A Fine Tune of Events on Vinyl and Cassette

The accent is on melodic rock in this assortment of recent cassette and vinyl releases by local bands. Ratings range from * (poor) to **** (excellent), with three stars denoting a solid recommendation.

*

*** 1/2

Lutefisk

“Aerosol” (vinyl single)

“Doctrine” (track from vinyl compilation)

Bong Load

“Absolute Cloud Free Shine”

(vinyl single)

Bite the Kitty

Luckily for Don Burnet, the “three strikes, you’re out” law doesn’t apply to rock songwriters, or this inveterate and omnivorous kleptomaniac of pop styles would be facing heavy time for larceny. Luckily for pure-pop fans, Dallas Don, as he prefers to be known, continues to be one of the most engaging musical thieves around.

Burnet, who got his start playing punk rock in the early-’80s Huntington Beach band Plain Wrap, emerged in 1990-91 as front man of 3D Picnic. That Los Angeles band put out two fine but overlooked albums that nicked everything from the Beatles (Dallas Don’s musical lode star) to Bowie to Buck Owens, with delightfully tuneful and unpredictable results.

With Lutefisk, a band named after a Norwegian gastronomic, uh, treasure composed of rubbery codfish (and pronounced LUDE-a-fisk ), Burnet has become even more brazen.

When a pure-pop guy (albeit one who often packed an aggressive, let-it-rip wallop) confronts the commercial ascendancy of heavy rock and begins tossing chunks of ear-fracturing sonic concrete into a previously sweet batter, the thought occurs that he might be responding to shifting tastes in the marketplace. The borrowings remain tasty, though, and if they help this crafty, exuberant rocker win a better ticket in the pop lottery, so much the better.

In Lutefisk, where he is joined by three longtime associates--3D alumni Brandon Jay on drums and Beale Dabbs on guitar, as well as bassist Jeff Watson--Burnet has the guitars tuned for dissonance and amped up for assaultive impact in a way clearly appropriated from Sonic Youth.

On “Aerosol,” Lutefisk builds a wall of squalling, groaning guitars but doesn’t build it so high that we fail to notice the insinuating pop melody that straddles it. Add in a chunky, T. Rex-style beat propelled by sinewy drum-bashing, and you have the recipe for a delicious pop-rock cookie, even with the concrete chunks.

The B-side, “Return to the Journey,” is a whimsical studio exercise that puts a silly spin on “Revolution 9”-like noodling and pastiche. It’s a throwaway, but good for a chuckle.

“Doctrine” is part of a four-band vinyl sampler, “KXLU Los Angeles Presents Demolisten, Volume I.” The Sonic Youth stylings remain, augmented by some pounding, howling Nine Inch Nails touches, as Burnet weathers a bout of the existential horrors.

“Absolute Cloud Free Shine,” half of a single shared with a Mazzy Star-ish track from the band Son Gun, finds Burnet at his mix-and-match best, launching a slow, sonorous psychedelic space shot into galaxies previously explored by the early Pink Floyd of “Astronomy Domine,” the detached Bowie of “Space Oddity” and the ominous Beatles of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).”

The lyric oscillates between mystical hokum (“ruling all the multiverse, the open hands of Isis . . . “) and serious questing for mystical epiphany (“And things one thinks would contradict, agree in this world’s dialect”). It all coheres in a very good psychedelic science-fictional epic that conveys an appropriate sense of wonder yet doesn’t forget to wink at its own pretensions.

Burnet is aiming for a full-length CD, due in March, on the Bong Load label, including the three songs reviewed above. Those impatient for more than the currently available vinyl can buy an album-length demo cassette from Lutefisk, 8033 Sunset Blvd., No. 971, Los Angeles, CA 90046.

(Bong Load Custom Records, P.O. Box 931538, Hollywood, CA 90093-1538.)

(Bite the Kitty Records, 1404 Mission Ridge, Santa Barbara, CA 93103.)

* Lutefisk, Dashboard Prophets and HFL play Friday at 10 p.m. at 50 Bucks Gallery, 2059 E. 7th St., Los Angeles. (213) 261-5224. *

** 1/2 . . . All the Madmen

“Nicotine”

To the extent that Orange County’s multifarious rock scene has a signature “sound,” it’s the melodic punk being brought to the outer world’s attention by Offspring.

