POP MUSIC REVIEW : Solo Sparseness Helps, Hurts Zevon at Belly Up

Like Tom Waits, Randy Newman and a few others, singer-songwriter Warren Zevon has existed on the aberrant fringes of the pop-music world for most of his 16-year recording career. With warped wit, scathing sarcasm and a tough-love realism, he has drafted both an idiosyncratic oeuvre of sociopolitical satire and a reputation as a hard-drinking, take-no-prisoners iconoclast--the Charles Bukowski of pop.

Having revived his moribund career after a late-’70s hiatus to battle alcoholism and an early-’80s bout with writer’s block, Zevon, 45, has released three albums of new music since 1987, including last year’s “Mr. Bad Example.” An inveterate tinkerer with the live format--he has toured with a stock rock group, a band and a computer, and an acoustic trio--Zevon is on an extended concert tour this time that has him facing the footlights all alone.

On Wednesday night, Zevon’s self-described “Homeric quest” stopped at the Belly Up Tavern, where he wasted little time defining the pros and cons of musical solitaire for a loyal crowd of several hundred.

“I might make some mistakes,” he said with a wry grin, “but at least this is live music--not one of those Paula Abdul animated things.”

Unless someone is a virtuosic singer or instrumentalist, performing solo is a double-edged sword: It allows for the most intimate glimpse at one’s art while exposing compositional and technical warts that a full deck of musicians can conceal. During the course of his 100-minute show, in which Zevon played amplified acoustic guitar, grand piano and electronic keyboards, the audience saw plenty of both.

Zevon opened playing 12-string guitar--one of three guitars he would use in the show, all of them tuned to modes whose droning tonalities accentuated the stark terrain in his songs. “Splendid Isolation,” an ode to the joys of detachment from society (from 1989’s “Transverse City” album) seemed a suitable beginning point for a concert whose very structure underscored Zevon’s renegade persona. Zevon followed with one of his early satirical diatribes, “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” which was given a hearty reception.

Zevon--who was dressed in black T-shirt and black jeans, his hair pulled tightly into a ponytail--poked good-natured fun at his image as a chronicler of the dark side of human existence.

“I might look like Steven Seagal,” he said to loud laughter, “but I’ve got that carefree Buffett thing.” With that, Zevon launched into “Mr. Bad Example.” The song is vintage Zevon, a blunt indictment of the deceitful, usurious side of man’s nature, from the poor-box-robbing altar boy to the capitalist exploiter of Third World labor.

After a well-received version of the Dylan-esque “Carmelita,” Zevon moved to the piano, his primary instrument. He performed a hyperactive, occasionally spotty rendition of 1978’s “Excitable Boy,” from the same-named album that gave Zevon both his media nickname and his biggest hit single, the goofy “Werewolves of London.” He then lowered the emotional curtain with the 1976 ballad, “Hasten Down the Wind,” a tale of romantic woe that is one of several Zevon songs covered over the years by Linda Ronstadt.

“I was a sensitive (expletive) guy in the ‘70s,” he cracked at the song’s conclusion.

To that point in the show, the solo bit had worked in Zevon’s favor. The sparseness provided a sympathetic cushion for his unusual singing style, one marked by an exaggerated vibrato of the type some people use to mask bad intonation or other technical weaknesses. And, with no band blasting away, one could clearly hear the lyrics--an important consideration given their emphasis in Zevon’s work.

Unfortunately, that same audibility occasionally proved a liability. Zevon remarked from the stage that he likes to think of his songs as combining the influences of Norman Mailer and blues musician John Hammond Jr. But the forced, self-consciously literary aspect of Zevon’s songwriting had nowhere to hide Wednesday night. Clunker lines--such as “your face looked like something Death brought with him in his suitcase”--rattled around the reverberant Belly Up like errant pinballs.

Perhaps because Wednesday’s gig was the last of 49 shows in the States before Zevon heads to Europe, he softened his sardonic humor with a giddy loquaciousness that was easily as entertaining as his music. Although he didn’t live up to an early caveat (“This is gonna be a very long show. . . . This is gonna be like ‘Miss Saigon’ ”), he obviously was enjoying both a stroll through his repertoire and the opportunity to schmooze with longtime fans.

“I’m recording tonight’s show for a live album,” Zevon said. “I don’t know about the name of this place, though. If you see a credit on the album for the Solana Civic Theatre or the Solana Arts Center or something, I hope you’ll understand.”

One of the more engrossing segments in the concert came when Zevon sat at a bank of electronic keyboards and sequencers to perform another oldie, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.” Coaxing repetitive, Philip Glass-like lines from the setup, he created an austere, vaguely lyrical envelope for the grim tune. When “Roland’s” martial cadence finally kicked in, the audience let out a collective whoop and soon was singing along.

After an intermission, Zevon returned to play “Searching for a Heart.” Although this guitar-strummer appears on “Mr. Bad Example,” Zevon actually wrote it years ago for the Alan Rudolph film “Love at Large,” and it also was heard more recently in the soundtrack for “Grand Canyon.” While this second set was highlighted by several crowd favorites--including “Werewolves of London” and “Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me” (another Ronstadt cover)--the concert’s instrumentally naked premise began wearing thin.

The punching-bag rhythms of Zevon’s piano songs, the modal drone of his guitar, the low vibrato of his vocals all converged into a monotonous flow that made one yearn for the dynamics of a supporting cast.

Over time, the uneven quality of Zevon’s work--and not the genuinely inspired moments--became the focus. This noble experiment in one-man-bandsmanship will, no doubt, become a treasured live recording for Zevon’s staunchest fans. The rest of us hope he keeps tinkering.