Burn, baby, burn

The band played such a bass player Amy (she hates her last name and couldn't think of an alias, so it's just Amy). "And the spy overheard a conversation between two guys. The first one said, `Is that a man or a woman up there?' And the second one said, `I don't know, but he's sure cool.' What we usually see in our audiences is a gaping mouth and a vacant look in the eye. I don't think they're bored or else they'd leave; but they're never moving."

I wasn't bored when I caught the band at the Middle East recently, though I had no trouble figuring that Amy and singer/guitarist Josey Packard are women, and that drummer Adam Simha isn't. I heard a band who specialize in cathartic outbursts but put some thought and some chops into it; there were enough song structures and dubwise rhythms to set you up for the moments of screaming and clatter. In terms of sonic terrain and intensity level, I'd compare them to Come or the Zulus, both of whom gave a subversive twist to the basics of loud-guitar rock, and whose songs had their share of subtext if you were looking for any.

Chelsea on Fire's self-released homonymous album (whose release was celebrated with a gig at T.T. the Bear's Place this week) captures some of what I heard, though it cries out for better production (the guitar sound needs to be thicker, and more of Packard's vocal subtleties need capturing). It's still one of the better local debuts in recent memory, its material charged with venom and nuance. The songs get relatively accessible ("Mean Things" is punkish and punchy at three minutes). At the other extreme is "Lake," basically an unedited jealousy rant that gives Packard seven minutes to say everything people are usually too timid to say in rock songs ("I meant to tell your girlfriend something/I meant to tell her that I loved you/Shit!!").

"That was the one I was really embarrassed about," Packard admits. "It was something I shouted out at one of our jam sessions -- that was the time I had to make the big long speech about how I love and trust you guys." She's addressing her bandmates over beers at the Middle East. The band members seem a well-matched set of personalities, with Packard and Amy (who displays a habit of waving table knives at her mates) as the volatile characters and Smith playing the straight man. "I definitely feel like Derek Smalls," he says -- invoking the Spinal Tap equation of two band members being fire and ice, the third being lukewarm water.

Chelsea on Fire have been together for a little over a year. Their members hail from outfits with embarrassing names like Celestial Spirits in Bondage and Desired Effect -- the latter being a Zulus cover band Simha and Packard played in for one gig at MIT, doing the Down on the Floor album in its entirety. ("I spent a week asking Malcolm [Travis] how he did everything," Simha recalls.) Meanwhile, Packard played with a couple of outfits she'd rather not name. "I probably would have killed myself if those bands had gotten off the ground. It was death, it was bad. Meanwhile I felt like a powder keg, like I was ready to explode. I had something I wanted to do and I wasn't sure what it was, but I didn't want it to be candy."

Saving the crass question for last: why do they have so many songs dealing with sex? "Because everybody knows that's all women think about," Packard shoots back.

POP TIMES THREE.

If the Gravy's name doesn't sound familiar, that of their frontman, ex-Cavedogs singer/guitarist Todd Spahr, ought to. Spahr got burned last time around with Merang, a harder-edged combo that never quite caught on (though they were a good band, dammit). So Spahr's launching his new project quietly; yet he's recently wrapped up an album with producer Jon Lupfer at Q Division. (Lupfer's also working with the other two Cavedogs spinoff groups, the Brian Stevens Band and Poundcake.) Instead of putting the album out locally, he's looking for a national contract first.

So what does it sound like? "I'll let you figure that one out. I just want to get this album out and play all over the place, instead of just doing the local thing again. The locals are all done with me by now -- but hey, they love me and that's beautiful," the affable guitarist says, keeping cynicism in check. The Gravy's album includes one unrecorded Cavedogs song ("Hangman's Pop") and a couple of Merang leftovers, but most of it was written since that band broke up. "We threw some four-track recordings on for good measure -- and I can already hear people saying, `Oh, so you're doing the Guided by Voices thing.' But the rest is pretty high-tech; we actually used digital sources on it."

Some bands get excited when they sign to major labels, but I'd bet that the Jigsaws are even more pleased about the contract they've signed. Their second album, Wicked Alternative, is the first legit release on Yellow Dog, a European label better known for putting out some of the most desirable Beatles and Beach Boys bootlegs (hence no label address is listed on the disc). Jigsaws singer/bassist Tom Brewitt easily qualifies as one of the most devoted Beatles collectors in town; when last we spoke he was commiserating over the massive disappointment that was "Free As a Bird."

The first Jigsaws disc, last year's Cereal Toy, wore its mid-'60s influences on its sleeve; on Wicked Alternative, they're at least hidden a little further up the sleeve. Thus the title is only partly a joke. Take '60s pop values, add some lyrical irony, a bit of distortion, and some tricky chord changes -- and you get something akin to modern rock. That equation serves the Jigsaws well. Their hooks hit more often than they miss, and the lyrics have moments of wiseass wit (including this local-radio reference on "I'm in a Band": "Left the suburban nest/I'll even make it cleaner/I've got to have respect/At least from li'l Juanita"). Elsewhere one can hear as many traces of recent Sebadoh as mid-period Beatles. The Jigsaws still have a British Invasion heart, but this time it's there in spirit rather than in blatant imitations. (Even the 34-minute bonus track -- yep, the entire album played backward -- is a homage of sorts. Think of it as "Revolution 9" times four.)

As for Shoemaker's Engage (a six-song EP on Badger), suffice to say that Big Dipper live -- sort of. Ex-Dipper drummer Jeff Oliphant is at the helm, and the disc sounds uncannily like his former band. (Dipper singers/guitarists Gary Waleik and Bill Goffrier make appearances; Waleik also produces.) The opening track, "Edith Row," starts off with a cappella harmony à la Fairport Convention -- just the sort of musical trick Big Dipper might have pulled -- and the old band's trademarks are all here: vocals that land halfway between nerdy and wide-eyed, lyrics heavy on clever non sequiturs, guitars that jangle and bounce, melodies that jump out of your glove just when you think you've caught them. Ordinarily I might knock Shoemaker for being a throwback, but Big Dipper were a terrific band whose sound could use some reviving (even their worst album, Slam, holds up pretty well), and the songs on Engage have some of the same magic.

THE EMBARRASSMENT.

The double CD gives a near-complete picture of the band (save for a 1990 reunion album), with a disc of studio tracks and a disc of live, drunk, and otherwise odd material (their habit of learning unlikely cover tunes -- here it's Led Zep's "Immigrant Song" and Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" -- predated the Replacements by a couple of years). And there are two versions of the band's greatest hit, "Sex Drive" -- a churning, nervous-energy-driven tune about one particular dilemma: "He yells, `Hey, get outta my way/I haven't had any sex all day.' " Timeless sentiments indeed.

COMING UP.