O.C. also has been developing a promising corps of serious-minded guitar bands that have no more than a trace of punk content and are more likely to call to mind R.E.M. or U2. The roster is headed by Water, whose debut album for MCA is due out in March, and includes such unsigned contenders as Standing Hawthorn, Psychic Rain, Primitive Painters, Trip the Spring and Factory.

Each offers good musicianship and an earnest, brooding emotionalism. All the Madmen, named after an early David Bowie song, shows as much potential as any of them on this do-it-yourself, album-length cassette.

“Nicotine” offers uncommonly clean, sharp production for a self-financed recording; the guitar-bass-drums trio plays well throughout, pummeling with authority when it wants to rock, especially on “Nick,” and delivering a nicely crafted, textured acoustic-electric sound on ballads that sometimes gather energy as they go along.

The most interesting rock bands typically have singers who can shift gears instead of taking the same approach in song after song. All the Madmen’s Glen Meredith qualifies.

As soon as you peg him as a wistfully reedy sort--the Julian Lennon sound-alike of “Fortunate”--he surprises with persuasive toughness via the chesty, full-throated Jim Morrison-inspired rasp that carries “Nick.” Occasional Bono-isms crop up as well.

Like its sound, All the Madmen’s subject matter has much in common with the brooding brethren mentioned above. Most of “Nicotine” consists of troubled reflections written from the unsettled stage of life where adolescence is receding into the past, and full adulthood looms uncomfortably ahead. Meredith, guitarist Dave Volmer and drummer Brian Hill mainly look to the past, mourning its loss, but denying themselves the comforts of nostalgia.

The album is full of an uneasy, disillusioned sense that maybe the halcyon “Decadent Days”--as one song title puts it--of communal boozing and other escapist pursuits were actually kind of hollow.

All that’s left is a pervading ruefulness; Meredith can’t put much stock in his past and, in one of the album’s most sententious and least convincing moments, pulls a Morrisseyan mope at the end of “Decadent Days” and laments a future where “I realize I’m all alone until the day I die.”

The arrangements aren’t as inventive as they could be, the lyrical images are sometimes evocative but not quite vivid, and the melodies are attractive but not really memorable. A wider range of moods would help. But All the Madmen shows signs of being the kind of band that might develop from the solid base it has established with “Nicotine.”

(Available from All the Madmen, 24922 Muirlands, Suite 27, Lake Forest, CA 92630.)

* All the Madmen plays Saturday at 10:30 p.m. at J.J.’s Lounge, 1815 E. Chapman Ave., Orange. (714) 532-4920. Also Jan. 20 at Club Mesa in Costa Mesa, and Jan. 25 at Linda’s Doll Hut in Anaheim. *

** Her Own Hands

“Fear”

Her Own Hands goes for a ghostly, mysterious variant on the brooding guitar-band style. While this four-song tape shows improvement from a previous effort, “The Murderer,” the playing doesn’t flow naturally, and singer Mark Rhodes sometimes sounds labored and mannered as he strains for a grand, theatrical effect.

One problem is too much U2. “December” is a self-conscious attempt to copy the elegiac sweep of Bono and the boys’ “Bad.” And nearly every song Her Own Hands touches includes a wordless, repeated chorus of “whoa-ohs.”

Lyrically the band needs to improve greatly on such clunker couplets as “Oh, it’s so hard to accept defeat/And to turn the tide of feeling weak,” in which the second line manages to be simultaneously nebulous, cliched and verbose.

On “Want Me,” Rhodes comes off sounding brittle and dour when confronted with a woman who wants the satisfaction of knowing she’s sexually appealing but doesn’t want to reciprocate with sexual engagement. It’s too blunt and resentful to offer any psychological insight.

There are some good elements. The band has a decent ear for melody, and Rhodes has ability if he can learn to sing within himself.

Sincere ardor comes across in “Picture Before the War,” Her Own Hands’ most personal song. Rhodes and Rob Lane weave nice introductory instrumental bits with a combination of electric and acoustic guitars.

The early signs don’t add up to much, but the now-promising Standing Hawthorn didn’t seem like much of a contender, either, in its sluggish early incarnation as the Slugs. The nice thing about watching bands on a grass-roots level is that they can suddenly catch a spark, find a vision, or see months or years of hard work begin to show for the first time.

(Available from Her Own Hands, 10000 E. Walnut, Unit D, Fullerton, CA 92631.)

* Her Own Hands plays Friday at 9 p.m. at Club 369, 1641 Placentia Ave., Fullerton. (714) 572-1781. Also Jan. 27 at Koo’s Art Cafe in Santa Ana.