Gimmicky, Yeah, but Good : Grunge Bands Beware: dada Stakes a Legitimate Claim to Aggressive Rock at the Coach House

Beware of rookie bands bearing gimmicks.

The group dada arrived at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Tuesday night with a gimmicky name and a radio hit, “Dizz Knee Land,” that seems awfully calculating in its use of R.E.M./U2 riff slinging, fashionably ironic ‘90s attitude, and the “I’m going to Disneyland!” ad slogan.

But don’t be so on guard as to let a few gimmicks overshadow real substance. “Puzzle,” dada’s debut album, has more than enough musical virtue and honest feeling to allay any suspicion that this Los Angeles rock trio is the second coming of Ugly Kid Joe.

Given dada’s impressive 80-minute set at the Coach House, the ones who might best beware are Seattle-style grunge rockers.

The group offered ‘60s-informed, harmony-sweetened rock classicism, coupled with power-trio rock moves that were nimble and diversified without sacrificing impact. Guitarist Michael Gurley, bassist Joie Calio and drummer Phil Leavitt also displayed a winning band personality, full of easy camaraderie and obvious shared pleasure in playing.

In short, dada was a welcome break from what we’ve been fed by many of the plodding, glowering, balefully bellowing mastodons of the great Northwest. Listening to dada, one was reminded that rock music, like Alice, belongs in Wonderland, not in Chains. If it takes a bit of gimmickry to gain a forum for a more expansive rock vision, well, we can live with that.

Live, dada required no gimmicks. The band grabbed hold from the start with a stomping Bo Diddley beat in tandem with a acoustic guitar beefed up with wah-wah distortion effects. It was merely the first of many sharp moves by Gurley.

Whether playing chiming, glistening licks (heck, that “Dizz Knee Land” riff is pretty nifty), or weighing in with psychedelic solos that hitched screaming, distorted loudness to coherent melodies and structures, the blond guitarist made the most of the considerable leeway the trio format offered him. He always seemed caught up in the adventure of his own playing, trampolining about the stage in un-selfconscious reaction to the music. The Stevie Ray Vaughan-style Western hat that Gurley wore was not, symbolically speaking, too big for his head.

He didn’t disgrace his John Lennon T-shirt, either. Gurley, with his reedy tone, combined with the chestier Calio for full, rich harmonies that often soared with fervent, plaintive emotion.

Leavitt, with stevedore’s arms, laid down a walloping beat (too much so at times, when his smashing intruded upon his band-mates’ harmonies). But he also stretched beyond the basics, giving dada a rhythmic foundation that was not only firm, but expansive. Flanked by two activist players, Calio made his bass serve as both anchor and steady prod.

If the show had a drawback, it was that dada’s playing took precedence to the point that songs tended more to become vehicles for fine musicianship than means of telling a story.

The set, which included nine of the 12 songs from “Puzzle,” left out the album’s simplest and most directly emotional song, “Moon.” It would have been worth venturing. But it was easy enough to ride along from chorus to nicely harmonized chorus, soaking up a little melody in between displays of guitar heroism. The group put across moods and basic feelings well enough--witness the wry, ironic humor of “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow,” the prettily expressed bewilderment and skepticism of “Dog” (a song that questions all religious dogmas), and the ghostly sense of mystery in “Dorina.”

Filling out a full set can be a challenge for a band on its first album, but dada came up with good answers. An original Christmas song, “My Baby Fell for Old St. Nick,” let the band take a whimsical, wry turn toward jazzy lounge music and vaudeville-era crooning, as Gurley sang--not without a touch of pathos (“perhaps I’m just not the jolly type”)--about being dumped by a girlfriend in favor of Santa Claus. “Stretch Annie” let dada get rootsy and zany at the same time, as Gurley applied raucous barroom blues slide guitar touches to a comical love ode to a 6-foot, 9-inch waitress.

The group had a go at “California Dreamin,’ ” but the band’s reach extended beyond its grasp--the contrapuntal weave of harmonies of the Mamas & the Papas’ original was too much for the trio to even attempt, and the song sounded bare without it. But dada’s dark, hard-edged arrangement at least signaled its willingness to reshape sources--which it later did more successfully by using the Beatles’ “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” as a point of departure for a concluding jam that went through phases of funk and psychedelia.

Their other encore jam proceeded from a furtive opening that featured Gurley’s jazzy, Santana-like soloing over a Latin rhythm, to a concluding rumble that recalled Led Zeppelin charging through “Achilles’ Last Stand.”

“You guys kick ass on Seattle,” Gurley said at one point, thanking the Coach House audience for being more demonstrative than the crowd at a recent show in rock’s hottest city. Maybe the Seattle folks sensed that dada’s approach poses a persuasive argument against their hometown grunge movement’s too-narrow vision of what aggressive rock should be.

The second-billed Lonesome Romeos offered well-played mainstream rock that followed in the footsteps of Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen and Bryan Adams without suggesting a distinctive personality of its own. Perhaps it’s possible for a new band to come up with something fresh-sounding in that heartland mode at this late date, but the Romeos, who have put out an album and an EP on Curb Records, didn’t have the poetic touch or over-the-top passion to pull it off.

In her old group, Animal Logic, opener Deborah Holland was a singer crowded by two high-powered instrumentalists, drummer Stewart Copeland and bassist Stanley Clarke. This time, Holland’s clear, rangy voice was the focal point.

Her songs (including a couple from Animal Logic) took on quieter country and folk hues, signaling that Holland wants a piece of the adult-pop pie now being carved by such singers as Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin and Sara Hickman.

Holland has the voice to compete in their bracket, but maybe not the material, which offered apt but not especially original observations (example: likening a co-dependent couple to Siamese twins).

This time, far from being overwhelmed by her accompanists, Holland, who played guitar and piano, could have used more adventurous support than the colorless combination of upright bass and light percussion backing her. Percussionist Jennifer Miller provided outstanding vocal harmonies.