3D Picnic Serves Hot Tunes, Lyrics on Debut Album : Rock: “Dirt,” an LP that is both artful and witty, is tops among a sampling of Orange County releases.

Already, 1990 looks like a rare vintage year for the Orange County rock scene, at least as far as recordings go. January and February brought us a fine heavy metal album by former Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, an exceptional country effort from Chris Gaffney & the Cold Hard Facts, and intelligent, formula-resistant hard rock from Tender Fury.

Awaiting release are Vinnie James’ head-turning debut album, “All American Boy,” T.S.O.L.’s impressive “Strange Love,” a strong debut album from Burning Tree, and Social Distortion’s much-anticipated major-label arrival for Epic, due out at the end of this month (KROQ is already playing one new S.D. track, “Let It Be Me,” which sounded like a great sonic boom when it came over my car radio the other day).

The crop of local albums up for review in this week’s Pop Beat includes one that will add considerably to the year’s luster, and several others that at least will lend some depth. The rating scale is * (poor) to ****** (a classic).

3D PICNIC

“Dirt.” (Earth Music/Cargo Records)

****

In pop music, stealing is only immoral if you do it without wit and style. With 3D Picnic, a Los Angeles band that sprang from Orange County roots and has continued to circulate in the local scene’s club orbit, kleptomania is a thoroughly artful, completely engaging dodge. Led by main singer and songwriter Don Burnet, 3D Picnic keeps an old tradition alive by picking precursors’ pockets of musical currency that had been stolen, in its turn, from a previous pop generation.

There’s Burnet-doing-Bowie-doing-Lennon on “Charles Thinks About It.” And Burnet and co-vocalist Carolynne Edwards recreating E.L.O. co-founder Roy Wood’s recreation of the Everly Brothers on “She’s Over Me.” And too many wonderful thefts of Badfinger thieving from the Beatles to even mention (well, we’ll mention the gloriously ebullient “Baby Blue,” which even swipes the title of one of Badfinger’s best songs).

There is more going on here than mere clever quotation. Burnet’s guitars throb with a grainy, gritty immediacy, dispelling any notion of prissy ‘60s preservationism. The production and song arrangements, full of smartly applied layers of keyboards and harmony vocals, multiple guitars and occasional studio effects, are rich and full without ever being overblown. The lyrics are alive with wit and verbal energy, even on songs about laying inert in bed under the weight of severe depression. Counterbalancing those serious numbers are bits of sheer whimsy, both lyrical and sonic. Serving up everything from power pop to folk rock and joking hillbilly music in the course of 14 songs (18 on CD), 3D Picnic is nothing if not multidimensional.

Clearly, this is a band that rock critics are going to savor like a good game of chess. But for the average music fan who doesn’t want to turn listening into a mental game, “Dirt” offers the simplest pleasure of all--it’s endlessly hummable, a picnic of a debut album. The album’s release date is March 21. 3D Picnic will appear March 28 at Club Tangent at the Marquee in Westminster.

MIND OVER 4

“Mind Over 4.” (Destiny)

** 1/2

“The Goddess.” (Massive Sound)

** 1/2

This band could be a metal phenomenon in the making. “Mind Over 4,” released late last year, and “The Goddess,” due out later this month, are two snapshots of a band of ambitious artistic reach honing its craft in a way that--if it continues--could lead to something special. The basic ingredients for excellence are evident on both albums. The bass-drums-guitar instrumental unit hits with a tough, crunching impact that can recall Metallica in full flight, but it is also capable of softer, atmospheric passages akin to early King Crimson. The fourth member, singer Spike Xavier, has a rangy, strong-as-a-bellows voice. Xavier loves the operatic heavy metal vocal style that is usually such a bombastic bore, but he manages to invest it with real feeling in songs full of dire existential fear.

Unlike Metallica, which is unremittingly baleful in its vision of the human enterprise, Mind Over 4 sets up a dialogue in which the possibility of salvation for the individual and for society is at least entertained before we plunge back into the dark maelstrom.

What’s needed now is a good, strong dose of melodicism to give Mind Over 4’s attack more staying power in the mind, a bit more earthy detail and narrative to flesh out the band’s symbolic lyrics, and a tightening of its sometimes wandering song structures (do we dare also ask for a sense of humor?). “The Goddess,” the stronger of these two releases, shows progress on all these fronts--except, of course, the humor. For speed metal fans, both of these records are worth seeking out.

