History in the Remaking

If the Offspring occupy the lucrative penthouse of Orange County punk, the Crowd, the Middle Class and the Mechanics were the foundation on which the whole edifice was built.

The three bands sprang up in 1977-78 and were the first from the local scene to win airplay on Rodney Bingenheimer’s new music show on KROQ-FM (106.7).

The Middle Class, from Fullerton, was the first Orange County band to make an impression on the L.A. punk-club circuit, while the Crowd touched off the Huntington Beach scene in 1978 and served as a role model for such influential successors as T.S.O.L. In his liner notes of the CD edition of the storied “Beach Blvd” punk compilation, the Adolescents singer, Tony Montana, recalled the Crowd of 1979 as “a band that I would risk two weeks’ restriction to go see.”

The Mechanics left almost no recordings, but the Big Three of Fullerton punk--Social Distortion, Agent Orange and the Adolescents--all cited the band as a key inspiration. (Mike Palm of Agent Orange once described the Mechanics’ sound as a cross between the Stooges and AC/DC.)

The Mechanics’ legacy gets new life courtesy of the band’s former guitarist, Tim Racca. Dubbing his solo project 16 Tons, he has served up a big, juicy slab of all-instrumental rock ‘n’ roll red meat. The Middle Class gets a welcome second look courtesy of a retrospective on Velvetone Records, a new label launched by the band’s guitarist, Mike Atta. And the Crowd, which has been a feisty part of the local club scene since its late-’80s return to action, recaptures that old poppy-punk charm with a four-song vinyl EP, “Dig Yourself.”

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

*

***

16 Tons

“Motorhome”

(no label)

*

Tim Racca didn’t have much of a budget for this do-it-yourself, four-track recording, but he had something much more important for making instrumental rock that can hold a listener: an ample and varied fund of good musical ideas, and the skill to translate them into hot performances.

The challenge is to sustain interest across an entire album sans voices, and Racca pulls it off without even granting himself the luxury of a ballad or two. The 18 tracks span 47 minutes that rock without letup while revealing an expansive knowledge of the rock-guitar lexicon.

The album’s title gives a nod to one stylistic touchstone--the ferocious, ultra-heavy but ultra-lean attack of the world’s least-pretentious heavy metal band, Motorhead. But Racca, who based about half of the album’s original compositions on old Mechanics numbers, doesn’t just go for the hard and heavy stuff. Several tracks recapture Pete Townshend’s magical merger of ignition and heraldic grandeur.

In “Beethoven vs. Keith Moon,” Racca and drummer Randy Carr (now the newest member of Social Distortion) give us a fond joke and a nifty piece of music-making by playing the “Ode to Joy” almost exactly as the Who would have done it.

Racca also pays his respects to the earliest instrumental rock forms. A cover of Duane Eddy’s 1958-vintage “Rebel Rouser” starts off as if it’s going to be a rather routine, if high-speed replication, but Racca and the thunderous Carr keep kicking it into higher and higher gears. On several tracks, 16 Tons takes off from the surf-rock and hot-rod forms of the 1960s but pummels them with a wild force reminiscent of Dick Dale’s recent albums.

Some of the most delightful bits result from stylistic mixes and matches. “G-Bang,” the album’s longest cut, opens with surf-metal intensity but slows for a good, crunchy workout akin to what Buffalo Springfield used to do when Neil Young and Stephen Stills decided to get mean on guitar.

“There’s Bacon in Heaven” sounds like an imaginary glimpse of a dream band that never happened, as Racca places Young’s thin, steely toned Springfield-era lead guitar style against the regal cast of a Who anthem.

At moments, 16 Tons weighs in with bits that recall Joe Satriani’s expansive, slicing metalloid licks (“Call Off the Dogs”), ZZ Top-ish blues boogie (“Western Bacon”) and even some of the Adolescents’ massed guitar onslaught (“Evil Underwear”) and the Meat Puppets’ spacious, surging rambles (“Still Lazy After All These Beers”).

But what’s most striking isn’t how many styles Racca can touch upon, but the keen sense of composition and guitar-architecture that allow him to use each one in just the right way. Contrasting riffs and deft tonal shifts keep it all interesting, but this album isn’t about flash technique or esoteric experimentation. It’s 16 Tons of straight, tough rock ‘n’ roll.

