E-Mail This Article to a Friend Rock-and-roll dreams Thundertrain return; John Powhida and the Rudds obsess BY BRETT MILANO

Here’s more proof that the driving factors behind local rock haven’t changed that much. In 1977, proto-punk band Thundertrain recorded an indie album highlighted by "Hot for Teacher" and "Modern Girls" — songs respectively about lusting after your teacher and lusting after a pair of lesbians. In 2003, current buzz band the Rudds have a song that opens with one of the year’s most quotable lines: "There’s no shortage of pussy in Rock World." Two bands, two eras, same inspiration.

The concurrent reissue of Thundertrain’s Teenage Suicide — a 1977 LP now making its expanded CD debut on Gulcher — and release of the Rudds’ homonymous debut on Sodapop proves once again that hedonism, wise-assery, and killer hooks are timeless. Along with their keen interest in the opposite sex, both bands are in love with their record collections. Thundertrain were into then-unfashionable bands like the New York Dolls and Slade; the Rudds revere cult heroes like Todd Rundgren and Cheap Trick. And as it turns out, both bands’ frontmen have worked together: Thundertrain’s Mach Bell and the Rudds’ John Powhida are both part of the all-star chorus that Bleu has assembled to back him on home-town gigs.

Another song title on Thundertrain’s album, "I Gotta Rock," sums up Mach Bell’s philosophy of life in a nutshell. And he’s had plenty of chances to rock over the years — with Thundertrain in the ’70s, with the Joe Perry Project in the ’80s, and more recently with the band Last Man Standing. In recent years, he’s been a chef at the Boston Harbor Hotel and a music teacher at the Sudbury Valley School in Framingham. But to tie in with the album’s re-release, the original Thundertrain members — Bell, guitarists Steven Silva and Gene Provost, bassist Ric Provost, and drummer Bobby Edwards — are playing a week of reunion shows this month. Along with a few Eastern Massachusetts dates, they’ll hit the Midway Café in Jamaica Plain on the 22nd and T.T. the Bear’s Place in Central Square on the 23rd.

Thundertrain started at least a year before punk really broke — their album was recorded in April 1976, a month before the release of the Ramones’ debut. Yet a listen to Teenage Suicide (whose title, Bell says, refers to nothing weightier than their frustration with girls) is a reminder that punk didn’t come out of nowhere. Thundertrain were right in line with ’70s rowdies like the Dolls, the Faces, and that era of the Stones; in particular, the opening "Hot for Teacher," with Willie Alexander playing barrelhouse piano and Bell singing like a weasel in heat, is as nasty as anything that came along later that decade. "We were making it up as we went along, watching TV to see what other parts of the country were doing," Bell recalls. "Suddenly a movement grew and there was a community. We were just glad to see other bands with uncompromising attitudes to original material that we could ally ourselves with."

If the title "Hot for Teacher" sounds familiar, just imagine what Bell was thinking when he got hold of Van Halen’s 1984 album and saw another song with that title. "Van Halen were aware of who we were; there was one gig at the Agora in Cleveland where they specifically asked for us. You can’t copyright a song title, but here’s something that’s always been identified with you and now it’s a Van Halen song. It’s like having your name yanked from you — now I know how Jeff Beck felt after that alternative-rock guy came along."

Even before that, Bell had suffered his share of bad luck. He watched as Thundertrain’s opening bands — the Cars, New England, the Fools — got major-label deals. The band ultimately broke up over frustration at not getting one of their own. Then Bell got a plum gig in the final line-up of the Joe Perry Project, singing on the 1983 MCA release Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker. So it’s safe to say he wasn’t exactly overjoyed when a year later Perry scuttled the band and rejoined Aerosmith. "I went from the public spotlight to public transportation overnight. Really, after being in the Project for three years, I should’ve wound up in an insane asylum — substance abuse was raging at the time, and our manager knew that the only way to keep us rolling was to keep Joe on the road. I was living all my rock-and-roll dreams, so any money that came in went right back out."

Still, he has no complaints, and lately he’s become a club fixture all over again — he even fronted the loose-knit "Rat All-Stars" at the Arlington Regent Theatre’s recent tribute to the late lamented Rathskeller. "I’ve got no expectations; I’m just looking to see if Thundertrain can still rock — which from the looks of rehearsals is definitely going to happen. Because I still gotta rock."

JOHN POWHIDA’S own future in rock was cast when he was a 14-year-old in Albany and local girls started telling him he looked like Todd Rundgren. He then proceeded to buy a Rundgren album and become a fan for life. His debut disc with the Rudds testifies to a world view in which life comes down to two peak experiences: getting laid and buying records.

The Rudds’ disc is packed with hooks, and the music is performed with the energy one might expect from a band named after AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd ("I suck at naming bands, and he’s a really good drummer," Powhida explains over a beer at the Abbey Lounge). Brett Rosenberg plays ripping lead guitar, and a couple of friends from the Figgs/Gentlemen axis appear: Pete Caldes on drums and Mike Gent co-producing (bassist Jamie Griffith and new drummer Jim Delios round out the line-up). And Powhida has a mighty vocal range to match his grasp of pop history. A few tracks give his falsetto a workout: "Burning Up" turns one of Madonna’s greatest hits into a Stones sound-alike, and "Downtown Freddy Brown" features the best (and only) Daryl Hall impersonation ever pulled off by a local rocker.

But it’s his lyrics that will get the most attention — and the more of a music obsessive you are, the more likely you are to get the in-jokes. On "All the Dog Races," he fantasizes about a dream girl who’ll invite him to see "Laser Genesis" at the Hayden Planetarium ("I’m not even sure there is a Laser Genesis, but I’d love to meet a girl who knows what ‘The Battle of Epping Forest’ is"). "Wreckastowe" is an anthem to hanging out in record stores and rejoicing over the fact that the giveaway boxes at used-vinyl shops are usually full of Joan Armatrading albums. And on "Side Two," he devotes an entire lyric to complaining about how certain albums save their best songs for the second half. The second verse is about Cheap Trick’s debut, a familiar-enough topic. But the first is about Hall & Oates’s 1973 release War Babies, a Rundgren-produced album that even its makers probably haven’t thought about in a long while.

"I like to write really emotional songs about really trivial things," he says. "They’re about things I’m fascinated with, but why anyone else would be fascinated is beyond me — if anything, they’re fascinated that I’m fascinated. I’m definitely more obsessive than your average guy in a band — that explains why I’m single at the moment. I mean, things like the ‘Side Two’ song might seem trivial, but I really mean it like nobody’s business."

Pressed further, he notes that most of his favorite songwriters walk the line between emotion and humor. "Someone like Randy Newman can be funny and still write the most emotional songs around. I don’t like to devote too much time to either camp — I like people to be entertained, but I don’t want them to be novelty songs." For the record, Powhida has met both Rundgren and Hall, and he’s complained to both that the bass on War Babies was out of tune.

As for "Rock World," he says it’s about some of the career frustration he felt after leaving Albany. "I got as famous there as anybody could. That’s why I had to leave town, because everybody knew all the songs. So that song’s about my disillusionment with the rock dream. . . . No, who am I trying to kid? It’s really about pussy. It’s about the elemental power of the female anatomy. A lot of times when we play that one, I get people looking at me like, ‘How dare you?’ Then they come back and say, ‘Play the pussy song again.’ "

The Rudds play the Sky Bar this Friday, August 8; call (617) 623-5223.