Albums Put Fresh Spin on Blues, Rock

Today’s Pop Beat looks at new album releases on the local scene, covering a grab-bag of styles: rockin’ country with Boy Howdy, traditional blues from Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers, alternative rock from Too Many Joes, Aversion’s hard-core punk-metal alloy and Cross Culture’s blend of rock, R&B; and World Beat. The ratings system is * (poor) to **** (excellent), with three stars denoting a solid recommendation.

*** Boy Howdy; “Welcome to Howdywood” Curb

Never underestimate the power of “You Really Got Me,” a great rock song that already has launched three distinguished careers, one for each chord (the Kinks wrote it; Mott the Hoople and Van Halen each had their first hits covering it).

Now here comes Boy Howdy, capping its debut album with the Thunder Mountain version of “You Really Got Me”--a wild-eyed yet craftily executed ride marked by clattering train rhythms and bluegrass breakdown drive. The delightfully twangy recasting showcases the band’s two fine guitar players, brothers Cary and Larry Park, and leaves singer Jeffrey Steele whooping with justified pleasure.

Boy Howdy summons that rock ‘n’ roll spark frequently on its own originals, yet keeps the playing crisp and the style identifiably country, in contrast to the blunt-instrument approach of the Kentucky Headhunters’ Zep-goes-to-Nashville rumblings.

In addition to the consistently tasty guitar work (only the squalling tone of a solo on “Bring on the Teardrops” is misconceived), this Southland band offers an appealing, husky-voiced lead singer in Steele. He musters fervent feeling without getting too schmaltzy on the weepers and true-love odes, and is able to bring out the humor in more playful or ironic numbers such as “Bring on the Teardrops” and “If This is Love” (which cleverly quotes the Who’s “Magic Bus” and Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” in passing).

The collection’s two ballads suit the band least, taking standard approaches and keeping the Park brothers in neutral. While Boy Howdy’s lyrics seldom go beyond conventional sentiments and situations, they are freshened up by strong melodies and delivered with conviction.

** 1/2; Too Many Joes, “Charm” Piece of Mind Records (P.O. Box 1692, Orange, Calif. 92668).

We could be snide and say that Too Many Joes displays too little grit on this debut CD, but “Charm” does have its charms if you’re in the mood to wallow for a spell in pretty, wistful melancholy.

Andrena Douglass and Kristine Kunego front the band with ethereal, sighing-sisters close harmonies that are consistently enchanting. Listening to the two of them, you may find yourself wondering who cloned Natalie Merchant, the waif who fronts 10,000 Maniacs. (Without the lyric booklet, you also may find yourself asking if these elocutionary laggards are singing the same language as the sometimes indecipherable Natalie.)

The flowing currents of Barry Stevenson’s rounded bass lines and Nick Benich’s temperately gliding, Johnny Marr-style guitar supply a delicate cushion for the singers, occasionally mustering some carefully measured tension.

The band’s most urgent performance comes on “The Men She Lost to the Sea” a Gothic romance that ends the album with a wind-swept sense of mystery. The gentle, controlled approach works well on such introspective songs as “If Wishes Were Horses” and “You Follow Voices,” in which Douglass dissects unfulfilling relationships.

But when the band raises the stakes with “Say Something,” in which the singer accuses a man of abusing his child, and “I’m Not Listening,” an expression of wide-ranging social anomie, the delivery is so diffident that the songs lack impact. At such times, Too Many Joes needs to resort to harsher means, both vocally and instrumentally.

Next time, when it’s called for, perhaps the band can complement charm with a healthy measure of anger and disgust.

Too Many Joes plays Aug. 8 at the Fullerton Hofbrau and Aug. 14 at Bogart’s in Long Beach.

** 1/2; Aversion, “Fit to Be Tied” Restless

Did someone just ask for anger and disgust? Aversion deals in nothing but. The band’s extreme velocity and unrelenting thrust should delight aficionados of speed-metal and hard-core punk: Singer Christian Fuhrer spits out lyrics like a tongue-twister expert, and his bandmates follow his lightning vocal patterns with hurtling, heavy riffs.

There’s an implied sense of melody in such songs as “Hung,” “Down This Way” and “Don’t Wait on Me,” although this is music to be growled, not crooned. Aversion hasn’t developed the diversity or dynamics of Suicidal Tendencies, but it is more musical than, say, Slayer--and less bloated in its lyrical conceits.

