Dark, Subversive Stuff--and Punk

Will punk rock never cease? Probably not in Orange County, where punk and its offshoots have been the lingua franca of a musically loquacious underground since 1979.

Today’s column of local album reviews consists mainly of punk records, and some pretty good ones at that. Veteran bands D.I. and Big Drill Car come back with renewed vigor after so-so previous efforts, while four bands of spunky young-uns with a sense of local punk history team up for a joint release called “coast hwy.”

But the grandest punk of all in this batch doesn’t play the hard-and-fast stuff. Stanley Wycoff, auteur of Bierce in L.A., favors tradition-steeped country music. His new album’s predilection for the dark side and willingness to outrage qualify him as a bona fide eccentric and an artistic hard case. Any punk-rock tough would have to acknowledge him as a spiritual brother.

Ratings range from **** (excellent) to * (poor). Three stars denote a solid recommendation.

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*** 1/2 Pierce in L.A. “Vale of Tears” Rococo Records

Bierce in L.A. is a studio assemblage presided over by Stanley Wycoff, a Long Beach-based singer-songwriter who identifies with Ambrose Bierce, the turn-of-the-century writer known chiefly for disappearing into Mexico without a trace, and for his horrific stories that displayed a markedly venomous attitude toward humanity.

Given that namesake, one doesn’t expect an album of sweetness and light. But “Vale of Tears” is even bleaker than that. Emerging from this 10-song journey through the depths of matrimonial hell, the luckier ones among us may breathe a relieved “There but for the grace of God go I.” Those unfortunate enough to recognize themselves in these songs deserve our deepest sympathies.

Wycoff’s corrosively witty story-songs have the truthful ring of portraits drawn directly from life. He is also an expressive singer in the creaky-voiced tradition of John Prine, Guy Clark, Gram Parsons and Keith Richards.

When it comes to finding classy help, he’s the equal of any corporate headhunter. Among those in his revolving lineups are guitar virtuoso John Jorgenson, Dave Alvin, Nicky Hopkins (yes, the Nicky Hopkins, piano player to the ‘60s rock pantheon) and O.C. roots-music heroes Chris Gaffney and Danny Ott.

They ably provide a wide-ranging palette for such sprightly traditional forms as rocking country, honky-tonk and bluegrass--upon which Wycoff can perversely foist lyrics full of disastrous consequence.

“Trailer Park,” in which Jorgenson switches to whoosh-treated saxophones, sounds like an outtake from a minimalist-modernist-avant-gardist experiment by Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart or Was (Not Was).

The album is a loosely unified collection of sketches. In some, decent but flawed people sacrifice not only happiness, but also a good chunk of their sanity. In others, such as “It’s All Up to You” and the bizarre “Trailer Park,” Wycoff gets into the minds of people you wouldn’t want to know and visits places you wouldn’t want to see.

His monologue songs are richly but economically drawn, implying volumes more than they actually tell. Together, they form the portrait of an oppressive and claustrophobic little world.

Wycoff opens with “Do Some Don’ts,” a cheerfully twanging country-rockabilly number punctuated with Jordanaires-style bop-shoo-wops . In it, a dissatisfied husband blithely heads out for a night of misbehavior. Soon, in “Living With His Conscience (Living With Her Fears),” this protagonist will learn that the wages of extramarital sin can be a form of living death.

With Gaffney taking over as a gravelly voiced surrogate on lead vocals, Wycoff laconically paints a picture of what happens to a marriage when the trust is sucked out of it following the husband’s infidelity.

And, oh, what a lonesome fate

To be caught between love and hate

She’ll never leave, no she’ll just wait

For it’ll work again, but it’ll never work great At his most uncompromising, Wycoff explodes country-music pieties in a way deliberately calculated to offend the easily offended.

The protagonist of “Unobstructed Shot” lays blame for the world’s ills on religion’s doorstep and fantasizes about drawing a bead on Jesus in a rifle’s cross-hairs and vengefully nailing him for failure to abolish evil.

But look beyond the sensationalism, and you’ll find a memorable portrait of a mind barely able to cope with a world of suffering.

Two and two adds up to four, that’s Arabic addition

But two and two came out to five in the Spanish Inquisition

And all that talk about that seamless robe

And all the strength and the patience of Job

Cannot explain how one child should ever have to call Calcutta home

Wycoff resists melodrama, singing the role with understatement that only implies menace, leaving it to Jorgenson’s barking guitar to make explicit the character’s lacerated mental state.

