Genre Benders Dare to be Different : In Debut Efforts, Bazooka and Cadillac Tramps Branch Out; Force of Souls Enlists Heroes

There’s something of a monster-movie-matchup motif to the local albums up for review in this week’s OC Pop Beat.

Bazooka gives us jazz-meets-rock. In Cadillac Tramps, it’s punk-meets-blues. And with Force of Souls, we get to hear four guys from Fullerton meeting some of their heroes. As for King Kong-meets-Godzilla, check your late-night TV listings. The ratings scale runs from * (poor) to ***** (a classic). Three stars denotes a solid recommendation.

*** BAZOOKA “Bazooka”

The commercial prospects look iffy for this all-instrumental trio built around alumni of the musically omnivorous El Grupo Sexo. It’s easy to imagine some record company scout with bottom-line ears listening to this self-produced cassette release for about 30 seconds and pronouncing it too jazzy for the rockers and too rocky for the jazzers. But Bazooka is a lot of fun for anyone who isn’t a purist about either form.

The idea here isn’t to make a radical, avant-garde statement. Saxophonist Tony Atherton, bassist Bill Crawford and drummer Vince Meghrouni build their songs around riffs and melodic themes that should make sense to rock-loving ears. From there, they stretch out and play some interactive, be-bop-influenced tag. Still, Crawford’s clean, direct electric bass and Meghrouni’s resourceful, hyperkinetic, sometimes-volcanic drumming keep the trio from straying into the abstraction that might result if Atherton’s raspy-toned sorties were the sole focus. On a couple of long songs, “Get Get ‘N Down Down” and “Scream Without a Beak,” the saxophone soloing becomes redundant. Structure and conciseness become Bazooka best.

Usually, themes and styles are matched and attached in humorous, unexpected ways, giving Bazooka the capacity for surprise and oft-shifting motion. “Get Get ‘N Down Down” starts with a lumbering riff that sounds like Cream, sans guitar. Then it moves into a driving up-tempo passage resembling the Temptations’ “Get Ready.” On “Screwcifer,” Atherton introduces a lush, dusky theme, then gets funky with traces of James Brown. “Tabooby” is the most unpredictable ride of all: It opens with a portentous theme for the royal court, as Atherton blows long, heraldic lines on simultaneously played alto and tenor saxes. Then the scene shifts to a bluesy strip joint, followed by excursions to the Middle East and a hurtling bit of Balkan folk dance.

Bazooka works as a flat-out power band (when “Reptillicus Promiscuous” reaches full acceleration, it sounds like a minimalist, no-strings echo of some of the warp-speed leaps of Mahavishnu’s “The Inner Mounting Flame”). But it also works while taking a breezy, lightly undulating excursion with Art Pepper’s “Red Car.” Any band this flexible has to be tubular.

(Available at performances or from Bazooka, 1332 Laveta Terrace, Los Angeles, Calif., 90026.)

*** CADILLAC TRAMPS “Cadillac Tramps” Dr. Dream

The songs on Cadillac Tramps’ debut album are rudimentary, the melodies minimal, the singing severely limited. But virtually everything here rocks like mad, and that’s almost enough.

The Tramps draw their basic plan of attack from punk rock: namely, attack, keep attacking, then attack some more. It gets wearying after nine or 10 songs (and the album has 14), but if you’re in the mood for a pummeling, these guys are first-rate sparring partners.

The fact that the Tramps are acquainted with some earlier chapters in the rock martial-arts manual helps the album stand up better than most pure-punk onslaughts. Swampy blues and rockabilly roots color such songs as “Train to Fame” and “Twenty Years.” Early British invaders like the Kinks and the Yardbirds are tapped. Led Zep’s “Over the Hills and Far Away” is the (inelegantly rendered) source for the one quieter (but still rocking) tune. Mitch Ryder’s raucous mix of blues, R&B; and garage rock is another vintage parallel.

More than anyone, though, Cadillac Tramps follow the lead of Social Distortion, the first Orange County punk band to delve into roots music. The Tramps even use SD’s laughing skeleton iconography for their album cover, and they borrow SD’s harmonica sideman, Eric Von Herzen, for a raving blues workout. If they can ever equal Social Distortion’s melodic sense and more developed song-craft, the Tramps will be on to something.

What they have now is a grabbing sound, captured with a clean, hard edge on the album. The twin guitars scrape and throb, and Jamie Reidling’s bass drum explodes as if he were driving a speed-metal band. Singer Mike Gaborno’s growl is more humorous than threatening, an apt, leavening touch considering all the instrumental fury around him. With his joking, high-handed asides, Gaborno comes off as a gritty, glitz-free dead-end-kid counterpart to David Lee Roth.

The Tramps tap into some promising themes, coming up with street mythology that is caustic but not embittered and never sentimentalized. But the songs are sketchy, seldom taking an idea beyond its basic premise. The band has a political streak, but the delivery is heavy-handed.

Right now, the Tramps resemble a strong-armed rookie pitcher who knows only how to throw the high, hard one. If they can harness their raw power and learn to work the corners, they could turn into big leaguers.

Cadillac Tramps play at the Coach House on June 13.

*** FORCE OF SOULS “To Live and Die in Orange County” Purple Twilight

Do-it-yourself releases by unsigned bands don’t usually make for collectors’ items, but this unusual debut might qualify.

Instead of showcasing its own talents, the sensible thing for an unknown band to do, Force of Souls (formerly known as Primal Scream) went out and started knocking on famous doors. The result is an album that features an 11-minute jam with Cream’s drummer, Ginger Baker, two songs with bashing provided by Bill Ward, Black Sabbath’s original drummer, and two delicious cameos by David Lindley, the Jackson Browne sidekick who seemed to relish the chance to set decorum aside and play heavy-metal freakout slide guitar.

Rue Phillips, an able but little-known British associate of Ward’s, does much of the singing; Hendrix clone Randy Hansen takes solos on several songs, and veteran heavy-metal session drummer Greg Bissonnette turns up as well. Only one song, “Waste of Love,” is sung and played solely by current members of Force of Souls.

If “To Live and Die in Orange County” doesn’t provide clear documentation of a cohesive band, its “how I spent my summer vacation hobnobbing with famous musicians” approach offers some fine moments. And it should be noted that Force of Souls and its main songwriter, guitarist Leland Jeffries, gave its well-known buddies a good context to work in by writing some sharp hard-rock songs in which emotive music compensates for generally bland lyrics.

“Emily” is an expansive heavy-metal love song ignited by Lindley’s ebullient, swooping leads. The other highlight is “Transmission From the Man,” a spiritual ode that cribs quieter passages from King Crimson and nicks a heavy riff from the Kinks’ “Mr. Big Man.” “Trap Door Spider” is a tasty bit of heavy, sinister stuff a la Alice Cooper, and “Swamp Guy” echoes Cream’s “Tales of Brave Ulysses” while giving a matter-of-fact glimpse of a homeless man living in a ditch. Force of Souls steals with a fan’s affection, adding enough of its own ideas to make those thefts engaging rather than obnoxious.

The instrumental jam featuring Baker starts stiffly, as Randy Hansen tries to dominate with his empty flash. Things improve when Jeffries, a strong soloist who really didn’t need all that guitar help, takes over on lead guitar and Baker is able to blend into the ensemble. Hansen redeemed himself with a fine “All Along the Watchtower”-style solo to climax “Transmission From the Man.”

The focus on guest stars--especially a guest vocalist--wasn’t prudent, because a debut album should establish a band as its own entity. Then again, you only live and die in Orange County once, so why not act out some fantasies along the way?