You Could Get Hooked on the Junkies

M esmerizing.

That’s how the Cowboy Junkies can be on record.

On “The Trinity Session,” the Canadian band’s major-label album debut, the Junkies play country music in the sparse, melancholy way the Velvet Underground often approached rock.

There seems at times to be only the trace of a pulse in Margo Timmins’ singing or in the band’s minimal arrangements as the seven-piece group moves through some country classics--including Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”--and a few originals.

Timmins’ refusal to pick up the tempo or shift emotional colors could end up the clumsiest of gimmicks except for the fact that she makes every soft, whispered note seem as honest and as essential as a heartbeat.

Not only do you quickly realize you are in the hands of a band with a daring, almost breathtaking musical vision, but you also discover that the best of Junkies’ own tunes are as engrossing as their covers.

The question, however, is how this soulful, solitary approach will work live. The answer at Club Lingerie Wednesday night as the Junkies made their local debut:

Mesmerizing.

Early in the set, Timmins, 27, dedicated “Blue Moon” (the Rodgers and Hart ballad) to Roy Orbison, who had died the night before. Her eyes closed and both hands gripping the microphone stand, Timmins sang the song with such a caressing, dream-like feeling--reminiscent of the purity of Emmylou Harris--that she seemed to be both cherishing a memory and mourning a loss.

During the instrumental break in the song, Timmins’ brother, Michael, played a guitar solo that mirrored perfectly the longing in his sister’s vocal. But that sense of shared vision wasn’t limited to the pair.

The rest of the band--which includes a bassist, accordionist, steel guitarist, drummer and mandolin/harmonica player--supports Timmins’ soft vocals with the delicate, sympathetic edge of soul mates. The result is music of unbending elegance and grace.

The Junkies then moved with equal effectiveness to their own songs--most notably “Misguided Angel,” about a woman explaining to a disapproving family why she has fallen in love with a certain man, and “200 More Miles,” a look at the vagabond appeal of life on the road.

Before forming the band about three years ago, Michael Timmins was in other groups, whose influences ranged from the dark intensity of England’s Joy Division to an improvisational jazz framework. In the Junkies, he has merged those styles magnificently with the sentiment of traditional country music. This has been a marvelous year for pop arrivals, but none has spun a more captivating web than this Canadian group.

TV ROCK: “HBO World Stage: The Human Rights Now Tour” (HBO, 8 to 11 tonight)--Amnesty International’s six-week, five-continent “Human Rights Now!” tour, which included a Sept. 21 stop at the Coliseum here, was the most ambitious and distinguished rock tour ever launched.

Designed to build human rights awareness, especially in Third World countries where Amnesty’s printed material is rendered useless by high illiteracy rates, the tour itinerary included some countries (including India, Zimbabwe and the Ivory Coast) where there is little or no history of big-time western rock concerts.

Besides putting on seven-hour concerts, the musicians--Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Tracy Chapman and Youssou D’Nour--also held press conferences on most tour stops to explain Amnesty’s goals.

While the generally stirring concert footage (including 40 minutes of Springsteen) is the heart of this three-hour documentary directed by Larry Jordan, the non-stage moments, in which the artists speak about the tour’s purpose with the same passion that they put in their music, also prove unusually effective.

There are also some light moments. Near the end of the Buenos Aires concert--the final tour stop, the normally stylish Gabriel and Sting come on stage wearing the same outfits (black vests and jeans) that Springsteen wore night after night. The subsequent oldies medley was also so high-spirited that all three artists ended up doing somersaults across the stage. On a scale of one (worthless) to four (highly recommended): ****

“A Rock ‘n’ Roll Christmas” (Channels 11 and 6, 8 p.m. Sunday)--If you have patience and a VCR, you can get about 20 classic minutes of footage out of this hour special. The treats: the collection of promotional videos and old TV clips featuring a wide range of rock stars (from Elvis Presley and Marvin Gaye to the Beach Boys and U2) doing Christmas songs. Unfortunately, almost all the new material that surrounds the clips (from the non-existent humor of emcee Dennis Miller to the routine concert performances by Pat Benatar and Eddie Money) is a bore. ** 1/2

HIATT’S HOMECOMING: Keith Richards’ solo concerts Wednesday at the Universal Amphitheatre and Thursday at the Hollywood Palladium aren’t the only local shows next week that should be especially emotional affairs. There’s also John Hiatt’s appearance Thursday at the Wiltern Theatre.

Hiatt has been a critical favorite in Los Angeles for almost a decade, but he has achieved even more acclaim and commercial recognition since moving from here to Nashville about four years ago and setting aside much of the biting sarcasm that characterized his early works.

Without sacrificing his art, Hiatt--who now says much of the anger of the early songs was tied to a self-doubt that contributed to a strong alcohol dependence during the L.A. years--focuses in his latest albums, including the current “Slow Turning,” on more positive and uplifting values, including the comforts and joys of being a family man.

Though he has played here since the Nashville move, the 2,300-seat Wiltern is the biggest L.A.-area venue he has ever headlined. “I’m really looking forward to the show,” Hiatt said this week during a phone interview. “The funny thing is I used to want people to like my music so much because music was the only way I defined myself.

“If someone didn’t like my music, then I wasn’t a good person. I needed that approval so badly that I didn’t even believe them when they said they liked the music. My level of self-hatred was that intense.

“But now music is only a part of what I am. . . . there’s also my family and (other things). That enables me to get much more satisfaction out of being on stage or when someone likes my music. I can enjoy it now. I’m happier. We’ve been in theaters (the size of the Wiltern) over in Europe for the last couple of years, but it’s now happening for us in the States. It’s kind of neat, a whole new ball game.”

LIVE ACTION: The Bangles, Taylor Dayne, Tom Jones and Squeeze are the musical acts so far scheduled to appear at “Rock Response,” a benefit for AIDS awareness, research and care of AIDS patients. The show will be held Jan. 14 at the Universal Amphitheatre, and will be taped for broadcast on MTV at a later date. . . . Tom Waits will be at the Wiltern on New Year’s Eve (tickets go on sale Monday), while Ozzy Osbourne will be joined the same night by Anthrax and Lita Ford at the Long Beach Arena (the same bill also plays there Dec. 30).