POP MUSIC REVIEW : Rocker Joe Ely Remains Authentic Troubadour of Luck, Loss, Loneliness

Is 2 Live Crew actually obscene?

Only to the extent that the nation’s ears and eyes have been focused on the anal-retentive prattlings of these mental toddlers, while the fully developed, richly felt songs of such a musical giant as Joe Ely goes so underexposed that he played to a half-capacity house at tiny Bogart’s on Wednesday.

Now that’s an obscenity--but it’s also ironic, since 2 Live Crew’s music carries none of the genuine sense of provocation and revolutionary spirit of rock’s greatest artists, in whose number Ely unequivocally belongs.

But then, the real threat from rock was never mere words; it’s always been ideas, from Elvis’ early call to liberation (“Have you heard the news?--There’s good rockin’ tonight”) to Dylan’s call to conscience (“How many roads must a man walk down?”) to the Sex Pistols’ call for anarchy (“Don’t know what I want, but I know how to get it”).

Those powers-that-be in Florida (and elsewhere) who yearn to maintain the status quo are doing well to keep society’s focus on something as ultimately meaningless as the foul street language 2 Live Crew uses. If as many people got a taste of Ely’s house afire passion for authentic experience, we might well find the downtrodden masses chucking their humdrum jobs and running wild in the streets.

That, unfortunately, is unlikely to happen in the immediate future, as Ely once again is without a recording contract--another obscenity if ever there was one. One of the most skillful songwriters in pop and an equally riveting performer, Ely, however, let none of this injustice douse his 90-minute performance, which was typically incendiary.

Propelled by the explosive three-man band that’s been behind him for more than three years now, the West Texan seared through a set drawn largely from his two most recent albums--1987’s “Lord of the Highway” and 1988’s “Dig All Night.”

In Ely’s world--a world populated with lovable loners, lucky and unlucky lovers and freedom-craving vagabonds--it’s always been heart and soul, not dollars and cents, that are the most prized possessions.

In “Are You Listenin’ Lucky?” he queries a man about whether he realizes how much he’s sacrificed in a love he gave up, one that “fit real tight like $50 shoes.”

Though many of his songs specialize in lengthy, exquisitely detailed narratives, in one of two criminally fine new songs (whose titles, like most everything else in the 18-song set went unannounced), Ely proved he can indeed sing simple, compact lyrics like those favored by rock radio’s two-syllables-or-less credo. Yet, within that framework, he still succeeded in outshining 99% of those records that obscenely become hits these days:

Love is a beating heart

Like distant drums in the dark

Love gives and love takes away

True love will meet you halfway

Perhaps Ely’s road will always be the one less traveled by the masses. As he sang in “Lord of the Highway”:

With your air cleaner hissin’

And your radiator steamin’

And the sun burnin’ bugs to the glass

You’re the lord of the highway

You’re livin’--you’re not dreamin’

And if time really wants to, let it pass

That’s a style of transportation that few souls dare to brave. But for those who do, it’s about the most rewarding way to get around imaginable.

The most penetrating question posed during the Gyromatics’ opening set was “Who will save the human race--(from the) attack of the tikis from outer space?”

This was the first big club show for the eclectic Huntington Beach-based quintet, which recently reunited after disbanding in 1988. Only the addition of a new drummer alters the lineup that was such an endearingly offbeat presence on the Orange County music scene for most of the ‘80s.

The song list is, not surprisingly, essentially the same for a group that’s pulling its songbook out of mothballs, yet the familiar numbers sounded more lean and muscular than ever. The Gyros’ general outlook on life-as-a-’50s-sci-fi-movie plot may edge perilously close to novelty-cute at times, but the band’s wide-ranging musical palette--”cool-jazz-surf-ragas” is probably as good a label as any--always kept the mix fascinating.

Besides, how can you not love a band that observes, as in “Self-Propelled Love” to “just remember that paradise ain’t no further than the end of your arm”?

Obscene? Not this band. Just obscenely witty.