(Available from 16 Tons, 1501 E. Chapman Ave., No. 278, Fullerton, 92631. (714) 732-0180).

***

The Crowd

“Dig Yourself” (seven-inch vinyl EP)

Lethal

*

In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the Crowd sowed its punk seeds not in anger, but in a spirit of fun. After a spotty 1989 comeback album, the Huntington Beach foursome is again doing what it did best in the old days, playing zestful, fast-moving pop songs with punk rawness and bite.

Brett Gurewitz, the Epitaph Records boss and former Bad Religion guitarist, produced the sessions for this four-song release, mustering a clean, hefty sound marked by exuberant, sing-along choruses.

The title track, written by guitarist Jim Kaa, is a standout that sets a telling of the Crowd’s history to an indelibly catchy melody. The story is related with wry, insider references pitched to old fans, but the question “Dig Yourself” poses is broader in scope. Does a band of 35-year-old guys whose checkered rock career leaves it--in terms of commercial significance--somewhere between has-been and never-was have any right to claim a seat at today’s cluttered punk rock table?

The quality of the song is enough to answer the question. “If there is no one else, then you’ve got to dig yourself,” sings vocalist Jim Decker (whose nom de punk in the old days was Jim Trash)--precisely the sort of damn-convention-let’s-go-for-it attitude that the Crowd used to ignite a previously nonexistent H.B. rock scene back in 1978.

The other original tracks, “Life’s a Pill” and “Booze Blues,” clip along nicely while taking humorous looks at lousy relationships. A faithful cover of the Buzzcocks’ “Love You More” rounds it out.

As soon as fans of fast, catchy music hear this, the Crowd won’t be alone in digging themselves.

(Available from Lethal Records, P.O. Box 14868, Long Beach, 90803-1414.)

*

** 1/2

Middle Class

“A Blueprint for Joy (1978-1980)”

Velvetone

*

This 22-song CD documents the first phase of the Middle Class, which consisted of the three brothers Atta (singer Jeff, guitarist Mike and drummer Bruce, from oldest to youngest) and bassist Mike Patton, who went on to produce (with crucial help from engineer Thom Wilson) the first Adolescents album and to sing lead on one of O.C.’s greatest punk songs, “American Society” by Eddie and the Subtitles.

Those who can’t stand their music kind of sludgy had best stay clear of this reissue. Velvetone makes no pretense of working from original masters--you can hear the needle coming down on the old, scratchy vinyl from which eight of the songs were taken.

For those who think sludge just adds to punk’s charm, Middle Class’ work holds up well.

“Out of Vogue” is a fine example of thrashy, ultra-fast hard-core, complete with a catchy, tunefully hollered title refrain. But on the same 1978 EP that included “Out of Vogue,” Middle Class also showed itself capable, in “Situations,” of a lean, dark-hued style of punk rock that recalled the early sound of the British punk band Wire.

The main drawback over the course of 22 songs is the one-dimensional quality of Jeff Atta’s singing--which pretty much stays in the same ironic but dread-laced, Brit-accented sing-speak. He is good at conveying a mood of nervous protestation, as he does on “Last Touch,” which, like several of the songs, seems to be a comment on the dulling effect of a middle-class, suburban upbringing: “This feels like the good life, the passion all dead,” goes the clinching chorus line, if we’re hearing correctly through the aural murk.

“Last Touch” is one of the four here that first appeared on the band’s very good 1980 EP, “Scavenged Luxury.” They find Middle Class moving further into a spare, sinewy, tensely driven style reminiscent of Wire and Joy Division. Patton’s full-toned bass and Mike Atta’s edgy, scraping guitar highlight the attack.

Besides the two EPs and three songs from a 1979 demo tape, the CD offers 11 live bootlegs culled from crudely recorded performances in 1979. Some of this stuff is indispensable: What other way is there to hear live music from the legendary Cuckoo’s Nest, the Costa Mesa bar that was the cradle of O.C. punk? And not just the music, but the sound of clinking bar glass.

However, it would have been best to pick the five or six live moments and omit the rest.

(Available from Velvetone, 3621 Eagle Rock Blvd., Second Floor, Los Angeles, 90065. (213) 254-4449)