Group Puts Some Pop Into a Visit to the ‘60s

Oooooh . . . aaaaah . . . doot-doot-dah-doot . . . ba-ba-ba-ba-dee-dah.

Excuse us for not starting this review more intelligibly, but good pure-pop can cast a pleasantly mind-mushing spell, and the Legendary Loose Screws know how to say “abracadabra.”

The Orange County band also knows how to say “Oooooh . . . aaaaah . . . doot-doot, etc.”--the raw materials of the classic, beautifully conceived and executed ‘60s-model pop harmonies that are the scrumptious frosting and a good part of the batter mix on this six-song debut CD.

What we have here is essentially a less arch and pretentious Oasis substitute. The Loose Screws milk the ‘60s like everybody else, but--and this is important--their collection of ‘60s pop influences doesn’t begin and end with the Beatles.

Instead, they delight in echoing the sounds of such slight yet savory one-hit-wonder confections as Edison Lighthouse (“Love Grows [Where My Rosemary Goes]”), Lemon Pipers (“Green Tambourine”) and Shocking Blue (“Venus”), along with more substantial fare such as the Zombies and the Hollies. It’s all captured in slightly tinny, car-radio-ready AM sound.

Singer-songwriter Wallace Talbert is a talented and knowing front man--talented enough to pour on his melodic sweets in a strong, clear, first-rate voice and savvy enough to shift his tone and inflections from song to song to give each one the extra character it needs.

In his more biting moments, Talbert sounds like a golden-throated cousin to local punk hero Jack Grisham; at other times he chirps forlorn love songs in an angelic voice that places him as an alert student in the school of such pop grandmasters as the Hollies’ Allan Clarke and the Zombies’ Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent.

Lead guitarist Matthew Von Doran--fresh from some exquisite work as a key sideman on folk-pop performer Kerry Getz’s local-album-of-the-year candidate, “Apollo”--puts on his rocking shoes here and comes up with lots of smart moves. The wah-wah pedal seldom has been stepped on more purposefully than Von Doran does in the neatly crafted yet suitably rude parts he dabs onto the noir-psychedelic number “All Dressed Up.”

Bassist Gordon McGrath and drummer Brad Wilson are veteran players who established solid credentials in the local band Factory. McGrath joins Talbert and Von Doran in that lush harmony mix, which culminates in an album-closing a cappella Zombies tribute at the end of the prettily moody “Tomorrow’s Just Another Stupid Day,” the 19-minute disc’s most ambitious cut.

Lyrical themes range from the familiarly off-kilter--the exuberant “Bring Out the Sandy” pays homage to an inflatable sex doll--to the usual love-won/love-lost stuff.

Many smartly ‘60s-derivative rockers like to do mock-penance for their stylistic thefts by bemoaning their lot as addicts to a still-powerful drug whose effect isn’t at all novel. The Loose Screws do theirs in “Revolution No. 10,” singing about what it’s like to be part of pop’s second-childhood dotage.

Nothing matters anyway

And there’s nothing new to say.

The lights are out, the party’s over,

But it’s about to start all over!

Party on, Loose Screw dudes. You’re crazy like a fox.

(Available from the Legendary Loose Screws, 20232 Birch St., #2, Newport Beach, CA 92660; (714) 642-3785. E-mail: qwkpin@msn.com)

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