Praising Two Bands of Gold

It was a fitting Memorial Day weekend doubleheader Saturday night at the Foothill: Lunar Rover and South, two of the most commendable unknown heroes ever to have slogged through the lower trenches of the Orange County alternative-rock wars.

The two unsigned bands know their worth, even if they have little to show for it other thanconsistently engaging shows and enduringly appealing melodic-rock recordings known only to a few handfuls of local connoisseurs.

Jon Melkerson, the singing, songwriting, guitar-blazing auteur of Lunar Rover, is the most humble exceptional rock musician imaginable. His songs--dating back to 1989 when he emerged with his first band, Eggplant (whose three other alumni were in the sparse audience, cheering Lunar Rover on)--have been energized philosophic meditations on the question of “to be or not to be.” The issue isn’t anything as melodramatic as suicide, but nevertheless one that’s crucial in everyday existence: whether to be stalled and defeated by life’s losses, unfairness and disappointment, or to press on.

With Lunar Rover, Melkerson has his best vehicle yet for hard-won affirmations that unfold in marching, undulating, invigorating rock music. They are delivered with maximum clarity, impact and structural daring, but a minimum of the showmanly flash that is often necessary to grab the public’s attention.

South, formerly known as Standard Fruit, doesn’t suffer its wounds as stoically as Melkerson. As Standard Fruit, band members Denys Gawronski, Andrew Lowery, Roger Smith and Ernie Woody were masters of whimsicality and innocent pop charm, delivering a fine 1993 debut CD and a near-perfect but--due to music industry indifference--never released follow-up in 1995. You can only kick an underdog so long before he bites, and that’s what South is about. In the players’ new approach, a tough, garagey sound brings to the fore the flinty, sarcastic side that only occasionally surfaced before.

In fact, Gawronski and Lowery say South is a happier band than Standard Fruit, thanks to more collaborative songwriting involving all the members. But the love songs that used to be plaintive or enthusiastic are now glowering and accusatory, and the band’s brief, half-hour set ended with a couple of songs humorously, but pointedly, indicting a world indifferent to the group’s charms.

“Seven long years and no one seems to care / Seven long years, I’ve had it up to here,” Lowery chirped in a jaunty finale titled “I’m Not Bitter.”

Humor and playfulness enabled South to have fun while singing songs about no fun, set mainly to brawny, riffing rock that recalled a less primitive Stooges or a less psychodramatic version of John Cale’s mid-’70s revulsion rock.

Among the funnier sights was bassist Smith’s pogoing frantically out of necessity on the opening number because the microphone stand was set for somebody at least a head taller. At one point, the crunchy music inspired guitarist Lowery to kick around the stage like a cowboy at a hoedown.

Gawronski is a bearish figure whose potentially menacing look would fit with today’s rage-rock aesthetic. Instead, he goes for a wry, awkward anti-star approach, his enthusiastically ungainly moves as front man complemented this time by a garish polyester shirt.

South’s new material calls for Gawronski to be more lowdown and glowering, but songs such as “Scar” and the deep-denial ode “Lie to Me” allowed his trademark piercing falsetto to shine.

Smith and drummer Woody played with simplicity and power.

Ideally, South would stretch out with a longer set, alternating the rawness and jaundiced edge of its new songs with the charming musical lightness of its past. A band that can endear itself to an audience then slap it in the face could be one to reckon with--if only it can find the audience it deserves.

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Lunar Rover played a set to savor. The sound was perfect, with Melkerson’s voice flying clearly and confidently over a beautifully conceived instrumental attack of twining guitar parts and impressively honed dynamics.

In Dan Lawrence, Melkerson has found a strong co-guitarist who played shivery, wiry leads to complement Melkerson’s own full-bodied and freely flowing tone. Drummer Rob Jacobs, formerly of Downey Mildew, and bassist Mickey Zolezia, who played in Melkerson’s mid-’90s band, Eli Riddle, built a hefty yet nuanced foundation for Lunar Rover’s tandem-guitar heroics.

The only conceivable criticisms of Melkerson and Lunar Rover are that they exude no star power and that their whole framework sounds borrowed from Television, the epic guitar band from the ‘70s New York City underground. But there is power, if not star power, in a song played precisely and intensely. Melkerson’s voice was full of passion and newfound authority, even if his eyes were shut tight under a baseball cap as he stood nearly motionless at the microphone. And sounding like Television, a band that combined pop pith with the daring to expand it into breathtaking, far-flung excursionary rock, is more a mark of ambition than of copycat laggardness.

On “Downstream,” one of the many fine moments from last year’s “Lunar Rover” CD, Melkerson’s guitar flew like an eagle in a thunderstorm. But this sizzling number ended abruptly, creating a letdown just when Lunar Rover seemed primed for a climactic guitar extravaganza. The band made up for that lack later by turning “Curry Favor” into a magnificent winding journey full of mounting tension.

The lovely ballad “God Knows” was the perfect show closer, bringing these guitar wanderers home from their stormy seas to bathe in the comforts of pretty melancholy relieved by hope for a better day.

The opening band, Trousers, showed promise in an ambitious and unpredictable set of dark, trippy guitar-rock. Though its set included some straightforwardly angst-ridden alterna-pop songs, the young Long Beach quartet was also deeply attuned to the possibilities of open-ended interplay and improvisation. The floating space-rock of early Pink Floyd, together with the modernist clangor of Sonic Youth, were both audible in the dual-guitar explorations of Jeff Schaberl and Mike Kennedy. Kennedy sang songs of malaise and disaster in a whispery yet insinuating voice.

Rock fans who like a moody trip without the hop should try on Trousers, which plays again Thursday at the Tiki Bar in Costa Mesa, on a bill with Fire Ants and Room to Roam.

* HOT NEW ALBUMS

Reviewer Mike Boehm is seeing stars over the latest CDs from Fluf and Bill Ward. F2