Guitars Rule; One-Hit Wonder Stays in Power

Explaining this week’s column of reviews of recent local alternative-rock releases is a bit like trying to lay out the machinations of a soap-opera plot line complicated by incest. Rob Rule and Rule 62 share half a name. Rule 62 and One Hit Wonder share one full drummer. Rob Rule is named after the guitar player it swiped from One Hit Wonder. Is that clear? Judging from the solid music-making involved, all this incestuousness has not weakened the gene pool.

Also under consideration are the Swamp Zombies, who went to Hamburg to record their new single but maintain the humorous, roughhouse charm that has been evident since they emerged from Irvine. A new Costa Mesta label, TRUK Records, serves up a two-volume compilation of local alterna-punks dubbed “By the Banks of the Mighty Santa Ana.”

It would have been perfect, if a bit unwieldy, if the two seven-inch vinyl EPs could have come encased in concrete slabs, just like the mighty Santa Ana itself. Ratings range from * (poor) to **** (excellent), with three stars denoting a solid recommendation.

*** 1/2 One Hit Wonder “Long Beach vs. the World”(7-inch vinyl single)

Doctor Dream “Not in This Town” (7-inch vinyl single or cassette)

Lethal It’s not inaccurate to categorize One Hit Wonder as a power-pop band, but saying that the Long Beach-Orange County foursome plays power pop is a bit like saying that the protagonists of “Natural Born Killers” play with guns.

Dan Root, the singer-guitarist, has sounded like a natural-born slasher since his late-’80s days as lead player for Tender Fury, honing his razor-strokes with a keen sense of catchy, economic riff construction.

In drummer Christopher Webb and Randy Bradbury, the most exciting bassist on the local grass-roots/alternative scene, One Hit Wonder has a rhythm section sufficiently massive and thrusting to call to mind a jumbo jet rushing toward liftoff.

As hard-charging as the sound is, One Hit Wonder strikes just the right balance between assaultive energy and pop savvy; all the songs on these first two releases are highly hummable.

“Long Beach vs. the World” (part of Doctor Dream’s “Your Town vs. the World” series of vinyl 45s) was recorded in 1993 and captures the band as it originally was conceived: a partnership of two equal singer-songwriter-guitarists.

Root and then-sidekick Robbie Allen trade vocal lines on “Therapy Lounge,” a suitably manic, rumbling evocation of the 1992 Los Angeles riots as seen on TV. The B-side, “Brazil,” strikes a plaintive yet angry note as it sounds an environmental alarm.

Allen left the band about a year ago to devote full time to Rob Rule, which had landed a major-label deal. Root gnashed his teeth for a while, then got on with the business of carrying the vocals load himself.

Initially a reluctant performer who looked to Allen for encouragement, Root has since emerged as one of the local scene’s liveliest and most engaging stage performers. With Bradbury stepping up capably on backing vocals, the “Not in This Town” single finds One Hit Wonder carrying on with undiminished force and songwriting skill.

The title track continues the band’s practice of writing songs that are socially aware, but not heavy-handed: Root sings sardonically about sudden disasters disrupting the lives of those who had thought themselves safe, with just a touch of anguished humanity tempering the insolence in his bark. The acoustic-folk coda is an imaginative touch, signaling a willingness to strive for the unexpected.

The B-side offers “Green Grass (Means High Times for Us),” a ditty about a screwed-up family that is as strong as the A-side. One Hit Wonder also tosses in a raucous, speeded-up thrashing of Andy Prieboy’s superbly bitter “Tomorrow Wendy.”

Bands turn up almost every day trying to wed pop song-craft to punk-inspired zoom. Along with the estimable O.C. band Joyride, One Hit Wonder does it as well as any I’ve heard.

(Doctor Dream Records, 841 W. Collins Ave., Orange, CA 92667; Lethal Records, P.O. Box 14868, Long Beach, CA 90803-1414).

