COOLIES ‘DIG’ SIMONIZED HITS FOR FUN

You think Paul Simon got dragged through the coals by the anti-apartheid protesters? Wait until you hear what the Coolies do to him on their album “Dig.”

Simon’s inspirational, hymn-like “Bridge Over Troubled Water” is hammered into submission by a heavy, Bad Company-like blues-rock riff.

The peppy, sunshiny “59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)” is transformed into a sleepy, insinuating, psychedelic dirge.

The contemplative “I Am a Rock” becomes a Joe Tex-style soul groover (“I am a rock (WHAM!), I am an island (WHAM! WHAM!), hit it Billy . . . “).

There are a Hendrixized “El Condor Pasa,” a Venturized surf instrumental of “Mrs. Robinson,” a countrified “Cecelia,” hard-rock semi-punk takes on “Homeward Bound” and “The Only Living Boy in New York,” and a bizarrely gruff, deadpan “Scarborough Fair.”

The Coolies (who make their L.A. debut tonight at Club Lingerie) have yet to receive a direct comment on their work from Simon, but guitarist Rob Gal says that the band did hear from an associate of the songwriter.

“She said that he doesn’t ever make comments on any cover material, but she thought that he would like it,” Gal said during a phone interview from San Francisco this week.

“She said he has a good sense of humor. They certainly didn’t say anything negative. They didn’t try to sue us or anything.”

Gal says that Simon’s fans aren’t always so tolerant.

“It can go either way. A lot of times they really like it and think it’s fun, and then there’s always 10 people or so at a show who’ll get a little hot under the collar and think it’s sacrilegious or whatever. That’s fine with us.”

Part frat-house joke and part sharp spoof, the Coolies’ shtick was born in the Atlanta pizza restaurant owned by lead singer Clay Harper. “We were just sitting around thinking of stupid ideas,” recalled Gal, who’d moved from Ohio with ambitions to join a band.

Harper wanted to do hard-core punk versions of Simon’s songs, but when he, Gal and guitarist Teddy Murray gave it a try it didn’t quite work. They modified the idea, with different styles for different songs, and brought bassist Jeb Baldwin and Billy Burton aboard.

“It seemed like an easy shot,” Gal said of the basic concept. “It seemed like the obvious joke, taking something that always came off as fairly mellow and revving ‘em up a little bit.”

The Coolies (named in the spirit of the dictionary definition, “one who does heavy labor for little pay”) made a tape of their “Scarborough Fair,” and it caught the attention of Atlanta-based independent label DB Records, which released it as a single. The album (whose only non-Simon cut is a similar piece of malpractice on Paul Anka’s “Having My Baby”) came out last year and earned some respectful laughs in underground rock circles.

Because the band was formed around the concept of redefining Paul Simon’s songs, prospects for its future are up in the air. Gal said that they haven’t really angled for a major record deal and figures they’ll make another album for DB. What will be on it, though, is up in the air. Is there another songwriter in line to be Simonized by the Coolies?

Said Gal, “There’s so many people you could do it to, and it seems it would almost be redundant. So right now we’re just trying to think of something equally stupid to do, along a different line.”