Joyful Noise

What do you get when you mix two rangy electric guitarists, both of whom are well-equipped with gadgetry, with a bass player and drummer versed in rock, jazz and free improvisation? One answer: Stinkbug, a quartet with no fear of the dark or of cathartic noisemaking.

And it’s going to make some artful noise at Art City 2 on Tuesday night, in what could be considered an antidote to the perennial parade of pretty holiday tunes.

The Los Angeles-based group is part of the shifting constellation of new music groups that have been part of the long-running New Music Monday, the series that has been an important regional seedbed for fringe music.

Its offerings lean toward rock or jazz with an emphasis on improvisation.

It began in the Alligator Lounge in Santa Monica, and now takes place in the more central location of the club-theater-bar Luna Park in West Hollywood.

Three of Stinkbug’s members--guitarists Nels Cline and G.E. Stinson and ambidextrous bassist Steuart Liebig--are veterans of the series. Drummer Scott Amendola, formerly with Charlie Hunter, is now making the rounds of projects in L.A.

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As heard on a tape from a live performance (they have yet to make a CD), the group forges a distinctive sound.

Between Cline and Stinson, the palette of guitar sounds is rich with weirdness. Distortion, feedback, echo loops and other modified textures are used in a way that is disarmingly abstract and, at times, almost painterly.

Which is not to say that the guitarists rely on lyricism or melodic strategies. Their sound is not pretty, per se.

In fact, post-punkers, alterna-rockers and head-bangers might well enjoy this group as much as new music and improv-oriented listeners.

Cline, the best-known of the group, has been handily crossing over between stylistic worlds in recent years, playing with his own bands as well as rock acts such as Mike Watt, Geraldine Fibbers and side projects with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore.

It’s all in a life’s work for the versatile guitarist.

Welcome, now, Stinkbug, a wall-of-sound, two-guitar-based band with a difference, and no road map.

* Stinkbug, Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. at Art City 2, 31 Peking St. in Ventura. Tickets are $5; 648-1690.

Massive Messiah: ‘Tis the season of celebration, meditation and mediation, among other things, which gives this Sunday’s performance of Handel’s “Messiah” in Thousand Oaks a special timeliness.

For the first time, the three major musical organizations in the county--the New West Symphony, the Los Robles Master Chorale and the Ventura Master Chorale--will join forces in the grand venue of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.

It would be dramatic, but not accurate, to say that the two choral groups have a competitive, adversarial relationship.

Although they maintain separate identities and have faithful audience constituencies in their respective west and east ends of the county, the two groups have worked together before.

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The significant wrinkle here is the convergence of all three organizations.

Don’t expect a massive, more-is-better ensemble spilling off the stage, however.

Each group will contribute two dozen of its best singers, and the New West will provide an ensemble of 20 players, adding up to what New West artistic administrator Charles McDermott asserts is the optimum musical ensemble as heard at the premiere in 1742. That’s the music-historical angle.

In terms of the regional music spin, it’s the thought, as well as the sound, that counts.

* New West Symphony, Los Robles Master Chorale and Ventura Master Chorale, “Messiah,” Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd. in Thousand Oaks. Tickets range from $8 to $25; 449-2787.