POP MUSIC REVIEW : Junkyard Makes Its Move on L.A. at the Coach House

Bands as diversely individualistic as the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Poi Dog Pondering, the B.H. Surfers and Timbuk 3 have found a receptive home in Austin, Tex., which explains, in a way, why the nucleus of Junkyard had to move from there to Los Angeles to make it.

Where in hipper climes the five-piece outfit would justly be dismissed as nothing more than a recycling center for hard rock cliches already exhausted by Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd, AC/DC and a wide host of others, in Los Angeles they can be “the next Guns N’ Roses, dude,” as one young chain-smoking admirer declared during the group’s performance Saturday at San Juan Capistrano’s Coach House.

While guitarists Chris Gates and Brian Baker’s solos were strictly Outlaws-grade retro-noodling, frontman David Roach was a bit edgier, bashing at cymbals with his forehead, allowing himself to be pulled into the audience several times and tackling his songs with a voice that sounded like a grittier version of Jay North’s Dennis the Menace.

The songs were similar to GNR’s musical tattoos of L.A. life, though most of the tales of scuzzy street-level excess carried a cautionary tone. Their 14 songs included the hook-rock hit “Simple Man,” the Trower-esque “Long Way Home,” the Z.Z. Top cop “Texas” and a spice-less encore of that group’s “Tush.” The group headlines Friday at the Palace in Hollywood.

Sporting far more tattoos and talent, the opening Lunchbox tackled its set of muscularly melodic originals and a funked-up version of Creedence’s “Porterville” with an engagement and abandon that brought the Replacements to mind at times. More often, though, the quartet (including vocalist Tim Swenson and ex-T.S.O.L. guitarist Ron Emory) didn’t seem like anyone but themselves as they rampaged through their punkish power pop.