O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Wedge Takes Trip Back in Rock Time

TV’s “Twin Peaks” may have been easier to follow than the T.S.O.L. story.

It starts simply enough in 1980, with some strapping surfer types from Huntington Beach and Long Beach launching a straightforward punk band with an acronymic name (True Sounds of Liberty being the whole mouthful).

Then, in 1983, after taking a stylistic turn toward rainy Gothic sounds, the drummer and singer leave, a new drummer and singer arrive, and a reconstituted T.S.O.L. emerges as a punk-and-blues band. Gradually it turns into a blues-and-metal band. Then the old punk band reunites, and suddenly there are two versions of T.S.O.L. All sorts of consternation and acrimony ensue.

To confuse things further, this untidy saga is still unfolding. The old punk band seems to have disappeared for the moment, but the latter-day T.S.O.L. is still with us. “To Hell and Back Together,” a retrospective of the second T.S.O.L. era (1983-1991), is due out later this month on Restless Records. And the current lineup (with drummer Mitch Dean and singer Joe Wood the senior partners, now with nine years of service) has recorded some new material that it is considering issuing on a small independent label.

And now T.S.O.L. is growing extra limbs. One is Wood’s solo band project, which is still in the rehearsal stages. The other is Orange Wedge, which played Saturday night at the Marquee.

The band includes all three regular members of T.S.O.L.--Wood, Dean, and bassist Dave Mello--plus guitarists Dean Chamberlain, a former Motel and Code Blue member, and Mike Dewey, once a Mentor. If Orange Wedge blossoms and becomes a success, it might at last render T.S.O.L. obsolete.

The Orange Wedge sound looks backward to a rock style that maybe ought to be obsolete, but never quite died out: big, fat, heavy, early ‘70s blues-rock of bands like Mountain and Humble Pie, with a touch of early ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd tossed in. In the best of all possible worlds, contemporary rockers looking for early ‘70s source material would turn to Free, the Who and Scotland’s unjustly obscure Sensational Alex Harvey Band. But, after a zillion clones of Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and the Faces, the sources Orange Wedge taps at least represent a different slant for people who believe that heads are for banging, not thinking.

Dean, an anvil-smasher of a drummer, made sure that Orange Wedge was indeed heavy on Saturday. Chamberlain and Dewey provided the meat of the sound, forming a well-coordinated guitar tag-team. Instead of indulging in the guitar prolixity of those early ‘70s bands, which could solo on for eons, the two guitarists went for an economical, lean-and-mean ‘90s approach. Actually, it would have been interesting to hear Orange Wedge ramble into a jam or two--within reason, of course--instead of playing so concisely.

Wood was able to put down the rhythm guitar he wields in T.S.O.L. and do the mike-stand hefting, bop-around-the-stage hard rock front-man routine. He didn’t abuse that freedom by overdoing the antics--Wood has the confidence and presence to do without that. Chamberlain gave the band a second visual focus as he twirled and cantered about.

In Orange Wedge, Wood and Dean have said, Wood is supposed to be playing the part of an alter ego with the Spinal Tap-worthy name of Peter Stroke. Wood’s look--shades, Van Dyke beard, scraggly hair and a pirate hat--had an element of humor, but there was no real role-playing or broad comedy involved. In fact, most of the songs had the sort of street realism that has been a hallmark of T.S.O.L. Among the themes: gangbanger gunslinging, addicts in thrall to their habits and their pushers, and the death of an abused little girl. Not much Spinal Tap fodder there.

Wood’s throat must have a rusted pipe wedged into it: He was able to emit hefty, serrated screams at will. The problem was that on several songs the scream quotient was too high, the melodic relief too sparse. Screaming is fine as a punctuation mark denoting glee or frustration, or pure tension-release. Then it has a purpose. Screaming as the essence of a vocal style is just screaming. It’s a safe bet that Mose Allison would not have liked Wood’s take on his blues nugget, “Parchman Farm,” which involved more hollering than the pig-calling contest at an Arkansas state fair.

Orange Wedge’s promise unfolded in the last three numbers of its eight-song, 45-minute set. “Lillian,” which lamented the death of an abused child, injected emotion that had been missing before. Much of its power came from a dynamic instrumental buildup over the course of the song--one of the band’s strengths.

“Buried Alive” was a basic hard-rock boogie, done with humor and enthusiasm, and offering a good, sing-along chorus. “Feel It” was a satisfyingly heavy set closer, again keyed around rising dynamics. Chamberlain and Dewey launched the song with a deliciously furtive, “Back Door Man” groove. By the end, though, guitars were squalling, drums were pounding and Wood was screaming--this time appropriately, as the fitting clincher to a song that had built gradually and earned that final release.

Opening band Hellbent had a scruffy appeal, suffusing its hard rock with some boozy humor and cheeky attitude (although a casual ethnic slur against immigrant convenience store operators was uncalled for). The highlights of its set were a ragged take on country music a la the Rolling Stones’ “Girl With the Faraway Eyes” and “Jezebel’s,” a Faces-style boogie that paid tongue-in-cheek tribute to stereotypical trashy-and-proud-of-it female metal fans. Stolid, blocky beats sometimes held the band back from becoming truly hellbent.