“It’s All Up to You” is a quieter, more subtle country cousin to one of John Cale’s seething, mid-’70s proto-punk rants. Wycoff takes us into the mind of a truly evil wife abuser, but nastily tweaks the listener with writing so clever that the audience, at least, will enjoy the loathsome fellow as entertaining company.

Yes, it’s all up to you to make this marriage work

But if you don’t start to do your part

You know it’s bound to hurt

Well, Tammy sang, “Stand by Your Man”

And I believe each word is true

And you can live to sing along, but it’s all up to you

Wycoff’s heart isn’t so corroded that he can’t muster a sense of sympathy for his characters’ awful lot. But “Vale of Tears” is one of the few pop works that truly deserves the much-bandied adjective “subversive.”

If Garth Brooks or one of his mega-selling colleagues in the country mainstream ever covers “It’s All Up to You” or “Unobstructed Shot,” I’ll take back every nasty thing I’ve ever written about the safe, staid, sugarcoating ways of the Nashville machine.

That’ll probably happen the day after Ambrose Bierce rides back from Mexico.

(Available from Rococo Records, P.O. Box 695, Seal Beach, CA 90740. (310) 594-6641.)

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***Big Drill Car “No Worse for the Wear” Headhunter/Cargo

A new rhythm section is in place, but improved song-architecture helps at least as much as the new blood to get Big Drill Car revving nicely again on its fourth studio release.

After a promising start with the late-’80s recordings “Small Block” and “Album Type Thing,” BDC started spinning its wheels on material that was lean and crunchy, but not memorable.

Mainstays Frank Daly and Mark Arnold haven’t changed their basic approach, which involves pop-informed, sing-song melodies taken at racing tempos. But Arnold’s ornery bucking bull of a guitar is channeled into more varied, less linear arrangements than in the past.

He draws not just from punk rock and Led Zeppelin, the main arsenal of previous albums, but from the exuberant riffing of such ‘70s arena-rock mainstays as Van Halen and Ted Nugent. Arnold finds an adept partner for high-velocity tag in new bassist Darren Morris, and drummer Keith Fallis lends an explosive kick (he has since been replaced by Jamie Reidling, the former Cadillac Tramps drummer).

Daly’s singing has bite, but his slender, nasal voice has always sounded a little naked. That’s true here, but stronger melodies avert the monotony that set in on the band’s 1991 release, “Batch.”

Big Drill Car always has recorded for small, independent labels, working with longtime buddies from the band All as producers. If BDC ever finds itself in the money, it might consider double-tracking Daly’s voice to thicken his sound.

Most of the songs have an urgent, desperate cast as Daly sorts through relationship crises in “Friend of Mine,” “Hye” and “Step Right Up.” In each case, it looks as if the narrator and his friend or lover won’t be able to hold their bond together, but an affirmative, striving tone prevails.

For BDC, embracing vivid experience appears to be its own reward, even if happiness remains out of reach. For contrast, Daly waxes sardonic or wrathful on “Nagaina,” “Crystal’s Ball” (a rare slower song) and “Yer Holdin,” with two-timing sex-aholics and drug addicts among the objects of scorn or shrugging pity.

Big Drill Car still rolls down a relatively narrow stylistic track, but after stalling through the early ‘90s, it’s fun to hear the band writing songs that go places.

(Available from Headhunter/Cargo Records, 4901-906 Morena Blvd., San Diego, CA 92117-3432.)

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***D.I. “State of Shock” Doctor Dream

After 15 years on the Orange County punk scene, D.I.’s singer and co-founder, Casey Royer, carries himself well in the role of older-brother figure to a new generation of teens drawn to the band’s ever-reliable thrashing, hard-cranking, hard-core punk.

Innovation isn’t part of the equation. On its seventh album since 1982, D.I. sticks to the old hard-and-fast, mosh-ready beats, and to the zooming, massed guitar onslaughts and catchy, shout-along choruses that were the essence of Royer’s previous band, the Adolescents.

Royer’s main subject is survival. As one roiling song puts it, the world is a “Clownhouse” of evils and absurdities that will tax your sanity. Royer’s advice is to watch your back and persevere.

D.I.’s clenched, stormy onslaught makes it clear that it won’t be possible without determined, desperate effort. The band sounds recharged after a poorly focused outing on its last studio release five years ago.

