Tad Power and Urgency at Club Lingerie

Tad is about the most intense band you could ever hope to hear, a Seattle group led by a 300-pound ex-butcher from Idaho--Tad Doyle--whose sound is a grungy maelstrom of pain, politics and deep, growling unison riffs.

Tad has the power and urgency of its former Sub Pop labelmates Soundgarden, though Doyle’s wails seem to be more surprised howls of rage than Soundgardenian plaints of a golden god. If Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell is the Robert Plant of grunge-rock, Doyle is the genre’s Roky Erickson, the visionary crazy man who feels what the others merely sing about.

But at the sold-out Club Lingerie on Saturday, Doyle crooned . His band swayed, heads bowed, sheep-dog hair hanging Cousin It-like over their eyes, grinding out droning, repetitive riffs. Drummer Rey Washam was especially powerful.

Doyle, pants split up the back, sang actual notes, melodies, the whole nine, in a low, country drone, and the fuzzed-out fullness of sound at times seemed closer to the loud parts of Berlioz’ Requiem than to four young guys on the stage of a Hollywood club.

Co-headliner L7, Hollywood’s own grunge-flavored Sub Pop heroines, started out tentatively--there were technical problems and a bad mix--but by the middle of its set found the loose, Sex Pistols-crunchy groove the band is famous for, a sort of summation of the principles of ‘70s Los Angeles punk-rock.