Not Quite Nirvana

Just when you think pop music has completely lost its ability to rattle our cages, enter the Melvins.

Perhaps best known for inspiring the Seattle-based grunge movement--and launching the career of Nirvana, in particular--the Melvins have spent more than 15 years creating some of alternative rock’s most uncommercial dissonance. The trio’s 1989 release, “Ozma,” is perhaps the best example of its slow, heavy, grinding sound scape at its most unlistenable.

If the San Francisco Bay Area-based group is unsettling on record, it can be downright confrontational live. The Melvins’ subversive instincts have taken over numerous times onstage, including an abbreviated performance last year opening for Tool in Dallas. According to drummer Dale Crover, the band sensed a hostile atmosphere and performed just one song that lasted 10 minutes.

What will happen when the Melvins headline tonight at the Troubadour in West Hollywood and Sunday at the Galaxy Concert Theatre in Santa Ana is anybody’s guess.

“People have gotten really [upset] during some of our shows, and sometimes we’re to blame,” Crover said by telephone on a tour stop outside of Albuquerque, N.M. “We’ll shift tempos drastically or make a bunch of noise for 15 minutes, which tends to irritate some in the audience. That said, we’re continually experimenting with new structures and sounds. I thought people knew this is not about making commercial pop music.”

Still, 1999 is a year heavy on product for the unpredictable band. This week, the Melvins’ album “Bootlicker” was issued, also featuring lead singer-guitarist Buzz “King Buzzo” Osborne and new bassist Kevin Rutmanis (ex-Cows). It is the second installment of a trilogy that began with the May release of “The Maggot.” The series’ finale, “The Crybaby,” is due sometime in November.

The three recordings--all for the Alameda-based Ipecac Recordings--are far different stylistically from one another. While “The Maggot” offers more familiar-sounding, metal-tinged sludge, “The Bootlicker” is a musically richer collection with rock, funk and jazz underpinnings. One tune even finds Osborne playing acoustic guitar and singing with uncommon warmth (seriously).

“The Crybaby” promises to be the most intriguing of the batch as a slew of unrelated guests--ranging from Leif Garrett (singing Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”) to Hank Williams III and underground heroes Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle), Kevin Sharp (Brutal Truth) and David Yow (Jesus Lizard)--will add their touches.

Will releasing three CDs over a seven-month span be a tough sell for such a decidedly unmarketable outfit?

“We’ve never made decisions based on commercial considerations,” Crover said. “I guess the main reason we’re doing this is because we can. We originally thought we’d have to release them on separate labels. But from the start, Ipecac was into the entire project. We haven’t had a record of new material in more than two years, so we’re not worried about having too much stuff out there.”

Crover said that while many bands take a year or two between albums, they have “all of this different material . . . ambient, heavy rock, psychedelic, pop . . . ready to go. Plus, I think releasing each one separately, about three months apart, makes more sense than as a single three-CD set. It’s tough to shell out $30 or $40 at one time.”

The Melvins previously had three albums on Atlantic Records in the early to mid-1990s, all of which were met with commercial indifference. But the trio functions most comfortably outside of the corporate world.

“We get asked a lot, ‘Aren’t you guys bummed that you were never as big as Nirvana and Soundgarden?’ ” Crover said. “It’s funny how we’re always lumped into the Seattle grunge scene.”

In fact, the Melvins were formed in Aberdeen, Wash. (hometown of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and Chris Novoselic and the Melvins’ Buzz Osborne) and have been cited as an influence on some grunge groups.

“But we never lived in Seattle or recorded for SubPop [the indie label pivotal to the scene],” Crover said. “Besides, how could we ever be as popular as Nirvana or some of those bands? We’re just not that commercial. Or ambitious. They may have started out with roots in the alternative rock and punk genres, but before long, they were transformed into uninspiring mainstream acts.

“We’re just too weird and defiant to ever achieve widespread recognition or success, and that’s how we like it.”

The Melvins and Hovercraft perform at 8 tonight at the Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. $10. (310) 276-6168. Also appearing Sunday at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. 8 p.m. $10. (714) 957-0600.