POP MUSIC REVIEW : Normal’s Not So Punk at Jabberjaw

The Northwest rock thing, beyond the post-Stooges Sub Pop Records groove, also includes the bands on the tiny K label--bands that mostly sound like the pop group you and your sister might have put together when you were little, if you could have afforded a guitar on a 9-year-old’s allowance. K bands are all sweetness, and irony, and cute little kitty cats.

One of the leading K bands, Vancouver duo Mecca Normal, passed through a packed-like-a-Tokyo-subway Jabberjaw on Friday and played a set disingenuous enough to make a proto-naive outfit like the Shaggs seem like Foreigner in comparison.

Jean Smith pranced around like an “a-dance-to-life” woman from a Feiffer cartoon, occasionally making punk-rock lunges with her microphone. She crooned intentionally tuneless lyrics, mostly about the empowerment of women, in a flat, affectless voice.

Guitarist David Lester, who danced in place like a Herman’s Hermit well-rehearsed for a performance on “Hullabaloo,” performed all the standard guitar-hero pyrotechnics but whanged through the tiniest possible amp--for maximum ironic effect.

Mecca Normal is occasionally cited as an inspiration for the angry-woman punk thing--there were a lot of Riot Grrrl patches on the jackets of women in the audience--but seemed themselves more like a couple of fourth-grade teachers on holiday.