Mystery Train Goes Its Own Way : Rootsy Band Welcomes Exposure in Japan While Waiting for Its Time in Grunge-Dominant U.S.

After 10 years of enforced patience and persistence, Michael Ubaldini is finally about to see tangible evidence that those virtues are sometimes rewarded.

Since 1984, Ubaldini has been kicking around the Orange County rock scene, fronting various bands while developing a rootsy sound that takes its cues from such classy sources as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Memphis soul and Memphis rockabilly.

Until now, only one small piece of purchasable music has resulted from all that effort--a vinyl single Ubaldini cut in the mid-’80s with his first band, the Earwigs.

But next month, the Fountain Valley resident’s new band, Mystery Train, will emerge with its first album, “706 Union Avenue,” named for the Memphis address of the famous Sun Studios that gave rise to Elvis Presley, Howlin’ Wolf and Jerry Lee Lewis, among others. The group plays Friday at Club 5902 in Huntington Beach.

Still, as he sat last week in a favorite cafe in his hometown, Ubaldini was well aware that his foreseeable future will require even more patience and persistence. Mystery Train’s album is being released only in Japan, where the four-man band recently was signed by a major label, Toshiba/EMI.

In a U.S. market heavily tilted toward grunge-alternative bands dishing Angst and fury, an act such as Mystery Train, with its classic sources, clean sound and generally exuberant tone does not have the record industry clamoring to get on board.

Ubaldini, 27, maintains a cheerful outlook. He spoke with more amusement than scorn as he related his latest frustrating run-in with the domestic music business.

A scout from a major label recently showed interest in Mystery Train, “but they wanted us to completely change,” said Ubaldini, who recently took to performing under the stage name Michael Anthony, substituting his middle name for a last name that he says people tend to flub.

“They wanted me to put on flannel,” he said. “But I’m going to do what I’m going to do. Shoot, I’d rather look like Jesse James than Paul Bunyan.” With his tousled pompadour, black leather vest, torn T-shirt, and jeans with a key chain jangling at the hip, the lanky 6-footer is cut from a rock ‘n’ roll outlaw mold that was set by the ‘50s rockabillies and updated by the Clash when the British punk band came on the scene in the late ‘70s.

“This is the way I’ve always been,” Ubaldini said. “I liked the way Gene Vincent and those guys (from the rockabilly era) dressed, and the Hamburg-Beatles look. I used to get a lot of flak for the way I dressed. I’d go into clubs in Orange County and people would openly mock it. It would just add more fire for me to keep going.”

Ubaldini says he harbors no grudge against grunge for being dominant: “I’m glad these bands inspire groups to play in garages. And it means that now we’re more the alternative. We’re facing some of the same obstacles bands were facing in the beginning of the alternative scene. But walls were made to be climbed.”

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Mystery Train’s leader has a good store of equipment for scaling barriers in the business. His singing voice is a reedy but grainy tenor that can simultaneously convey both a sense of fun and a shading of wistfulness. He is a strong lead guitarist in the straightforward, roots-conscious tradition of John Fogerty.

Ubaldini also writes songs prolifically: “If I ever dry up, I’d still have several albums ready to go,” he said. “In the last year and a half, I’ve accumulated 75 good songs.”

Ubaldini’s songwriting interests range from wry, colorful songs about the eager chase after gorgeous women, to depictions of Americana that he etches with visual details in an attempt to create a strong sense of place.

Among his best efforts are “Mardi Gras,” a song that captures the good-time charms of Louisiana life, “Down Home Sweet Girl,” an indelibly catchy appreciation of a lass so winsome she couldn’t possibly exist, and “Civil War (Across the River),” a stormy Romeo-and-Juliet tale that strives for mythic dimension.

“I want to write images, where you can almost see the dirt or smell the grass of the areas I’m writing about,” he said. “There’s so much havoc and crime today. I don’t want to be even more depressing. I’d rather remind people of the beautiful things about America. To me, a bridge over a muddy creek is great.”

