Putting ‘Retro’ to Rest : * Possum Dixon focuses on contemporary urban themes and an often-frantic stage show to counteract critics who say elements of the group’s rock sound are trapped in the past.

Rob Zabrecky remembers those shows, by bands like X and Wall of Voodoo, Green On Red and the Dream Syndicate, and all sorts of other trios, quartets and quintets that made up the thriving Los Angeles pop music scene of the early ‘80s.

He remembers it, though he was only about 15 then, hanging out with a girlfriend in the parking lot of the Country Club in Reseda, waiting for some band or another to get on stage. Now he has his own band to worry about, something called Possum Dixon, with its own urgent modern rock sound.

“I sort of feel like I’m part of that, even if it is sort of a generation later,” Zabrecky says of that faded scene. Maybe it’s fitting, then, that Possum Dixon will perform Wednesday at the Country Club, sharing a bill with Battery Acid and headlining act No Doubt.

Possum Dixon has never played the Reseda venue before. But when the young quartet emerged from some unknown garage a few years ago, many of the band’s first gigs were at the now-departed Bebop Records store, just around the corner.

The band’s new debut album on Interscope Records, titled simply “Possum Dixon,” shares some musical threads with that punk-new wave aesthetic of a decade ago.

But the band hopes to avoid the “retro” label, fighting such comparisons by focusing on contemporary themes and an often frantic stage show that has singer-bassist Zabrecky, guitarist Celso Chavez, guitarist-keyboardist Robert O’Sullivan and drummer Richard Treuel--all age 25--crashing euphorically into one another.

“It’s a big celebration, chaos, just having to release a lot of tension,” Chavez says. “Getting up there and playing is what we love doing best, more than recording or anything else.

“The most contained of all of us is our drummer, Rich. He’s holding it all together with his beat. The three of us in the front are kind of falling apart sometimes.”

Set against this fast musical dynamic are Zabrecky’s lyrics, often as emotionally revealing as they are irreverent studies of urban life. The album track “In Buildings” has already earned some airplay on KROQ-FM (106.7).

“I have no explanation about the songwriting process,” Zabrecky says. “It’s a void to me; it’s an enigma. I pick up the guitar, words come out, music comes out, it falls out and it’s done. I wish I knew how, man. I’d write a lot more songs.”

Possum Dixon’s plan was to record “a timeless album,” Zabrecky says, one that recalled the energy and focus of those old records by the Police, the B-52s and others without seeming trapped in the past.

A few critics have still suggested that the new album could easily have been recorded in 1979.

“It hurts a little bit, I suppose because it’s not 1979,” Zabrecky says. “That was a different time. I like to think of our record as an early ‘90s record.”

Zabrecky grew up mainly in Burbank, and discovered music in his early teens, at about the time he traded his bowling shoes for a friend’s bass guitar. Later, as a student at Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys, he met Chavez, a self-taught guitarist.

Both had similar tastes in the new music, even if they weren’t always sure why. “I saw Dream Syndicate when I was younger, but I didn’t get it until later,” Zabrecky says. “I understood the word ‘anarchy’ much later on, and what feedback was about.”

By 1989, Possum Dixon was playing regularly at L.A. area clubs and putting out singles on the tiny Pronto Records label, which has also released discs by such acts as Spindle and Sugar Plastic. (A few of those first Possum Dixon songs were re-recorded for the new album.)

“It was something we had to do,” Chavez says of the band’s early days. “We all had day jobs that we despised. It was a great way to end the day, at rehearsal or whatever.”

These days, singer Rob Zabrecky spends his quiet time growing cactus at an artists’ commune-”flophouse” near USC when the band is not on tour. Chavez sleeps nights on a friend’s couch in North Hollywood, since his mother has moved to Texas.

The band has just returned from a month on the road with the Dead Milkmen, and expects to spend many more months traveling, at least until Possum Dixon returns to the studio later next year.

“I feel sort of like a gypsy, a peddler, because we go to each town and we play,” Zabrecky says. “After a while, home is sort of where your hotel-room key leads you.

“This is what I’ve dreamed of doing, though. From seeing bands since I was a young teen-ager, I’ve always wanted to do this. And here I am.”

WHERE AND WHEN

What: No Doubt, Possum Dixon and Battery Acid.

Location: The Country Club, 18415 Sherman Way, Reseda.

Hours: 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Price: $12.50

Call: (818) 881-5601.