A Toast to the Rare Skills of Songsmith Ward Dotson

Even here in his home county, Ward Dotson has not gotten the appreciation--”reverence” might not be too strong a word--he deserves as one of the best classic, ‘60s-rooted pop-rock songsmiths and arrangers of his generation.

Over the course of eight (sometimes extremely) low-budget albums--five as guitarist and songwriting partner in the ‘80s-vintage Pontiac Brothers, and three since 1992 as singer-guitarist and sole auteur of Liquor Giants--Dotson has proved with each record that he has The Gift.

Only the true masters of pure-pop have it: an aural antenna that pulls in the most memorable melodies, an ability to wrap them around lyrics that are infused with everyday humanity and lit by the spark that comes with a playful flair for language, and the savvy to augment what the Muse bestows, with nimble, discriminating theft.

The Beatles and the Kinks are the giants on whose shoulders “Liquor Giants” chiefly stands, although Dotson isn’t so hoity-toity as to eschew a tasty chew on such trashier fodder as early-’70s bubble-gum pop.

With his messy guitars, his fractured singing voice (a stringy gargle that’s nevertheless tuneful and rangy) and his embattled, self-ironic underdog’s stance, Dotson also is a prime embodiment of the rock-outsider ethic of his ‘80s college-alternative origins.

His stuff has always drawn comparisons to the Replacements’ and Paul Westerberg’s; it’s no knock on Westerberg, whose new album is very good, to say that in the ‘90s, Dotson has been operating on a clearly higher level.

Asking whether “Liquor Giants” is better than its 1994 predecessor, “Here,” is like asking whether “Revolver” is better than “Rubber Soul.” Both Dotson albums are essential if you like classic pop-rock tune-spinning (and if you don’t mind a scrappy sort of singer in lieu of a powerhouse Lennon or McCartney).

One key difference is that Dotson, at 36, finally is on a label that could give him a decent chance to find his audience. Matador is the ultra-hip (and, thanks to a recent alliance with Capitol, amply funded) New York label that’s home to Pavement, Guided by Voices, Yo la Tengo, Bettie Serveert and Liz Phair, among other heroes of indie-rock.

Dotson, a versatile guitarist who can handle everything from merry Rickenbacker twangs to near-grunge roars, produced the record and played almost everything except the drums, which were banged with garagey aplomb by his old Pontiacs’ mate Matt Simon.

Besides Dotson, who lives now in Los Angeles, and Fullerton resident Simon, the Liquor Giants’ just-formed touring lineup includes bassist Mark McGroaty and guitarist Mark McNally. They’ll play their first show Sept. 7 at Linda’s Doll Hut in Anaheim. Dotson hopes to tour with the band for the first time since the Pontiacs’ 1988 breakup.

Another breakup--the end of Dotson’s relationship with his former Liquor Giants bandmate Lisa Jenio--forms the emotional basis for the new album. Too crusty for much self-pity, he instead drinks overflowing flagons of self-reproach (“All I want / Is to be an idiot savant / All I am / Is Manson and the Son of Sam,” he sings in one particularly over-the-top moment of low self-esteem).

Indeed, the album has its bleak parts, including the Lennonesque laments “Hideous Pleasure” and “Thanksgiving in Zuma,” and “Copycat,” in which the sonic ambience seems to place Dotson in the cavern of a freeway overpass.

“Jerked Around” is a scarifying rocker that hits with the roaring anguish of Nirvana, or the Replacements’ classic, “The Ledge.” “Hey You,” with its cold, ominous longing, sounds like a blueprint for Trent Reznor to follow when he figures out that melody is where it’s really at.

For all that, “Liquor Giants” is no dark wallow. Pop exuberance rules, and the sheer sumptuousness of tunes that pile hook upon indelible hook makes it an uplifting, invigorating experience that, given a few spins, might keep you humming for a lifetime.

It helps that Dotson knows how to be jaunty and blue at the same time. “Bastanchury Park” is a winking knockoff of the Small Faces’ “Itchycoo Park.” (Don’t bother searching for it along Bastanchury Road in Fullerton; this bit of local color is just a figment of the author’s imagination.)

It’s an enlightened theft that amplifies the song’s wry ironies: By invoking the ‘60s hit, with its eager anticipation of mind-blowing psychedelic fun, Dotson mocks his own sodden lot as he strolls on a soggy day, in futile search of escape from a rainy state of mind.

Never a commentator on anything beyond his own typically boozy, lovelorn, impoverished or bemused condition, Dotson nevertheless offers a perfect anthem for the Downsized in his brawny, sardonic rocker, “$100 Car.” Here’s the economy and wit of a pop master at work:

Hundred-dollar car

Gets me there, people stare.

Bumper sticker sings to me:

‘Wanna be Infiniti.’

Well I don’t need to get to very far,

I just need a hundred-dollar car.

Got no place to go,

It’ll get you where you are,

It’s a hundred-dollar car.

Other highlights on the brisk, sunny side include “Awful Good,” with Dotson tipping his cap to the country licks and bittersweet romantic innocence of NRBQ’s Al Anderson, and the winsomely twanging “Here,” a love song so fetching and suffused with guileless feeling that it could spark another round of Monkeemania should Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones and Peter Tork ever get hold of it.

But first, just a little bit of Wardmania would be nice. Lord knows it’s overdue, and richly, richly deserved.

* Liquor Giants and Possum Dixon play Sept. 7 at Linda’s Doll Hut, 107 S. Adams St., Anaheim. 9 p.m. (714) 533-1286.

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Ratings range from * (poor) to **** (excellent), with *** denoting a solid recommendation.