DON’T MEAN MAYBE

“Live Sample.” (Dr. Dream)

** 1/2

Like Mind Over 4, Don’t Mean Maybe is gradually broadening its scope and refining its approach in a way that holds lots of promise. The band’s self-produced 1989 mini-album drew primarily on one good alternative-rock source, the Minutemen. This debut LP adds another smart influence, the Meat Puppets, to the trio’s arsenal. But “Live Sample” doesn’t quite reach beyond its influences, and the songwriting isn’t consistently strong enough to sustain a full-length album. Boiled down to its best material, “Live Sample” would have yielded another very good EP.

Sparsely produced, with a clean, live sound and few overdubs, the album provides a good showcase for Don’t Mean Maybe’s twisting, wiry approach. Mark Andrea’s forceful, riff-happy guitar playing draws on psychedelia without getting tiresomely prolific. Jeff Fairbanks, like all good rock-trio drummers, can turn percussion into a lead instrument. It would have been better, though, if Don’t Mean Maybe had used the resources of the studio to experiment with adding extra dimensions to its sound.

“Jacket” is indicative of the album’s overall lack of daring. The song lifts its melody from the Minutemen’s profound anti-war statement, “The Price of Paradise.” But unlike 3D Picnic, Don’t Mean Maybe doesn’t steal well. Aside from a fine guitar solo, the song is a prosaic account of a petty car burglary. Why borrow so obviously from a noble precursor and use it for such mundane ends?

Don’t Mean Maybe’s best numbers are humorous sallies about earthy subjects--like “Colt 45,” with its country stomp beat, the enjoyably poppy “Happy Beans,” with its vocal harmonies patterned after the Meat Puppets, and the sardonic rant of “Buff ‘n’ Tan,” in which Andrea launches some funny invective at the trendy beach set.

In all, a maybe.

HOLLYWOOD JONESES

“Champagne.” (Trigon)

***

In truth, “Champagne” isn’t the full title of this six-song mini-album. We’ve expurgated it to protect the innocent from the HoJos’ coarse sense of humor. We’ve also omitted a reproduction of the album cover, which is hilarious, but in awful taste. We’ve even changed the band name that appears on that album cover--but that’s simply because the erstwhile just-plain-Joneses added “Hollywood” to their name after the initial printing to avoid a legal battle with a similarly named Boston band.

The good news is that bandleader Jeff Drake has self-censored his own worst sexist tendencies, which came out in torrents of deplorable epithets toward women on the 1986 album, “Keeping Up With the Joneses.”

The Hollywood Joneses’ approach is patterned mostly after the New York Dolls--loud, loose, lubricated takes on Rolling Stones-style guitar rock in which the band skids and slides and hits with a good, raw kick--and if it crashes against the guard rails, so much the better.

Drake sings in a bratty sneer that is just right alongside the headlong lurch of inebriated guitars. Greg Kuehn’s piano pounding, straight out of the British school of Ians (Stewart and MacLagan), is a consistent highlight. Solid original songs set the stage for ragged-but-right versions of “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “Route 66,” wherein the philosophy was for everyone involved to blast off at the start, and may the best man reach the finish line first. And that’s pretty much the way this reprobate brand of rock ought to be played. It’s nothing new, but it’s tasty--especially in a small, EP-size bite like this.

D.I.

“Tragedy Again.” (Triple X)

* 1/2

In its long, erratic career, D.I. has shown at times that good, rewarding rock can be forged from the caldron of hard-core punk. Songs like “Johnny’s Got a Problem,” “Richard Hung Himself,” “Hang Ten in East Berlin” and the immortal “OC Life” all had strong melodic hooks, searing instrumental focus and an interesting point to make.

For at least half of “Tragedy Again,” bandleader Casey Royer and crew merely go through hard-and-fast motions. The music subsides into undifferentiated thrash, the lyrics drown in the sexism of “Love to Me Is Sin” or the rote youth-rebellion sloganeering of “Manhole.”

The better tracks include the title song, the by-now obligatory anti-heroin number, “Chiva,” and “On Our Way,” a pop-flavored but emotionally bloodless tune about leaving a sweetheart to go on tour (far from sweet sorrow, Royer makes parting sound like a perfunctory formality to be gotten through before he can run off and have some real fun). But even these are pallid compared to D.I.’s top form of old. A band can only play a style as limiting as hard-core for so long before terminal monotony sets in.

“Tragedy Again” may appeal to throwback fans willing to remain stuck in the early ‘80s, when there was still some novelty and excitement in playing it hard-and-fast.