Forrest Day’s songs are tailor-made for the stage. The seven-piece San Francisco band’s “Secret,” for example, features chanted vocals, two horns that underscore the stomp of the track and a beat that hits as hard as a giant’s footsteps.

Featuring two Monterey natives – baritone sax player Dave Eaton and drummer Jasper Skydecker – and led by songwriter, vocalist and sax player Forrest Day, the act has always been a huge draw in Monterey County, breaking attendance records at the now-gone Monterey Live. Forrest Day returns to the area this Saturday for a gig at Big Sur’s Fernwood with Bay Area outfit Battlehooch.

During the group’s relatively short three-year history, Forrest Day has also risen quickly in the Bay Area music scene, a fact supported by their sold-out gig this past February at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall, a venue that has hosted performances by legends ranging from the Grateful Dead to Duke Ellington.

“It’s a total monument for me,” Day says. “Now, I’ve got my sights on [San Francisco’s premiere live music club] the Fillmore.”

With a growing reputation as a potent live act, Forrest Day would probably try to imitate the energy of their shows on their upcoming debut CD, right? Not exactly. “Recording is an art of its own,” Day says.

Recorded at San Francisco’s Hyde Street Studios, the CD – which will either be titled Shoot the Moon or Familiar Company – is slotted to be released this upcoming spring. Day says the album will include songs that have been performed frequently onstage, including the double sax attack track “Meds” and the Motown-meets-Sublime number “Baby Shoe.” But, the bandleader says, he has tweaked the songs a bit in the studio by adding extended intros and outros. In addition, Day brought in another sax player and a violinist to further fill out the band’s sound.

“Dedicated Forrest Day fans are going to know most of the songs,” he says.

Meanwhile, though a great deal of Day’s lyrics are rapped, he notes that the upcoming CD will not employ the genre’s usual trick of the trade. “There’s not a sample on the record,” he says. “It’s all live instruments.”

Having already made inroads into the competitive San Francisco live music scene, Day is hoping to make even larger waves with the release of the band’s debut. “I think it’s gonna make quite a stink,” he says.

Opening for Forrest Day at Fernwood is another large Bay Area act with a super-sized sound: Battlehooch. The six-piece band combines the aggressive eclecticism of Mr. Bungle and the fractured song structure of the Fiery Furnaces on songs like “The Special Place,” which features screaming guitar, a beehive of horns and a whooping vocalist who recalls Elvis Presley risen from the grave. Meanwhile, the nearly seven-and-a-half minute “22” makes pit stops in percussion-heavy dance music, ambient music, garage rock and sinewy punk before crashing to a halt in an explosion of free jazz saxophone noise.

Battlehooch’s immense racket is caused by a battery of instruments including drums, guitar, bass, Theremin, clarinet, flute, saxophone, synthesizers, piano and percussion. The United Kingdom’s NME Magazine has described the band as “a hyperactive brotherhood of Captain Beefheart fanatics who peddle crazy party prog.”

Composed of six former UCSC music students, Battlehooch has embarked on an almost communal existence by making music with one another and living together in a three-story-high Sunset district home that used to be a halfway house. “It almost feels like a ship,” says the band’s bassist Grant Searcy Goodrich of the residence, which has been dubbed “The Battle Pad” by the band.

Having recorded two CDs – Oof Owf and Piecehow – within “The Battle Pad,” Battlehooch is currently working on an as-of-yet untitled album inside an actual studio. Due out this April, the CD will have “bolder, more colorful sounds” according to Goodrich.

Early in their career, Battlehooch would play impromptu gigs on the corners of San Francisco’s Mission District. Now, they’ve moved inside and have frequently appeared onstage at shows at the Bottom of the Hill, which showcases some of the country’s finest up-and-coming rock acts. A year ago, the outfit did the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour in its entirety at San Francisco’s Elbo Room’s “Ultimate Album Night” alongside other local acts tackling The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Are You Experienced and Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

Battlehooch used to be known for ending their shows with a frantic version of James Brown’s “Super Bad,” but now Goodrich says the group has moved on to doing other unexpected tracks. “We have a nice healthy bag of cover songs that we pull out from time to time,” he says.

With a new year rising, Goodrich says that Battlehooch hopes to release their third CD, play Austin’s South By Southwest Music Festival in March and do an extensive summer tour.

“The new year’s resolution for us,” he says, “is that this will be the noisiest year so far.”

FORREST DAY and BATTLEHOOCH play 9pm Saturday, Jan. 9, at Fernwood, 24 miles south of Carmel on Highway 1, Big Sur. $10. 667-2422.