Postpunk potpourri

Steve Wynn, the Drifters, Gang Green, SLF

by Brett Milano

If you're in a hot Boston band and you spot Steve Wynn at one of your gigs, watch out, because you just might wind up in his band next year. The expatriate Los Angeles singer/songwriter hasn't had a regular group since the Dream Syndicate broke up in 1989, but he's always known where to look for great players. And in recent years he's found them in Boston. His last album, Melting in the Dark, had Come as his back-up band; on the just-released Sweetness & Light he's got a sharp combo fronted by local guitar hero Rich Gilbert (formerly of the Zulus and Concussion Ensemble, lately with Tanya Donelly). In between he produced an as-yet-unreleased album for another Boston mainstay, John Felice & the Devotions.

"Boston was the first city that ever really embraced the Dream Syndicate," he explains over the phone. "To me it was and is the premier music city in the country; so many good players come out of there. People in Boston seem to play more regularly than in any other city I've been to, certainly more than LA or New York. So I'm a fan of Boston bands. Plus, one thing leads to another -- playing with Chris and Thalia (Brokaw and Zedek, of Come) led me to Rich because they recommended him. Now that he's gone I have to see who I can plunder next." As for the frequent changeover in his bands: "Maybe it's like relationships; you can stay in one for so long and never want to see the person again. This way you finish it prematurely, then you can't wait to see them."

Wynn won't have any Bostonians in his line-up at T.T. the Bear's Place this Saturday (October 5), but he will have the Continental Drifters, who'll back him up and play a set of their own. Formed in Los Angeles and now based in New Orleans, the Drifters are a roots-pop dream band who include Peter Holsapple (ex-dB's), Vicki Peterson (ex-Bangles), and Susan Cowsill (from the singing family that busted out of Newport, Rhode Island, in the '60s). They're something of a word-of-mouth phenomenon, in part because they've released only one album (on Monkey Hill) in five years together and in part because they're so damn good -- think strong hooks, deep roots, and stellar harmonies. And they were an obvious choice for this tour, since Drifters bassist Mark Walton and guitarist Robert Mache were respectively members of the last Dream Syndicate and Wynn's first solo band.

"It's funny, like I'm bringing my new band and my old band at the same time," Walton points out over the phone from New Orleans. Although they've played Boston twice before, this is the Drifters' first full-scale national tour, which means they'll probably be dodging requests for old dB's and Bangles numbers. "We've been fighting that since day one, but people have heard enough about us by now that they don't expect it as much. We've been doing this for five years with only one record under our belt; but we're still here, and we still have the energy to beat the odds. We feel this need to be understood, and we're gonna shove it down people's throats until they get it."

Once the tour is over, the Drifters plan to make a long-overdue second album, which has been commissioned by a German label (a studio session, produced by ex-Bostonian Kevin Salem, almost saw release two years ago). "We've been talking about our favorite records, what we want it to sound like," Walton explains. "My choice is [Rod Stewart's] Every Picture Tells a Story, that acoustic/electric vibe; but everybody has their own take on it. We're going to set up in an old house to record, so it'll be more like camping. With the songs we've got, it could be a boxed set."

Lack of output has never been a problem for Steve Wynn, who's done an album a year since his Syndicate days. The new Sweetness & Light (Zero Hour) is his version of a pop album. Even with Gilbert aboard, it's not a guitar-centered album, which will undoubtedly bug anyone who still insists that the Syndicate's debut, Days of Wine & Roses, was Wynn's best work. But he's a cannier songwriter now than he was then, and the new tunes hide some deep shadows behind their surface optimism. They're about narrowly averted plane crashes, love affairs that just miss crashing and burning, or personal breakdowns that didn't happen -- yet. This kind of territory, where everyday complications turn borderline-scary, is always where Wynn's been most at home.

"I still meet people who expect me to be more of an asshole," he reminds me. "I definitely get songs out of the periods when I'm not happy, but I prefer not to spend too much time there. I didn't realize it at the time, but a lot of the album is about recovery: you pass through a hard time, whether self-induced or not; and things are supposed to be better but something's still missing. That to me is scarier than writing about the hard time, saying that everything will be all right later. I guess I'm a fan of darker songs for the most part, but a lot of people are. That's where your eyes go first in the newspaper, a scandal or a crisis. Cats pulled out of trees don't always get the lead story."

PUNK REDUX

You never know what's going to turn into deathless art. Twenty-odd years ago, a teenage Rich Parsons composed "They Saved Hitler's Brain," a priceless piece of two-chord trash inspired by some grade-Z movie he'd seen on TV, and including the immortal couplet "There was a threat on his life and they had him moved quick/They removed his head, but not his prick." Recorded by his band Unnatural Axe in 1978, it remains one of the most stoopid punk records in Boston history. And that's as good a reason as any to reissue the thing, which leads off Unnatural Axe Is Gonna Kick Your Ass (Lawless) -- a new CD including the band's entire recorded oeuvre (all seven songs of it), plus a few unreleased numbers from the same era.