High ideals form the basis for Aversion’s anger and disgust. When the band sees the environment being despoiled (“Dry Up -- Blow Away”), or an unloved schoolboy being molded into a fascist (“Bratattack”), it responds in snarling fashion. This can get a bit self-righteous: “My shaking finger’s getting tired of laying down the law,” Fuhrer complains during “Let It Go,” dismayed that nobody seems to be obeying his command to let go of empty materialism and conformism.

The introspection and self-criticism of “Down This Way” and the psychological anguish expressed in “Don’t Wait on Me” are more personal, and more interesting, than the broadsides against a society that won’t live up to Aversion’s expectations.

“Hung” indicts Orange County’s rock scene for shallowness and decay (a familiar sport among local punkers, dating back at least as far as Agent Orange’s 1981 recording, “Bloodstains”). But Aversion is smart enough to look for the fault within: “Hung! Killed by inner apathy. We’re hung!” Funny, they don’t sound apathetic.

***; Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers, “Alphabet Blues” Black Top

This veteran Riverside-based band doesn’t push the traditional blues envelope, but it knows how to stuff it with goodies.

Most of the songs are straightforward, workaday shuffles and boogies with commonplace story lines concerning those fundamental blues themes, infighting between the sexes and economic scarcity. But Piazza and band are able to ignite even the most mundane material as they turn song after song into a platform for musicianship that is startlingly alive and brimming with personality.

There isn’t a moment on the album when all five players aren’t fully engaged in bringing freshness, immediacy and individual expression to old forms.

As a singer, Piazza is solid and affable, more a savvy actor-narrator than a striking vocalist. As a harmonica man, he’s near the top of his trade, a delightfully unpredictable blower who seems to find exactly the right timing for each frisky toot or force-of-nature blast.

What’s more, the two other soloists, “Miss Honey” Alexander (Piazza’s wife) on piano and guitarist Alex Schultz, are infallibly active and engaging. They exert their presence and enthusiasm just as much when they drop into the band’s rhythmic interplay as when they step forward to solo.

Drummer Jimi Bott and bassist Bill Stuve refuse to treat time-keeping as a routine chore, spicing their performance with inventive touches that reward close listening.

Like an Old Master painting, the backgrounds and margins of the Mighty Flyers’ canvas are full of detail and color and invite inspection along with the foreground. The quality of the production makes it all warmly accessible, giving this studio recording the intimacy and immediacy of a performance in a small club.

Tellingly, the best original songs on the album are the three that reflect on what it means to play, listen to and understand the blues.

“So Glad to Have the Blues” unpretentiously makes a case for the blues as a healing force. “Night’s End,” slow and dramatic, paints a picture and weaves a mood as Piazza depicts a late-night drive with blues music wafting over the car radio. He clinches it with moaning harp crescendos filled with both desperation and a liberating sense of exhilaration. “Skin Deep,” a song that deserves wide exposure for its romantic lyrical imagery as well as its furtive, funky drive, says the blues are not easily defined: “not just a color, (but) a feeling like no other.” Whatever that feeling is, this satisfying album offers all you need.

** 1/2; Cross Culture, “Cross Culture” G Recordings (3334 E. Coast Highway, Suite 175, Corona del Mar, Calif. 92625.)

The problem here is that Cross Culture doesn’t delve deeply into any one root culture that it can call its home. And it doesn’t cross musical cultures (in the genetic sense) so much as skip from one to another. The lack of unity and viable hybridization leaves the album sounding scattered and diffuse, although almost every song has a pleasant sheen.

Formerly known as Gnarly Braus, this band fronted by two ex-members of the Bonedaddys clearly knows how to craft a catchy pop hook and deliver it cleanly and brightly. But the culture into which Cross Culture seems most eager to fit is that of mainstream pop radio, in which a gleaming surface counts for more than deep roots.

Songs like “Day and Night” and “Make Up Your Mind” find the band trying on hip-hop styles and coming across as blatant trend-hoppers. Jelani Jones is a capable, soul-based singer whose smooth, nasal tone recalls Stevie Wonder. He’s most comfortable with easygoing confections like “Angela” and the album’s best vocal number, the lilting, pop-soul-reggae tune “No Mistake.”

When guitarist Phillip Gough takes over as lead singer, Cross Culture usually heads in a pop-rock direction akin to Duran Duran. It isn’t until the closing instrumental, “The Crossing,” that Cross Culture lives up to its name with a sunny, percolating, playfully woozy concoction that draws together motifs from Nigeria and the Caribbean.

Cross Culture plays Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, on the World Beat ’92 bill featuring Jimmy Cliff, Burning Spear, Toots and the Maytals and others.