Growing pains

That Dog and Kenickie learn how to play

by Matt Ashare

"Lo-fi songs are great . . . Never learn to play . . . Underground cliché" goes the rambunctious refrain of "Punka," one of half-dozen single-worthy gems in the rough on At the Club (Warner Bros.), the debut CD by the British foursome Kenickie. You have to listen closely to the singer to pick up on the biting sarcasm she injects into the line "Lo-fi songs are great," because her young bandmates are still making the transition from raucous, unschooled garage punk to mature popcraft. It's the tension between the two -- and the sense that Kenickie are eager to put underground clichés behind them this early in their career -- that gives the song its infectious kick.

You can hear the same drama unfold with more cinematic clarity in "Minneapolis," a generous and unabashedly catchy slice of pop vérité from Retreat from the Sun (DGC), the startlingly good new disc from LA's That Dog. Here the singer -- Anna Waronker -- meets a boy from the title city at an indie-rock show in LA and falls for him, but ultimately she balks at his suggestion that she follow him home. Her response, "That just won't do," should come as something of a surprise to anyone familiar with the youthful indulgences of That Dog's whimsical 1995 disc, Totally Crushed Out! (DGC). But it's an accurate reflection of That Dog's decision to grow up and out of old indie-rock habits -- i.e., sounding as if they'd never learned to play -- on Retreat from the Sun.

Kenickie and That Dog, who perform together this Friday at the Middle East, are bands from almost opposite sides of the world with much in common. For starters, both are the brainchildren of girlhood high-school friends who were playing together before they were old enough to buy a six-pack. (The three women of Kenickie are just 19; That Dog's Waronker and sisters Rachel and Petra Haden are in their mid 20s.) Both line-ups are rounded out by older male drummers. At a deeper level, both bands share a common ambition to graduate gracefully from the insular underground of schoolhouse indie rock to the real world of mainstream pop.

It's a difficult maneuver, one that's left many artists dangling in the pop purgatory between commercial success and cult respectability. (I think back to the Go-Go's and the Bangles, two groups whom Kenickie and That Dog bring to mind, and who burned out quickly after hitting the charts.) But the distance between the underground and the mainstream is no longer as big a chasm as it once was; the trade-offs are less extreme, and the transition has become an easier one.

With two full-lengths and an EP behind them, That Dog are much further along the learning curve than Kenickie. All the same, Retreat from the Sun represents a major and welcome leap forward from the cutesy punk naïveté of Totally Crushed Out! to a gutsier, more confident brand of guitar-powered pop. The result comes down somewhere between the infectious churn of Veruca Salt's American Thighs and the skewed, confessional hookcraft of Liz Phair's Whip-smart, though to my ears it's consistently better than either of those two discs.

The sweet-voiced Waronker -- daughter of Dreamworks honcho Lenny Waronker -- wrestles convincingly with coming of age in the '90s. She's not sure whether she wants to be tied down, as in married, a fate she ponders on the disc's dulcet opening track ("I'm Gonna See You"), or tied up, as in kinky sex, a scenario she lays out against a tough and tuneful backdrop of overdriven guitars on "Gagged and Tied." "Would you love me gagged and tied?" she asks without shame, before acknowledging, "It's not your style, I can see you crack a smile." Engagingly candid lyrics like that, along with the irresistible wondertwin harmonies of the Haden sisters (their dad is jazz bassist Charlie Haden) and the disc's sharp, textured arrangements, lift That Dog out of their indie rut and into the realm of semi-perfect pop.

Kenickie favor attitude over craft on their bristling debut, which is being released domestically on June 17. But they're already outgrowing the artless punk roots of their two previous British-only EPs; that's what "Punka" is all about. Young as she is, singer/guitarist Lauren Le Laverne has a knack for wrapping prickly tales torn from the pages of everyday life in silky, transporting melodies -- which she does beautifully on "Millionaire Sweeper," a plaintive, poetic, not overly melodramatic song about a pregnant teen. Still, it's the contagious exuberance of the disc's many out-on-the-town mini-anthems ("In Your Car," "Classy," "Nightlife," "Come Out 2Nite") that make the biggest impression. Learning how to play, for That Dog and Kenickie, can be a playful process.

That Dog and Kenickie play upstairs at the Middle East with Cherry 2000 this Friday, June 6; call 864-EAST.