POP MUSIC REVIEW : RUFFNER’S TRICKS PALLS

Mason Ruffner is not just another skinny white dude with a pompadour and a gold tooth. On his latest Epic album, “Gypsy Blood,” the Texas-to-New Orleans transplant whips up a tasteful blend of bluesrockfunk ‘n’ folk that marries the wood-grained vocal understatement of Bob Dylan and--on the title track especially--the liquid guitar fire of Jimi Hendrix.

On Wednesday night at the Roxy, however, Ruffner and his four-man band wound up sounding like something less than the sum of their musical influences.

Ruffner, 34, comes to the party with a brown bag of bar-room tricks: playing guitar behind his back, with his teeth, with his left hand over the fretboard. After three songs, you’ve seen ‘em all--and you see ‘em again and again.

He is an emotional player, though, and while this sort of stuff goes down well with the well drinks at a crowded local watering hole, the shot-and-a-beer combination of a half-full Hollywood house and a muddy sound mix put this evening’s performance out there in the cold distance.

As a songwriter, other than “Gypsy Blood” and the porky prime cut of Berrychuck (“Baby I Don’t Care No More”), Ruffner, who’ll be at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Saturday, has yet to find his own voice. Too much of his material wanders from Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen soundalikes to blues readymades like a minor in search of a fake ID. In a couple years, he may get one.