Rockers, Talkers, Blues Streaks

Today’s menu of local album releases includes Will Brady’s one-man acoustic blues effort; “Homespun: A Collection of Fullerton Artists,” a collaborative project involving five bands and three poets; and a recording of the blues-rock Rhythm Lords. Ratings range from * (poor) to **** (excellent). Three stars denote a solid recommendation.

*** Various Artists

“Homespun: A Collection of Fullerton Artists”

Homespun Productions

Compilations are scattershot by nature, but this one, an attractively packaged showcase for five bands on the non-punk side of Fullerton’s alternative scene, has a good ratio of hits to misses.

Born too late for the free-form, freak-flag-flying ‘60s, Plato’s Stepchildren attempt to re-create the mood of a hippie coffeehouse or a late-’60s college radio station where the pot was a bit too plentiful. The instrumentalists, mainly on bongos and acoustic guitars, try to keep a sense of coherence, but it’s undermined by singers who spend too much time letting out whoops and animal noises as if they were part of a kindergarten class exercise in unfettered self-expression. One suspects that the Incredible String Band might have sounded like this in its most precious and diffuse moments; one also suspects that the ISB had the good sense not to release anything it recorded at such moments.

Moe’s Art, fronted jointly by Al Olefer and former Don’t Mean Maybe member Jeff Fairbanks, takes in some familiar indie-rock territory with its three tracks. While the songs aren’t stunning, the band rocks cleanly and with an edge. It throws in enough jarring shifts to remind everybody why Fairbanks’ old band often was compared to the Minutemen, but it more than balances any arty inclinations with its solid grounding in such reliable sources as the Rolling Stones, the Meat Puppets and the Velvet Underground.

Trip the Spring goes two for three: “Felt” never finds a center for Kevin Dutton’s theatrical declamations, but “Long Yellow Weeds” (urban pastoral, nice sense of innocence and wonder) and “Motel Limbo” (urban afflicted, believably tormented) make for good bookends. Some might find Dutton’s earnest, stagy style a bit much (think of David Bowie and Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, with a touch of the Celtic airy quality of the Incredible String Band’s Robin Williamson thrown in), but his voice is distinctive, and when he has a good role he is effective. The band is very strong instrumentally, with a firm and flexible rhythm section and a bevy of artful touches from lead guitarist John Kraus.

Moonwash Symphony comes through with a beautiful, hymnal air, “Nightingale,” that front man Shon Sullivan sings mostly in German. It’s hard to believe a melody this lovely wasn’t borrowed from the European folk-classical tradition, but if Sullivan came up with it himself, he’s to be congratulated. “Try” rides a darkly tunneling, Joy Division-like bass line and finds its way to some catchy melodic hooks as it evokes a moment of romantic crisis. Gentle seduction through strong craftsmanship is the band’s method, and it works.

Room to Roam, in contrast, is a boisterous, bash-it-out crew. But it also knows how to throw out a strong melodic hook. “Leap of Faith” and, especially, “Fall Again” have the combination of humability and roughed-up alarm that are the stuff of many a KROQ hit. The loose, hard-driving attack works well (but the drumming shouldn’t be quite this sloppy).

Interspersed between band segments are readings by three poets. Michael Mollo and Tom Rush are outraged by the usual stuff that outrages anti-Establishment types, and they express said outrage in the usual way (Rush is a respectable performer of his apocalyptic vision, “In the Time of the Plague”). The one worth hearing more of is Mark Obermeyer, who oozes sarcasm but is sufficiently funny and inventive in his wordplay to get away with it. “Orientation,” his ridicule-heaping response to therapeutic attempts to reverse the sexual orientation of gay men, scores its intended ironic points but is memorable mainly for the fun he has doing it.

** 1/2 Will Brady

“Next Door to the Blues” (cassette)

A lack of money, not talent, is the only problem with this solo-acoustic debut by Brady, a veteran singer-guitarist from Laguna Beach who formerly played rock with Honk and traditional blues in the Brady & Siegel duo.

