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Beat Street
By Todd S. Inoue

Local Listen-up:
Area bands put their best CDs forward

Here's another consumer's guide to recently released local music. The mailbag yielded a few gems and a couple of rocks. If you want a second opinion, send your demos to Beat Street c/o Metro, 550 S. First St., San Jose, 95113. As always, you run the risk of getting dissed.

Bridget/Of California/Grass: This random set of tunes was recorded in 1994, but why did it take so long to get here? Could it be the intricate, limited-edition packaging: embossed metal plate, bullets encased in the spine, track listings in Vietnamese. Thankfully, the music is articulate, belying the passage of time and trends. Who knew San Jose had these moody drones lurking beneath its surface? "Kartoon" and "Cousins" sound like Superchunk woozy on lead-based paint chips. "Sap" best describes the tempo of this release, not the mood. Bring your love for skree, Sonic Youth, Sebadoh and plenty of patience. Bridget will grow on you, guarantee.

Dub Nation/One Great World/Self-released: Wow. Dub Nation must have dropped some loot, because this CD sounds great. The band competently works its way around Jah's music, throwing in mercurial flashes of lover's rock, dub, ska, pressure drop and ragga. High-wire guitar, bubbly keyboards and precision horns create a lush pastiche espousing love and unity. Unlike other local reggae crews, vocalists Fish Dawson and Dale Mungaray inject serious fire into their lines. "Unification" is a strong shout-out. "Tower" and "Mystic Youth" echo Signing Off-era UB40. "Kronik," with raggamuffin assistance from THC, praises the mighty hemp. Impressive.

Red Planet/Red Planet/Self-released: This garrulous, hard-stomping set of three songs should attract fans of Everclear, both band and beverage. "Going to Amsterdam" is a heavy-metal hashish trip; "Hole" is a revenge fantasy with pop melodics; the infantile "Farmer John" swings far too hard for the metallic mainstream fences. Trash culture is a dominating force today, so make room for this in your tape deck.

Retromotive/Retromotive/Self-released: Better than the incredibly pretentious first release, but that ain't saying much. Retromotive is full of Goth-inflected gobbledygook that's too depressing and self-absorbed to get near. I don't doubt the band's musicianship or tendencies--it's there in spades--but Retromotive is like Peter Gabriel-era Genesis led by a B-movie Peter Murphy. Dull as a butter knife.

Scarlet Theory/RuBarb/Capsize: Another faceless set of tunes with two guitars, melodies, above-average musicianship and below-average charisma. "O" goes on forever, replaying that same bar like a stuck needle. "Mary's Poem" lifts a riff from a Hot Licks instructional-tape series. "Familiar Forces" begins promisingly in a Radiohead sort of way, but David Voegler's emphatic voice is utter dross. "Stranded" is a repackage of every cliché about feeling lonely that Live ever made, complete with pseudo-Ed Kowalcyzk grunts.

Lettin' Ya Know

Noise Pop is a San Francisco-based micro-music festival now in its fourth year. This year's festival includes Noise Pop veterans intermixed with out-of-town newcomers and lots of local bands. The festival runs Thursday-Sunday (Feb. 22-25) at Kilowatt, Trocadero, Bottom of the Hill and Chameleon Club. Colorfast, Stuntman, American Sensei, No Knife, Spackle, Fastbacks, Bracket, Chixdiggit, Action Slacks, Tilt, Groovie Ghoulies, Maxiwagon, the Meices, Red 5, Skiploader, Carlos, 30.06, Hugh, Trackstar, Magic Pacer, Creeper Lagoon, Farflung, the Supersuckers, Tenderloin, Clarke Nova, Alcohol Funnycar, and Peppercorn are all scheduled. Tap into the festival Web site for schedule information. (Some bookmarks: 30.06 is a hype new band out of Portland on Donna Dresch's Candyass label. Groovie Ghoulies are Sacramento punk poppers recently signed to Lookout! Records. The Fastbacks are God; that's all you need to know.)

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