Tellingly, when it came time for a photo session, Ubaldini already had his spot picked out: a stone wall that fronts a strawberry field in Westminster, a small patch of rural Americana in the middle of a typical Orange County crush of shopping strips and housing tracts.

“I’ve been able to write songs, maybe as an escape from Orange County,” Ubaldini said. “You shut your mind off and boom --I can be in Louisiana or any place I want to be.”

Ubaldini caught the rock ‘n’ roll bug young, lured by his older sisters’ collection of records by such ‘60s stars as the Beatles and the Animals. His father was a country-music fan who helped the young Ubaldini take his first steps on the guitar by teaching him Hank Williams songs.

His mother’s contribution was to let him stay up past his bedtime one night when he was about 7, so that he could see Little Richard perform on a late-night TV show.

“I just saw that energy. It seemed so exciting to me. It moved me, and I knew what I wanted to do,” Ubaldini recalled. “In school, when I had to draw a picture, I’d draw a guy with a guitar.”

Ubaldini’s first band, the Earwigs, began to take shape during his senior year at Fountain Valley High School. Playing a mixture of punk and roots rock, the band released a single in its first year of existence. It won some airplay on KROQ and KNAC, but the band never followed it up.

“We just didn’t have any direction,” Ubaldini said. “The music was there, and we had a pretty good following, but the band just fell apart.”

Ubaldini and some friends tried moving to the roots-rock hotbed of Austin in the late ‘80s but made little progress and stayed only a few months.

“We were having too much fun. I decided, ‘I’m going to end up an alcoholic here if I don’t get back home.’ It was a good experience, though. I really learned to play the blues in Texas.”

The short-lived King Rockers was his next band. Ubaldini launched Mystery Train about two years ago. After the other original members left a year ago, Ubaldini established the band’s current lineup, with bassist Tom Slik, drummer Rob Klonel and guitarist Steve Norton.

He also found a manager, Rich Modica, who had toured extensively as a guitar technician and production manager for several bands, including the Stray Cats.

Modica had Japanese music-industry contacts from his work with the Stray Cats and was able to put them to use on Mystery Train’s behalf. Two members of the Stray Cats contributed to “706 Union Avenue”--Lee Rocker produced the album, and Brian Setzer added a guitar solo to one song.

Modica and Ubaldini take pains to point out that, even with the Stray Cats connection, Mystery Train should not be pegged as a rockabilly band.

“Mystery Train could never be called a revival band of any sort,” Ubaldini said. “It’s taking everything from gospel to punk and using it to our advantage.”

Ubaldini spent two weeks in Japan last December doing radio and television appearances to lay the groundwork for the upcoming album release. A full-band tour is planned in May and June.

Meanwhile, he waits for a break in the United States.

“Sometimes I think that I should have put out more records,” Ubaldini said, looking back on a 10-year discography of next to nothing. “At the same time, a lot of good bands break up because their records get thrown in the (bargain) bin or get no distribution at all.”

“There’s no sense doing a record that doesn’t get in stores,” Modica figures. “At least with this Toshiba/EMI deal, we know it will be in every record store in Japan.”

Ubaldini lives with his family these days, having given up the entry-level day jobs he worked over the years to concentrate on music full time. He says he has not exhausted the patience and perseverance that allowed him to go almost a decade without the tangible reward of an album release that most young rockers need to stay motivated.

“I think it’s just that I love music and rock ‘n’ roll so much,” he said of his endurance. “It’s like it controls me. That’s why I keep going. I couldn’t visualize myself doing anything else.”

* Mystery Train plays Fridayat 11 p.m. at Club 5902, 5902 Warner Ave., Huntington Beach. Soul, Barrelhouse and Coyote Circus also appear, starting at 9 p.m. $5. (714) 840-6118. * Michael Anthony plays a solo-acoustic concert March 25 at Jam’s Cafe Du Monde, 17304 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach. (714) 377-1344.