POP REVIEW : BELFAST’S WHITE IN L.A. DEBUT

The tousled mop of hair, the leather jacket, the raw vocals, the wheezy harmonica and forcefully strummed acoustic guitar--the only mission Dylanism in Andy White’s local debut Wednesday at the Lhasa Club was the sullen countenance. By not adopting that unflattering attitude, the Belfast native was able to escape the just-another-Dylan-clone trap in this performance.

Still, there’s no way around it. White treads firmly in the bootheel prints of his hero in such songs as “Reality Row” (the “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”-like concert opener) to the Daylanishly titled “Tuesday Apocalypse 13” (the encore). But once you get past those elements, White proves an original, honest talent.

On his recent debut album, “Rave On,” White moves away from Dylan with some imaginative arrangements and production touches. Wednesday, with the songs stripped bare of such decoration, it was vivid, poetic Irish imagery that gave them distinctiveness. Though he tends to be excessively wordy (don’t all Dylan followers?), the bitter, brutal portrayals of his hometown’s sectarian divisiveness in “Religious Persuasion” and “The Walking Wounded” and of the love that survives it in “Marian Girl” are quite moving.

The former two are noteworthy for the way they avoid the strident, teachy tone of Billy Bragg (a contemporary troubadour to whom he has been compared). The latter, which is not on the album, also showed that White has a way with a melody--something not always evident in many of his songs.

This special free show was meant only as a brief (40 minutes) introduction to White, who shares a bill with the Dream Syndicate tonight at McCabe’s. But it the 23-year-old can develop his best talents to the full potential hinted at in the concert, it is conceivable that someday the several dozen people on hand will look back on it as a memorable event.