** 1/2 Rob Rule “Rob Rule”

Mercury This debut album shows obvious promise, but its flaws are equally apparent. The playing is accomplished, but the production by Don Gehman (whose credits include albums by R.E.M. and John Mellencamp) is too polished.

The singing of newcomer Eddie Anisko is attractive, but he sounds too much like a callow youngster who lacks the seasoning to convey much emotional depth. The result is an album with surface appeal, but little resonance.

The Los Angeles band takes its name from the stage moniker guitarist Robbie Allen used when he was the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ guitar technician and would pull double duty as a solo opening act.

“Rob Rule” might have cut deeper if it let its namesake turn loose his rough, whiskey-soaked voice on a couple of songs. “Around Again,” a world-weary ballad, and “Never,” a moody portrait of romantic obsession that Allen used to sing in his One Hit Wonder days, need more grit than Anisko can muster.

The youngster’s apparent lack of experience is most plain on a cover of the Allman Brothers’ “Melissa.” Set against memories of Gregg Allman’s hurtin’ and dreamin’ original rendition, Anisko’s almost casual reading sounds as if he simply has not acquired the fund of experience to summon the haunted, dejected feelings embedded in the song.

Seasoning may be all Anisko needs, though. His voice is clear, strong and instantly pleasing. And his frequent model is Paul Rodgers, possibly the best blues-rock singer ever (at least at his peak with Free). Aiming high is always a good sign in the young.

Instrumentally, Rob Rule has plenty of punch, with Mary’s Danish alumni David King, the Hendrix-inspired lead guitarist, and drummer James Bradley Jr. (drums) anchoring the band. The songs are a tad sketchy lyrically, but convey a young man’s progress through the school of hard-knocks experience, with occasional moments of transcendence.

Like the successful Big Head Todd & the Monsters, Rob Rule works from a wide palette, incorporating bluesy or country-tinged roots rock, ‘60s heavy-guitar sounds and spacious psychedelia, together with pleasing, folk-inflected balladry. But the band’s path on its debut is too smooth and easy; next time it should take a rougher road.

** 1/2 Rule 62 “Love and Decline”

Lethal Near the top of the list in my own book of rules is the one that says never go to Chicago in the dead of winter. Rule 62 did just that earlier this year to record its debut album at the home studio of producer Steve Albini, of Nirvana and Pixies fame.

Considering what it got the band in sonic snap, the results hardly justify the cost in air fare, lodging and the suffering entailed in subjecting sun-warmed California blood to the bitter mercies of a January wind howling off Lake Michigan.

Bob Weston produced, rather than Albini, and his philosophy seems to have been to get out of the way and let the band play live in the studio without embellishment. The result is a bare-sounding document of Rule 62’s music.

The guitars get the best of it, as Frank Agnew’s leads and Brian Coakley’s rhythm work come across with good, scraping immediacy. But the singing of Coakley, an impassioned performer with a husky voice, doesn’t jump from the speakers as vividly as it should.

Christopher Webb, a model of explosive bashing on the One Hit Wonder singles, sounds like just another drummer here. Libby Agnew (Frank’s wife) plays bass but is pretty much lost in the mix.

Coakley’s main gig is with the Cadillac Tramps; Rule 62 is a side band that allows him to step forward as a singer. He is solid in that role. There are fleeting echoes of the Smithereens’ Pat DiNizio, and some Elvis Costello, too, on ballads where Coakley stretches and strains impressively to convey full-hearted feeling.

Lyrically, there’s plenty of decline in evidence and no fulfilling love to stop the slide. Unlike Cadillac Tramps, who balance brooding songs with others that carry a swaggering gallows humor, Rule 62 takes a straight-and-narrow walk on the dark side. Lyrics tend to be blunt and direct declarations from characters who are either on life’s downward side, or clinging tenuously to a ledge.

As with his some of his writing for Cadillac Tramps, Coakley hints, in “Don’t Ignore Me” and “Obsolete Machine,” at the connections between socioeconomic decline and personal disaster.