He has drawn all but one of these 12 tracks from performances along his usual round of club and coffeehouse gigs. Brady plays an amplified acoustic guitar with lots of reverb effects to give it more bite--probably a necessity in the pubs where solo performers have to contend with the chattiness of cafe society. On record, though, it means getting used to a guitar sound that has too much brittle snap in the treble strings and too much boom in the bass.

With that caveat, Brady has come up with a tasty collection. The song selection--drawn mainly from good, traditional outside sources but avoiding the too-familiar--is varied in style, mood and tempo. Brady delivers everything in a clear, nuanced voice that carries his own interpretation rather than trying to mimic his sources.

“Beatin’ Like a Tom-Tom,” an Ernie K. Doe song, is a sad-eyed little gem that Brady milks for innocent charm. A Mance Lipscomb rag-blues, “Good as I Been to You,” finds Brady willing to spice rural blues with a touch of urban jazz. “Ha-Ha in the Day Time,” a wry lament by Percy Mayfield, hits some crying notes a la John Hammond that capture the speaker’s real sense of hurt. Brady plays it straight with unvarnished, if somewhat restrained, regret on his own composition, “There’s Nothing I Can Do About It Now.”

He excels with rhythmic, rocking guitar work and more traditional blues solo licks; some of his jazzy sorties are less effective as he breaks away from a song’s rhythmic base and fails to make the lone guitar swing.

Compared to vibrant live-in-studio recordings by such solo blues acts as Paul Geremia and Robert Lucas, Brady’s album isn’t next door to ideal; it’s pretty far down the block. He deserves a shot at recording under optimal circumstances.

(Available for $10 plus $2 shipping from Will Brady, P.O. Box 9065, South Laguna, CA 92677-9065)

** 1/2 Rhythm Lords

“Happy Hour”

Rebecca Records

It’s hard to find a distinctive niche in the well-mapped world of blues-rock; this band from Long Beach and Orange County hasn’t found one yet. But with their first full-length album, the Rhythm Lords at least are carrying on a wide search for something to call their own.

Front man Dale Peterson offers original songs in a variety of styles, including a Stevie Ray Vaughan-like tense, swirling shuffle (“The Bell Has Tolled”), a Looziana swamp-fever workout (“Voodoo Queen”) and a jumping, Chicago-blues instrumental showcase (“Happy Hour”). The Rhythm Lords also move in some unpredictable directions, covering dark, dire songs by Tom Waits (“Down Down Down”) and Bob Dylan (“Everything Is Broken”). So far, though, the magic formula that would separate this group from the large pack of worthy aspiring roots bands hasn’t turned up.

That doesn’t mean that fans of bands such as the Paladins, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the James Harman Band won’t find things to enjoy on “Happy Hour.” Peterson has a solid, husky blues voice, and his guitar playing is consistently nimble, emphatic and tasteful (there’s none of the egotistical show-for-its-own-sake that bogs down less worthy contenders).

In his best original, “Pay His Way,” Peterson brings a laconic gallows humor to bear as he captures the sense of frustration and vulnerability pervading neighborhoods where street crime is out of control. Band member Eric Von Herzen, who has been heard on several of Social Distortion’s bluesier tracks, gives the Rhythm Lords a second able soloist, and the rhythm section plays with a snap that lives up to the band’s name. Good production abets the crisp playing.

So what’s the missing key that would turn all this ability and integrity into something special? It’s inspiration, something nobody can pinpoint or describe until it suddenly appears. Sometimes it arrives when bands honor their calling and keep plugging away long enough to stumble upon it.

(Available from Rebecca Records, P.O. Box 3301, Long Beach, CA 90803, (310) 987-1050). * The Rhythm Lords will open the Orange County Blues Festival Oct. 1 at 11 a.m. at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point.