Royer’s vocal style suits his big-brother stance. He doesn’t go in for screaming, titanic drama. Instead, he delivers his cogent, if less-than-poetic lyrics in a clean, earthy Everyman’s voice. Behind him, the band provides the dramatics with hard-charging, well-etched playing and hefty backup singing.

Some of the dark humor that cropped up in D.I.’s earlier work comes through in “Better Than Expected,” in which a woman’s ignorance of the seedy and dangerous side of life proves fatal when she goes on a barhopping fling.

“Colors and Blood” is an embattled anthem bewailing the gang mentality: “When you live like there’s no rules / Makes it like any day’s a good day for dying.” In “Martyr Man,” Royer registers a mixture of admiration and bewilderment as he wonders what meaning can be gleaned from the death of an idealistic but foolhardy punk-rock hero.

Tellingly, it leads into an album-closing cover of “Lexicon Devil,” a punk-rebellion anthem originally sung by the ill-fated Germs singer, Darby Crash.

Still vigorous at 35, Royer shows that, even for an inveterate and unchanging punk, there is a livable middle way between Neil Young’s dreaded rust and a premature crash-and-burn. It’s not a bad example for a big brother to set for a new generation of punk rock youth.

(Available from Doctor Dream Records, 841 W. Collins Ave., Orange, CA 92667.)

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** 1/2 Peace Corp., Just Plain Big, the Scenes and Hard Fast & Loud “coast hwy”

NoLA Recordings

The first album-length punk salvo out of Orange County 15 years ago was the “Beach Blvd” compilation featuring the Crowd, Rik L Rik and the Simpletones. Now a new generation of O.C. bands pays homage to their local roots with the title, concept and, in some instances, the musical styles of this new punk compilation.

Nice idea: Each band gets about 17 or 18 minutes, the length of an EP, while splitting the cost. All show promise, although Hard Fast & Loud hews too closely to old-line hard-core and winds up serving up familiar, resentful rants and music that’s little more than functional, if crisply played, mosh-pit soundtrack fodder.

Newport Beach-based Just Plain Big is the most impressive of the coasters. Its trademarks are racing tempos, pop-flavored melodies, buzzing fuzz-tone guitars and two lead voices that move in unison or in tandem harmonies, adding up to more than the sum of the two parts.

The Crowd seems to be an influence on the straight-ahead punk tune “Modern Persuasion,” while some ‘60s garage-psychedelic strains (the Doors and Love are possible influences) emerge on JPB’s best and most controlled track, the darkly trippy “A Ride.”

Peace Corp. is brash, snotty, deliberately obnoxious and proud of it. The Newport Beach band targets religion (the song title, “God Is Dead (I’m Taking Over)” says it all), resurgent Nazism in Germany (they recommend nuking the whole country before it gets out of hand again), and musical trends (“What the hell is wrong with Seattle? The sound is (expletive), the bands are cattle”).

Their best song, “Jacqui-O,” has shades of Redd Kross in its brawny punk-pop merger. In it, Peace Corp. sings with deliberate insensitivity about the dangers of anorexia. Unless they’re talking about some other Jacqui-O we don’t know, they somehow got it in their heads to appoint the late Mrs. Onassis as a poster child for eating disorders. Terminal cancer doesn’t do wonders for anybody’s appetite, so perhaps a change of title would be a good idea. Candy-O worked fine for the Cars.

In short, Peace Corp. come off like louts, but if your sensibilities aren’t too delicate, they’re kind of fun as they work punk-comedy turf previously occupied hereabouts by the Vandals.

The Scenes go halfway down the same road on a couple of deliberately dopey but zestful garage-rock songs, “It Suits Me Well” and “Lime in My Beer.” Then they do an about-face and turn into some kind of smarmy, so-sincere, post U2 Brit-rock band (“Painting Pictures”) or a high-minded Neil Young knockoff (“Orange Pos”).

It’s always fun hearing bands on the ground floor who give at least a hint of character; one never knows what turns they’ll take. Someday we may look back again at “coast hwy” as the start of something bigger (five years ago, on its debut album, O.C. punk’s most successful progeny, the Offspring, was somewhere near the level heard here).

Or maybe it will just be one more small artifact proving that when kids in fin de siecle Orange County thrashed around looking for something to do, a lot of them hit on the idea of playing punk rock.

(Available from NoLA Records, P.O. Box 306, Corona del Mar, CA 92625.)