While everything rocks well, Rule 62 comes closest to truly ruling when Coakley burrows into an anguished, dramatic ballad like “I Believed” or the searing “Friends?!”

Also promising is the merger of Coakley’s bluesy approach with Frank Agnew’s pure-pop sensibility on two songs they wrote together, “Obsolete Machines” and “Broken Down.” They sound like a good team in the making.

(Lethal Records, P.O. Box 14868, Long Beach, CA 90803-1414)

Various Artists

“By the Banks of the Mighty Santa Ana, Vols. I & II” (7-inch vinyl EPs)

TRUK

TRUK, a new label affiliated with the Costa Mesa punk-alternative record shop, Noise Noise Noise, offers a good sampling of O.C.’s grass-roots rumblings on these four-song compilations.

Vol. I (** 1/2) gives us four bands that stay close to pure-punk roots while using the medium, in time-honored fashion, to grouse. Snide but snappy, Guttermouth (“What’s Going Wrong”) gripes because it can’t get a gig. Sincere and Angst- ridden, the Iron-Ons (“Ed’s Song”) can’t get the girl. Tongue-in-cheek heirs to the Dickies and Vandals, Supernova (“Bad Haircut”) can’t get a decent trim and plots vengeance against a hapless barber, at whom they’re sufficiently steamed to deliver a well-wrought, mock-heraldic anthem.

I’m not sure what the Hiddys’ gripe is in “Pabst Blue Ribbon,” because their hard-and-fast assault is too rapid-fire, leaving most of the lyrics indecipherable. But two yelping, nasal voices and a dense, pummeling attack make it more than a routine hard-core rant.

Vol. II (***) takes a post-punk approach that’s more crafted and restrained. The prize of this one is “Song No. 40” by Big Drill Car. Having plied a speedy, hard-riffing but sometimes predictable brand of melodic blitz-pop on five previous albums and EPs, the band shows an entirely new dimension here.

It slows the pace, adds an organ to thicken the sound, and splashes on noisy, country-hued Neil Young-ish guitar. Frank Daly’s frayed singing achieves new levels of fullness and emotional depth on this boozy, rootsy elegy. A promising development from a veteran band.

Naked Soul’s “Suckerfish” is that band’s swan song; it recently broke up. It’s a typical Naked Soul anthem with heft, hooks and relationship woes. It wouldn’t have made the cut on the fine 1993 album, “Visiting Your Planet,” but it’s better than most of the originals on the group’s 1992 “Seed” EP.

Pinch’s “Gentlefolk” is a punkish anthem that gets a bit too self-righteous as it condemns religious factions for being too self-righteous. It also goes on too long.

“The Misery of Your Company” is a fine, dyspeptic screed from the Women, an all-male band that, in this song, seems to be having little luck with women. The real attraction is the dense, roiling production, which combines Stooges-style heavy garage-rock with spacey, psychedelic touches. The Women come through with a good, meaty helping of over-the-top excess.

(TRUK Records, 1505-A Mesa Verde Drive East, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.)

*** Swamp Zombies “Hamburg vs. the World” (7-inch vinyl single)

Doctor Dream Another in the “Your Town vs. the World” series. Never ones to do the straightforward thing, the Swamp Zombies adopted Hamburg, Germany, as their town for series purposes and recorded there on tour last winter.

This is prime Swamp Zombies: a loose, brawny, clattering attack that is somewhat akin to the Violent Femmes but actually is very much their own, a wryly affectionate appropriation of roots-rock sources (on the rockabilly-based “Matador”) and a humorously skewed appreciation for the weird side of life.

On the surface, “Matador” is an old-fashioned car song, but the guy lusting for the titular vehicle seems a tad unhinged. On the B-side, “Temecula,” we step into the Swamp Zombies’ own little acre of the Twilight Zone for a slice of on-the-road weirdness: “Was a corpse in the passing lane / Had been hit 20 times / I made it 21 / No one could ever bring it back again.”

Who says the Germans have no sense of humor?

(Doctor Dream Records, 841 W. Collins Ave., Orange, CA 92667)