Pop Weekend : Information Society Keeps Beats-Per-Minute High

With its repetitive drum programs and droning vocals, Minneapolis-based synth band Information Society is doing a great job mirroring the basic ennui of the black-is-our-favorite-color segment of the teen-age society.

Yet, the four-piece band also has a self- and scene-mocking attitude that keeps it from being overpowered by the technology that sculpts its sound. It also helps lift the group out of the pit of doom and gloom that too many techno-pop acts wallow in.

Playing Saturday at Club Postnuclear in Laguna Beach, Information Society sampled bits of “Star Trek,” adopted the catch-line from “The Mickey Mouse Club” to explain why they do what they do (“Because we like you”) and admitted that they play gigs for money .

“What’s on Your Mind,” the group’s best-known song, opened with an elongated chorus before the band swept in like a tidal wave. The show’s tone was characterized by lots of hard-hit bass notes and percussion that sounded like a pipe being struck with a wrench--the tone of the computer generation coming of age.

Lead singer Kurt Valaquen, whose hair looked like a porcupine that suffered a nervous breakdown shortly after being grafted to his scalp, led the youthful quartet through tried-and-true themes about boy meeting, losing and getting girl. This was conducted over a bed of synthesized melody lines, real bass and electronic drums--the latter played inventively by Sally Berg, who hit hard and never went for the obvious.

In keeping with the band’s reliance on artificially generated sounds, the music ran toward your basic sterile-but-propulsive dance-oriented stuff. It wasn’t helped much by Valaquen’s flat, straight up-and-down delivery that’s almost devoid of emotion. Yet, every now and then, Valaquen’s whiny singing gave way to some genuine vocal interpretation, as he showed on “Repetition,” a somewhat plodding ballad.

Still, ballads aren’t what Information Society is about; this is first and foremost a dance band that seems determined to keep the beats-per-minute high and the intellectual content low. To that end, they were successful and had the sold-out house writhing throughout the set.

Looking not much older than their barely post-teen audience, Information Society connected both musically and visually, thanks to computer graphics displayed on a small monitor on stage.

If alienation is the shape of things to come, this group has it down pat. Information Society could be the house band at the next book-release party for Bret Easton Ellis or Jay McInerny--and that may not be an insult.

Quirky yet trendy, angry and alienated yet humorous, Information Society has taken all the techno-rock elements and given them a light twist. For fans of synthesizers, computer graphics and the ilk, this band does it without the pomp and circumstance, making it an evening that’s as unassuming as one could hope for.

If Information Society’s approach isn’t unique, at least the attitude has a sense of freshness, while rhythmically the band is as quick to turn to hip-hop as it is to look to funk or straight-ahead dance music. And by mixing things up, at least they keep their grooves from turning into ruts.