Angeles and get more work outside
the bar circuit. But Duron isn’t complaining
about his current position. He may not be living
the full dream yet, but he’s already conquered
a major part of it: not having to get a real
job.
“I don’t do
anything else but music,” says Duron, who
earns enough money through playing, giving
lessons and doing some engineering in the studio
to keep his own hours. “My neighbor told me
the same thing. He said, ‘You’re successful.
I have to go work for somebody today, and you
get to stay home.’ ” 