Certainly Parson acquired some instrumental chops and songwriting finesse in his subsequent bands -- Band 19, the Future Dads, and now Tomato Monkey. But the early Axe stuff has a certain moronic perfection that wasn't lost on Thurston Moore and Richard Hell, who covered the slasher takeoff "The Creeper" on a Dim Stars 45 a few years ago (the original is on the CD). "I didn't even know that existed until I heard it on [WMBR's] The Late Riser's Club," Parsons says. "Sure, I've done better stuff, but the Axe came out of a certain period. We were in it for the fun, and we broke up [in 1980] when it got too serious. The end result is that we're still friends, and we'll still do it at the drop of a dime."

In fact, Unnatural Axe will play a few CD-release shows as soon as Parsons recuperates from a recent leg operation. Can a well-adjusted adult still get on stage and sing about Hitler's prick? "Sure, it's like a good comic book: you can always read it again and it's still funny. Long as we've got a good health plan, we'll still be doing it when we're on walkers and wheelchairs."

Gang Green's Back & Gacked (just out on Taang!) is not a reissue, but it sure sounds like one. The reunited band (with frontman Chris Doherty, fresh from a major-label disaster with Klover) try their damndest to sound like the original, thrasherama Gang Green (before the later metal crossover) -- and they succeed admirably. You'd swear they were a bunch of drunk, pissed-off 19-year-olds instead of drunk, pissed-off 35-year-olds (The standout, "You Tucked It to Me," is as sincere a fuck-you song as has come along lately). This six-song, 12-minute disc is only a taster for Another Case of Brewtality, an epic 26-song disc (no overlap with this EP) that Taang! will release next month.

Completing this week's old-school punk trilogy is Stiff Little Fingers' Tinderbox (also Taang!), the latest from the long-running Irish band (whose line-up now includes ex-Jam bassist Bruce Foxton). Originally pegged as an Irish Clash, SLF nowadays work the same earnest/anthemic territory as Big Country or the Alarm -- they even cover Grandmaster Flash's "The Message," as ex-Alarmer Mike Peters did recently. The opening "You Never Hear the One That Hits You" is a righteous fist waver in the old SLF tradition, but the rest leans heavily toward poppish midtempo numbers. (The one real surprise, "My Ever Changing Moral Stance," is an apparent dig at Foxton's ex-bandmate Paul Weller.) Still, two years ago SLF played a hot local show behind a so-so album (Get a Life, also Taang!), so they'll likely do the same at the Middle East this Sunday (October 5).

BANDWAGON

The recent Bandwagon isn't quite the most profound film ever made about a rock band -- my date astutely described it as "an Afterschool Special with cuss words." The most authentic thing about it may well be the music -- a tuneful batch of mid-'90s indie pop. Credit for that goes to local guy Greg (Skeggie) Kendall, who wrote and recorded the music three years ago with his brother Bob on vocals, and a studio crew including members of his then-band Tackle Box. The recent soundtrack (on Milan/BMG) amounts to Kendall's greatest hits, with the film songs, a pair of Tackle Box tracks, and songs by other Boston bands (Incinerator, Poundcake, Fliptones) that he's produced, collaborated, or hung out with.

"[Filmmaker] John Schultz was doing a film about a rock band, and he was good friends with the Connells," Kendall explains from his booking office at the Middle East. "He needed songs, so they said, `Skeggie makes up stupid songs all the time, he can make some up for you.' I got the script and wrote songs around it. I tried to take myself out of the process and write from someone else's point of view. The script was rewritten a few times after the songs were written, so in a way the characters became their songs."

Although the film didn't set the world on fire, it did get Kendall a publishing deal with PolyGram after it opened at Sundance last year. He's since been to Nashville to write songs with Bill Lloyd, ex-Go-Go Charlotte Caffey, and ex-Bostonian Angelo Petraglia (now writing for Kim Richey). Meanwhile he continues to book bands at the Middle East and the Somerville Theatre. Did Kendall learn to write more singles-oriented material because of the film? "I probably wouldn't have done it then, but I would now. It helped me write a little more mindlessly."

COMING UP

Mega-noise at the Middle East tonight (Thursday) with Helmet and the Melvins; Skeleton Key and Fluffer are upstairs. The great reggae band Culture are at Mama Kin, the Gravy and Jack Frosting are at the Linwood, Laurie Sargent is at Bill's Bar, and Lauren Hoffman makes her local debut at T.T. the Bear's Place . . . Big Ray & the Futuras headline a surf night at the Club Bohemia tomorrow (Friday), Bailter Space are at the Middle East, Brad Delp and Beatle Juice do the Fab thing at Johnny D's, $5 Milkshake are at the Kendall Café, and punk jokesters the Syphilloids are at the Hard Rock . . . Kelley Deal brings her 6000 to the Middle East on Saturday; New Orleans bluesman Walter Wolfman Washington is at Johnny D's, Eight Ball Shifter and Ape Hangers are at the Linwood. And Talking to Animals, whose Manhole album has been delayed yet again, play the Lizard Lounge . . . Love Spit Love are at the Paradise Sunday . . . Paul Janovitz brings his new band Nana to Charlie's Tap on Monday . . . Concept of the week: Greatwhitelionsnake play " '80s metal and big hair favorites" at Mama Kin Wednesday.