POP MUSIC REVIEW : PALACE IS NOT AMUSED BY ENGLAND’S EASTERHOUSE

The first mistake Easterhouse made was playing the 1,000-capacity Palace instead of a more intimate rock club.

The second mistake the English band made in its L.A. debut Wednesday was . . . well, it’s hard to say what it was, but the way the audience (maybe 300 to begin with) dwindled and dispersed, you’d think the group was setting off stink bombs on stage. There haven’t been many rooms with less electricity since Edison’s first light bulb lit up.

It was odd because brigades of less interesting bands regularly trot through town and get at least an interested hearing. Easterhouse, all political passion and booming sound, isn’t a trendy fashion band, but you’d think that even a fragment of the U2/Springsteen/Anglophile audience would be curious enough to show up and stick with it.

Singer Andy Perry might not have made things easier when he challenged his listeners to take a stand on the U.S. policy on Central America--not in the familiar bland terms of the liberal rocker, but with a blunt, abrasive accusation of collusion, and a warning of reprisals to come.

It might not have been ingratiating, but it got your attention, and it clearly defined Easterhouse territory (left of Labour, to say the least). Perry’s spoken comments on social and political matters were clear and concise, and the songs he writes with his guitarist brother Ivor probe those issues with a poetic touch. They might not be Clash-ics, but they’re coming along.

The music did tend to meander at times, but Easterhouse’s main flaw at the moment is its reserve. They play with muscle, but this kind of music has to soar and/or go for the throat. And Perry needs some of the firebrand intensity of Joe Strummer and warmth of Bono to round out and put across Easterhouse’s sound and vision.