Performer E’s Tender, Poignant Songs Plumb the Emotional Depths

Jim Morrison, Axl Rose, Eddie Van Halen and Brian Wilson are among the long list of bestsellers commonly cited by music fans around the world when talking about the heroes of Los Angeles rock.

But there’s another tier of Los Angeles artists, from the late Gram Parsons to Dave Alvin, who compose an equally essential part of this town’s musical legacy.

These artists--also including members of such groups as X, Los Lobos and Concrete Blonde--may not have enjoyed the sales of the most famous L.A. musicians, but they have all explored the human condition with a commitment to excellence that is fearless and unshakable.

As he showed in a sometimes heart-moving concert by his band Eels on Friday at the El Rey Theatre, Mark Oliver Everett belongs on that list.

Everett, who bills himself as simply E, sometimes includes geographical references, such as watching the sunrise at Sunset and Alvarado, but the songs are more about our feelings than our ZIP Codes.

E, who alternates on stage between guitar and keyboards, lacks the confidence of a natural performer, and his attempts at quirkiness are self-conscious. But his songs are insightful and superbly crafted tales that balance rejection and hope, emptiness and faith.

The musician seemed headed to stardom in 1996 when Eels’ song “Novocaine for the Soul” picked up enough alt-rock radio attention to set up the follow-up album as a potential Top 100 breakthrough. But circumstances worked against the career upswing--still coping with the suicide of his older sister, he discovered that his mother had cancer.

He put all the horror of those body blows into last year’s “Electro-Shock Blues,” a brilliant album with some moments as wounded as Kurt Cobain, others as wryly philosophical as Randy Newman. Despite some remarkably enticing sonic textures, the subject matter was too stark for the album to have any chance in the marketplace.

In the El Rey concert, originally scheduled in November but postponed after the death of his mother, E dressed up some of the album’s songs, turning “Cancer for the Cure” into such a rowdy and defiant expression of survival that the song somehow took on a positive, liberating edge.

By also reaching back for songs from 1996’s “Beautiful Freak” album for emotional contrast, E and his bandmates (Butch on drums and Adam chiefly on bass) created an energy in the room that made such softer, achingly tender moments as “The Medication Is Wearing Off” all the more shattering. In that song, someone sees life slipping away while an invincible gift watch keeps ticking on.

In a rock world desperately searching for substantial new talents, E is waiting at its doorstep.