On Friday, August 22, 2014, a handful of musicians — S.B.’s Watercolor Paintings, Blossom, and Mallards, along with Oakland’s Void Boys — gathered into the most improbable venue to play a show: the East Beach Batting Cages. It had never happened before, and there wasn’t any indication it would necessarily happen again.
This Saturday, a year and 82 shows later, that little storage and repair closet will be celebrating its one-year anniversary as the town’s beloved all-ages venue, the Funzone. Thanks to the dedicated work of bountifully spirited, bountifully bearded Batting Cages manager Spencer vonHershman and a few loyal volunteers, the venue has filled a void in an otherwise age-restricted music scene, welcoming all manner of hometown heroes, touring talents, fringe weirdos, and pop-up acts to its inclusive corner of lower Milpas.
When vonHershman arrived on the scene, the present stage was nothing but a stoners’ den with a mini fridge and a couch. The self-starting Santa Barbara High School alum, who graduated early and has since worked in all manner of colorful jobs, from museum attendant and Microsoft HR associate (where he taught the old folks about video games) to horse stall cleaner, quickly became the head honcho, calling shots and repairing the pitching machine’s parts. One day, he cleaned out that hardly utilized space and saw an opportunity. “Man, this is a big open space in the middle of nowhere. I could totally do shows here,” he thought to himself. The Funzone was born.