POP MUSIC REVIEW : Slapbak Deals in Funk : The Mission Viejo combo plays alluring covers, but its own songs are less successful. Cross Culture offers a pleasant if unexciting set.

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO--There is nothing less funky than a planned community, but Slapbak seems to have overcome its surroundings.

The band from Mission Viejo played the Coach House on Thursday night, and the signs of genuine funk were everywhere. There was constant agitation on the dance floor and even more on stage, where front man Jara Harris and his backup singer sisters Janine and Julie were at the center of a display of athletic, churning motion that involved high-kicking dance steps, lots of shaking and sweat, and some discarding of garments (Jara’s white robe was the first to go).

The most renowned funk acts--James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, Parliament-Funkadelic--typically have tried to create a circus atmosphere on stage, even as they maintained musical precision. Slapbak, a racially balanced eight-member band, clearly had that in mind.

Besides the three Harris siblings, the band includes keyboard players named Chainsaw and Krank, a drummer, a percussionist, and Mike Reed--an out-of-place-seeming guitarist looking too well-scrubbed and gangly and Clark Kentish to be funky. But once you’ve discovered funk sprouting in Mission Viejo, anything’s possible, and Reed did just fine with spiny rhythm work and P-Funk inspired metallic whanging leads.

Slapbak saved its most alluring funk for the end of its 75-minute set, when it borrowed some of the substance, as well as the style, of its influences. A cover of Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under a Groove” launched the segment, although Harris caused a momentary letdown by suddenly halting the number just as it was moving from a simmer to a burn.

At least he had a sensible substitute--”Kickin’ the Do,” a song that Harris co-wrote with George Clinton and Bootsy Collins, the captain and first mate who presided over Parliament-Funkadelic’s ‘70s funk explorations. They wrote the song for Slapbak’s coming debut album, which Harris said is due in March or April on Warner Bros. Records.

“Cold Blooded Slapbak,” featuring guest guitar and piano from two more Harris siblings, was the band’s most ambitious original, a song with sudden tempo shifts that the band negotiated without losing its thrust. Then the cork came off entirely with a boisterous concluding cover of Sly’s “I Want to Take You Higher.”

Although they ignited the show, the two covers, with their insinuating melodies, underscored the set’s main weakness--a lack of catchy appeal in Slapbak’s original material. Except for a nice ballad, “Singles”--which Harris delivered in a pained, slurry, Sly-like voice--the songs failed to develop much melodic interest or display much vocal daring. Julie Harris, a striking vocal presence when she got the chance, was an underused asset who, given a more prominent role, might be able to help the band improve on that score.

Another local band, Cross Culture, opened with a 50-minute set that was full of pleasant melodic confections but lacked the fire and authority of Slapbak’s performance.

The band, formerly known as Gnarly Braus, incorporated rock, gently lilting reggae and some lightly funky rhythms. Singers Gelani Jones and Phil Gough, both former members of the Bonedaddys, were a well-matched vocal pair. Jones excelled on plaintive, soul-tinged tunes such as “Heaven Knows.” Gough is an earnest singer who handled a couple of pop-rock oriented tunes, among them “I Will Make You an Offer,” which sounded like Simple Minds without so much bombast.

Cross Culture--which is about to release its first album on G Recordings, an Orange County label--constructed its set well: It stitched different styles together with a sense of contrast and progression, rather than imposing jarring incongruities.

But well-played as it was, the show was too seamless and conservative. Gough’s guitar solos were almost perfunctory runs through familiar paces. John Forbes’ keyboards regurgitated tinkly chimes and whooshing string effects that seemed straight from the warehouse--the same sounds, used in just the same way, turn up on just about every mass-production pop-R&B; record. Also, Cross Culture tended to ride its catchy choruses through long repetitions instead of developing its songs.

The band had the right idea when it inserted a dynamic, rhythmic instrumental break into an excessively lush ballad, “Make Up Your Mind.” But it didn’t take the idea far enough, cutting off the surge just when it was starting to gain power.

It’s too bad bands can’t exchange traits the way baseball teams trade players. Then Cross Culture could lend Slapbak some of its sharp pop savvy, in return for a measure of Slapbak’s grit and insouciance. The swap would help both of them.