POP MUSIC REVIEW : 3D Picnic Adds Dimension to Music

The first song 3D Picnic played Friday night at the Newport Roadhouse’s New Klub on the Block began with screaming feedback, took off into a supercharged country gallop and ended with a stately guitar coda that would have done E.L.O. proud.

The Los Angeles band clearly wasn’t kidding about working in three dimensions.

That quality sets 3D apart from many young rock bands in what has become a period of specialization. Bands tend to stay in their sub-categories--playing speed metal, or noise-guitar rock like Sonic Youth, funkified-metal like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Primus, or slow, slab-rock like Soundgarden and its Seattle cohorts. This narrowcasting may help bands establish a commercial foothold, but it gets awfully monochromatic if a listener has to sit through a whole concert of it.

3D Picnic was intent on making noise--that was unmistakable from the casual disdain with which Don Burnet, a former Huntington Beach punk rocker, attacked his guitar. Much of the 50-minute show was devoted to generating raucous sound at high speeds. At the same time, 3D never stopped being a pop band--which, in broad terms, means a band that celebrates melody and acknowledges that rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to be colorful, fun, and surprising.

The band’s look underscored its refusal to take just one tack or follow convention. Burnet, who wore a Pittsburgh Pirates hat with turned-up brim, bassist Mickey Ferrel, and drummer Brandon Jay could have been auditioning for a revival of the “Dead End Kids,” with Burnet playing the Huntz Hall part. Carolynne Edwards, who shared vocals and played guitar and piano, might have been out for an evening at the symphony in a demure dress, sensible shoes and updated flapper haircut.

While Burnet is the band’s main singer-songwriter, its visual focus and its prime energy source (he roved the room for one guitar solo, and wound up playing on his back during another), Edwards proved a valuable anchor, an accurate singer whose aggressive keyboard pounding belied that demure bearing. Burnet doesn’t have exceptional range for a pop-rock singer, but Edwards’ helping harmonies and occasional leads offered clear-voiced contrast and support.

3D played 12 songs from its strong new album, “Sunshine and Cockroaches”--which left time for only two songs from its even stronger 1990 debut, “Dirt.”

The band also rampaged through an almost unrecognizable version of the Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls,” which it rebuilt as a playfully dramatic big sky cowboy epic, complete with rapid accelerations and downshifts in which the band mimicked a wind-up toy racing forward or tumbling to a halt.

Sometimes 3D risked taking its frenzy too far. When the music hit peak speed, Burnet was prone to rattle off rapid-fire lyrics as if he were trying to fly through a tongue twister. Consequently, anyone who hadn’t heard such songs as “Snitchin”’ and “Beneath the Coals” on CD wouldn’t have a clue what they were about--although the fundamental lightheartedness of the material came through.

The band did its best work at more moderate tempos. Burnet’s poignant “Waiting for Parts” was a soaring loser’s anthem with an indelible arching guitar and vocal hook; “Thinner by the Day” was a sober-minded but not humorless account of tough economic times that might have come off better in a higher key, as Burnet’s voice scraped the bottom of his range and lost power.

Singing in tandem, Edwards and Burnet brought the show to peak intensity on the scathing “Soul Peeler,” which had some of the ominous intensity of the Beatles’ “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).”

Trashy or sincere, slow or fast, 3D Picnic rocked freely and kept coming up with tunes that are apt to sneak into a listener’s head days or weeks or months later. It’s what good pop bands do.

Trouble Dolls turned in a solid opening set grounded in the garage-rock ‘60s and R.E.M.’s guitar-rock ‘80s.

Although drummer Ron Cambra sometimes merely kept pace rather than driving the band forward, the quartet rocked acceptably, even at middling tempos. John Surge, who handled most of the lead vocals, seemed to be forcing a rasp as he sang about various states of anxiety, disappointment and emotional dislocation.

Like 3D Picnic, Trouble Dolls sounded best when two voices were sharing the load--with Michael Bay singing passionate high harmonies atop Surge’s grit. Surge and Bay both came up with tasteful, complementary guitar riffs that carried melody while packing some bite.

While nothing Trouble Dolls played leaped out and grabbed hold on first hearing, the band showed a good sense of song craftsmanship and enough authority in its playing to hold the interest of garage-rock aficionados.

The evening’s headliner and crowd favorite, Medicine Rattle, tripped over a missing guitar string. Guitarist Michael McCarthy, who has a deft touch on rockabilly-influenced material, snapped a string early on--usually a minor mishap, but in this case a set-scuttling accident.

McCarthy didn’t have a backup guitar because, as he told the audience, his spare guitars had been stolen recently. But isn’t it standard procedure to have an extra set of guitar strings around? McCarthy evidently didn’t, and tried to play out the set with a guitar borrowed from 3D Picnic’s Burnet. As McCarthy rightly noted, its tone was more suited to Johnny Ramone than to a roots-rock band walking in the footsteps of Johnny Burnette.

Medicine Rattle’s debut album is due out next year on Cargo Records, the same independent label that has issued 3D Picnic’s albums. Perhaps the studio will prove a better forum for singer Melanie MacDowell than the concert stage. She’s an energetic performer, but her unvarying vibrato flutter was a shrill affectation, especially in a musical style that requires straightforward, natural power.