Double players

Two longtime holdouts, both from the loud-and-wild side of the local circuit, get on the bus this week. Slughog and Grind have been together six and five years, respectively, and they haven't released anything but a handful of singles. Both have been picked up by smallish East Coast labels. Grind's Kittymuzzle (Conscience) hit the stores last week; Slughog's Grit! (on the local Wonderdrug label, formerly Summit) follows suit next week.

Grind's long silence can perhaps be blamed on personnel changes that began when bassist Rachel Steczynski fell ill with multiple sclerosis. Numerous bassists, including Ted Condo of 6L6 and Mike Welsh of Jocobono, have since passed through (Welsh and Marc Schleicher share bass duties on the album; Maureen Relling has since joined). In the case of Slughog . . . well, they may have been busy making beer runs. Perhaps best known as the band that almost killed a guy during their set in the 1993 Rumble, Slughog have gained a reputation for playing loud, staying up late, and being -- let's see, how shall we put this -- nuts.

"Hey, that's a relative term," notes bassist/singer Andrew Schneider as I'm talking with him and his bandmates at Carberry's coffeehouse in Cambridge. "I'm not so nuts right now, but when Firestone gets on stage, look out," notes guitarist Firestone, a hulking goateed type whose real name is a closely guarded secret. "You want to have a relinquishing of normality on stage," concludes singer/bassist (yep, there are two bassists) Brian Wright. "We intentionally make music that will affect people on a physical level."

"You mean, like stomping all over them and ripping their viscera out?" asks drummer Bob Andy Burstein, phrasing this as a perfectly serious question. The others nod their heads; that sounds about right.

It's not much of an exaggeration, either. Slughog's sound is based on overloaded dynamics, plodding grooves, and maximum use of low-end rumble. For that reason alone, their CD debut is long overdue -- their music loses a lot of impact when squeezed onto seven-inch singles. Like other bands who appeared in town around the turn of the decade -- notably Kudgel, Spore, and Green Magnet School -- Slughog make a sound that's slower than punk and denser than metal; it hasn't really been named yet ("grunge" would fit if it weren't already taken). Suffice to say that it's a "chew you up and spit you out" kind of a sound, and that there are musical smarts on display. Burstein's drums often become a third bassline, doing 360s around the other two, while Firestone's guitar has to snarl hard to cut through, which it does.

"It's probably just as well that we didn't release anything sooner," Schneider offers. "We weren't always able to mask our lack of playing ability as we are now." The two-bass set-up came about because Schneider and Wright both felt like playing bass, but it's since been picked up by other bands, notably Slower. "Brian and I are the two guys in the band with the least amount of official talent," Schneider notes. "We mostly do it because our fingers are too sausagey to wrap around six strings." Most surprising, perhaps, is that many of Slughog's songs clock in at three minutes or less. "We were shocked when we saw the timings," Wright says. "Here we thought we were doing these nine-minute, Emerson Lake & Palmer journeys."

Now about that Rumble appearance. If you were there, what you probably saw was a bunch of people trying to punch one another out. It began with an intruder jumping the stage and continued with most of the band tumbling off; this was the occasion on which the Rumble came closest to living up to its name. So what happened?

"Well, it's been exaggerated," notes Firestone. "I really didn't kick him a hundred times in the head with a steel-toed boot." Seems that an audience member took it upon himself to come on stage and unplug Firestone's guitar, which is the ultimate no-no. For a time Burstein was the only member left on stage, making Slughog the only band to play a Rumble drum solo that year -- and when the smoke cleared, they still won the night, though they lost to the Dirt Merchants in the semifinals.

"We really should have hired the guy back for the second night," Wright reflects.

Grind's sound is a little easier to peg. It's good old hard rock, but with room accorded to nuance and neurosis. Their big, lurching guitar sound seems a natural extension of the songs, which most often deal with the dark undertones in relationships. The material on Kittymuzzle is hit-and-miss, suffering from the common debut-album problem of thin production (the guitar and vocal sounds don't vary much from track to track). Still, there are some lofty peaks. "Ouija" sports a long, droning outro that brings the undertow of the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" to mind. "White Candle" makes good use of a doctored vocal à la NIN. And "Glad You Found Me" is a vengeful gem whose lyrics pretty well sum up a situation: "I know what you need/Your face is the perfect cover/For your acts, 'cause deep down/You're a motherfucker." Any questions?

"I write songs when people disappoint me, because I always have high hopes," explains singer/guitarist Sandy Cohen. "I have this concept of life as being terrifying, beautiful, and nauseating at the same time. The album may sound angry, but there's a lot of black humor in there as well. It's basically a catharsis for me, because I get these pent-up things out and then they're out. I don't have to go around being a jerk to my friends anymore."

The disc's title refers to a device that can be put on cats (the ones I know wouldn't be too happy about it, however), but it ties in with Cohen's feelings about rock and roll. "To me rock is something stupid and harmless, and people still get uptight about it, so that's like putting a muzzle on a cat. Some people still make a big deal about us being girl rock -- can't we get beyond that and just play?"

Anyone who saw Grind around '93 may notice that the sound used to be a bit more angular and less straightforward than it is now. "That's probably because we couldn't play as well," Cohen notes. "We don't try to make it weird or make it normal, but I think we're down to earth enough that most people can get it."

THE RICHARDS

If you're over 30, the Richards are the band you fantasized about forming when you were in ninth grade. Of course, given the perversities of the current scene, I wouldn't be surprised if Steve Albini and Rick Rubin are beating down their door next year.

RECOVERING

"My head's all stapled up right now. I look like I've been in an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon," she noted in a phone call from the hospital. "We had a hippie band playing the club the night it happened, so at least I didn't miss anything. I remember taking an ambulance ride during the blizzard, all doped up on morphine, and thinking, `Hey, this kind of rocks.' "

She's since been released, and well-wishers can get in touch with Cares c/o Black Market Productions, Box 738, Gardner 01440. And after Chick Graning and Bill Berry, we hereby nominate aneurysms as the worst rock trend of the '90s.

COMING UP