Even in Late Innings, It’s a Ball for O.C. Band

It’s naive to think that “love thy neighbor” matters more in our bottom-line culture than the maxim of an old baseball curmudgeon: “Nice guys finish last.”

By Leo Durocher’s reckoning, D/Railed would be the cellar-dwelling band in the pennant race of Orange County rock. And in careerist terms, that’s close to the truth.

D/Railed put out just 1,000 copies of its 1995 debut CD, and, after mulling over the law of supply and demand, printed up the same number of its just-released follow-up, “Tortise.” (“We take the Fifth,” trombonist Steve Askey said when asked whether the misspelling was deliberate.)

“D/Railed” and “Tortise” may wallow in the commercial basement of O.C. pop, but each would be a shoo-in to make the playoffs of any league where catchiness and creativity count. Fans who turn out for D/Railed’s shows are virtually guaranteed to go home smiling and humming after being caught up in the band’s hefty psychedelic surge and swirl or its amiably chunky country- and folk-informed rockers.

Singer-guitarist Charlie Glancy sets the tone for this scruffy, smiling bunch of local veterans. With a round, pink face and multiple chins billowing under a ready grin and a trademark blue bandanna hanging from a jeans pocket, ready to mop his dome, he is the image of a working-class cherub.

In one of D/Railed’s many indelibly tuneful choruses, Glancy sings:

Well, when I die, dead and gone

Hope my tombstone will have on it

Inscribed big and tall

“He was a friend to all”

By all accounts, Glancy walks his talk.

“Charlie is the nicest guy in pop music,” says Steve Soto, a member of the local alterna-rock fraternity. “I’ve known him since the early ‘80s. Even in a situation where things get tense, he’s the guy that calms everything down. He’ll always say, ‘Calm blue ocean,’ as a joke, like some hippie guru.”

Given a fair hearing, D/Railed, whose members are 40 or pushing it, might well appeal to fans of such aggressive but pop-savvy hit bands as Foo Fighters and Everclear. But D/Railed’s prospects for riding the crowded star-bound track out of Orange County are dim, acknowledges Jim Monroe, the band’s buddy and record producer.

“Let’s not kid ourselves; they’re not kids. But they do it for all the right reasons. It’s fun, foremost. Like anyone, they would love to have a bigger audience and sell more records and get a label deal, but they’ll do it regardless. You could sit home and watch ‘Baywatch,’ or go to your band practice and have a good time and enjoy your music.”

D/Railed’s warehouse practice space down the road from Linda’s Doll Hut is spacious, well-lit and well-appointed, with nice carpeting, a clean bathroom and a comfortable sleeping loft. Posters reflecting the band’s extremely broad musical interests coat the walls; Metallica and the Circle Jerks flank an autographed poster of Julian Lennon.

The band mainly offers a pleasant, elusive and slightly dizzying sense of deja vu. Its riffs, harmonies, fuzzed-out guitar tones and production touches sound so familiar that you’d swear you have heard them in some classic ‘60s or early-’70s song, only you can’t quite place the source.

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All five members grew up in north Orange County or neighboring communities. Glancy and drummer Craig Brisco have been a team since 1980. Bassist Jeff Faught joined five years ago when D/Railed was launched; besides serving as second-chair songwriter and lead singer, Faught’s harmony vocals alchemize with Glancy’s pinched, grainy lead to produce a bright, full-bodied sound.

After a while as a power trio, D/Railed added trombone players Askey and Dino Walchak, whose honking and buzzing gives the music an animating boost while lending humor or mock-heraldic sweep.

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Two things happen at D/Railed concerts that happen nowhere else. Like a counselor on the first day of summer camp, Glancy urges everybody in the house to turn to a stranger and share a get-acquainted greeting. And, at some point, the band breaks out the shakers. In a custom D/Railed traces to producer Monroe coming to a jam session armed with beer cans filled with cat litter in lieu of maracas, the band arms everyone in the audience with homemade shakers, adorned with D/Railed stickers, to help accent the groove. (Popcorn kernels have replaced the litter because they make for a louder shake, say the band members, who can also expostulate on the acoustic properties of various cans.)

“There’s nothing worse than going to a show and everybody’s way too cool to have fun,” Askey explained.

“Actually, it motivates us to play better, or they’ll throw them at us,” Faught quipped.

“We try to loosen everybody up,” Glancy concluded. “We try to project positive. In the band scene it’s so easy to take that negative [attitude] and get jaded.”

While “projecting positive,” D/Railed avoids hazy sentimentality or mushy utopianism. The real world and its pressures are ever-present in imaginative songs whose subjects include many slices of working-fella barroom life, examinations of the idealistic potential and darker reality of the California dream and philosophic homilies about trying to face seas of disaster with a hopeful attitude. “It’s harder to be happy, but we try,” goes the signature D/Railed song refrain.

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Accentuating the positive, D/Railed has posted a world map in its loft, with thumb tacks pinpointing the band’s global following. Through his day job selling costume jewelry to overseas U.S. military personnel, Faught has managed to seed a good chunk of Western Europe and the South Pacific with D/Railed CDs. The band crams its performing schedule into the six or so months a year he’s home.

D/Railed also has worked the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim more than any band past, present or future. Askey is an usher there, and Walchak is on the security crew. Glancy is a handyman, and Brisco, a plumber.

Baseball figures into D/Railed’s new album on a wonderful song called “Inside the Park.” Airy, unsettled music percolates under verses about loneliness and failure. Then, a stirring chorus about the eternal sun-streaked promise of renewal on Opening Day turns dejection into affirmation. Faught says it was inspired by a ballplayer finishing neither first nor last, but well.

“It’s about Mickey Mantle falling from grace but making a great comeback at the end of his life. He was a boyhood idol of mine who turned to booze, but he kicked it and seemed to have a great attitude, very inspiring.”

The chorus of “Inside the Park” also evokes a certain local rock band that keeps smiling and firing up the amplifiers, finding fun and meaning in the opportunity to kindle good spirits with every show.

Next town down, it’s opening day

Double steals and a triple play

Full stands in a friendly sun

Inside the park home run.

* D/Railed plays at its record release party, 8 p.m. Jan. 31 at a location to be announced. For band and show information: (562) 592-2338; P.O. Box 1506, Sunset Beach, CA 90742.