Say that again?

Orans win but can't pronounce their own name

by Brett Milano

Talk about your mysterious band names. The name Orans is so obscure that even the two band members don't know how to pronounce it. "I saw it on a Pictish stone in Scotland," offers singer/guitarist Julie Kantner. "The word represents spirits of the recently deceased, praying for people who are still alive. But I don't know about the pronunciation. It's one of those words like `aunt,' where you're stuck. If you say `ahnt' it sounds pretentious, and if you say `ant' it sounds like you have little antennae."

This brings us to Orans, who are . . . a pretentious band with little antennae? Not quite. But a band whose sound embodies both the mysterious and likably goofy qualities of that last answer. In terms of personnel, Orans are Twig split down the middle. Kantner and drummer Ramona Herboldsheimer were part of that smart, skewed guitar-pop outfit that split up earlier this year (though an album-length CD is still due in the fall). The two continued to work together on songs of Kantner's that Twig hadn't done, and they pronounced themselves a band -- even without a bass player.

They figure that Orans are a more straight-ahead pop outfit than Twig were, but to these ears it's just the opposite. The five songs on their Demo Derby-winning tape have a haunting quality that sticks with you after the cuddly pop sound draws you in. Think of Yo La Tengo in their catchier moments, or Young Marble Giants with drums. Although they play live as a duo, the tape gets an extra kick from guitarist Jerry Kym -- who normally plays much heavier music with Toe Tag, and whose lead parts offset the band's sweeter tendencies.

"Half the people who hear the tape say, `That guitar player really makes it,' and the other half say, `Why do you have that guitar player?'," Herboldsheimer offers. A single is due to be released on Harriet Records later this year.

The musical friendship between Kantner and Herboldsheimer goes back to their early-'90s days in Fertile Virgin, and they tend to understand each other's subconscious -- which is good, because main writer Kantner hates making her songs too literal. The tape's "Green Bird," for example, is based on an experience Herboldsheimer had watching Ronald Reagan make a helicopter landing in Boston a few years back.

"The wings were beating hard and the leaves were falling off the trees. It was so beautiful I started crying, and I'd only come to check out the protest," she recalls.

"That's called being manipulated," Kantner says. "When she told me about it, I wanted to write a song to evoke that feeling of being patriotic against your will. So I went for a bicycle ride and the melody appeared in my head."

Kantner tends to get most of her songs when she's not looking for them. "For instance, I was never that big on Nirvana, but once Kurt Cobain died I started having dreams about him and writing songs about it [one of which is on the Twig album]. You know the scene in Alice Through the Looking Glass, where the house moves away from her as she walks toward it; then she gets sick of it, turns away, and it's there? That's what songwriting is like." This seems to tie in with their mysterious name.

"Sure, you can really only write about sex and death. But as soon as people think they know what a song is about, I have to throw something in so they won't be so sure."

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DEMO DERBY RUNNERS-UP

Ass Tractor would be the perfect band to open the next Bags reunion show, maybe with Roadsaw and Jocobono playing the middle sets. Billing themselves as "purveyors of fine rock," Ass Tractor are right in that tradition of heavy metal, with big dumb hooks, big crunchy riffs, and a big tongue-in-cheek attitude. Listening to "Haulin' Ass" -- the self-explanatory, 90-second anthem at the end of their tape -- I can already see fists waving and the hair shaking. The opening "Dumb Phone" offers a well-reasoned treatise on telephone salesmen ("Don't call me at home/On the telephone/I think I'll pass/Shove it up yo' ass"); "Poundcake" includes the most blatant sexual metaphor to cross my desk this month. They pull off a pretty good Bags cover -- "Tailbone" -- plus a salute to Motörhead on (you guessed it) "Motor Ass." Also included on the tape are two songs without the word "ass" in them.

Mancie's tape, Hamsters & Friends, makes me think of the Muffs -- which is fine because I like thinking about the Muffs. And as soon as somebody comes up with a new way to describe tight, well-played punk rock with punchy chorus hooks, I'll tell you more about why I liked it. Singer/guitarist Andrea Fischman cops the Ramones' guitar sound nicely and sings in a voice that's controlled enough to carry the tune and urgent enough to grab hold. Makes me want to see the band live. Also makes me wonder whatever happened to the Muffs.

The North Shore band Lester Bangs tried to avoid legal complications for a while by shortening their name to Lester. Then they found out that another local band already had that name copyrighted, whereupon they figured that a dead rock critic was less likely to sue. In any case, their five-song tape is a good example of what can happen when alterna-rock trappings -- edgier guitar sound, rougher production, weirder song angles -- get borrowed by mainstream rockers who know what they're doing. Incredible Casuals bassist Chandler Travis (here playing guitar) is the most famous member, though co-guitarist Steve Wood does most of the writing. Their craftsmanship is obvious on the tape, which ranges from a surreal surf number ("Crab Napkin") that could be a Cars outtake to an odd cocktail rocker ("Animal") to a mix of Merseybeat harmonies and grunge guitars on the best track, "Suit Yourself."

The Puddle Jumpers' Pud Muddle is by no means the most serious tape to arrive this month. But since a decent novelty song is always a good way to get people's attention (hello, Nada Surf), this one deserves a mention for "Alternative Girlfriend," a song that somebody was bound to write sooner or later: "You wear a backpack, you have a nose ring, you have the latest records by Green Day and Offspring/You look straight out of a Buzz Bin clip, and your hair's platinum blonde this week." The group sound like They Might Be Giants' younger and dumber brothers, and the song has one of those sing-along choruses that you can't get rid of, try as you may.

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KUSTOMIZED BREAK-UP

How do you follow an album as killer as Kustomized's early-'96 release At the Vanishing Point (Matador) and a show as wildly abandoned as the one I saw them play in June at the Middle East? You break up, of course. Kustomized play their official last show at the Middle East tonight (Thursday), but in truth, the band have already broken up: drummer Malcolm Travis and bassist Bob Moses jumped ship soon after that show in June, and guitarist Ed Yazijian is moving to New York next month. This leaves singer/guitarist Peter Prescott, who formed Kustomized after a long history with Volcano Suns and Mission of Burma, as the only member. Tonight's show will feature an interim line-up of Prescott, Yazijian, and the former rhythm section of the Pretty Flowers, Nick Blakey and Tim Morse.

The good news is that Prescott will be pressing on. The new rhythm section is staying aboard, former Bald Guys member Rich Wentworth is joining on guitar, and Prescott will be back with another four-piece punk band. But it probably won't be called Kustomized, even though he kept the Volcano Suns name alive through a good half-dozen line-ups.

"I'm not comfortable with that idea anymore," he says. "I'm in a quandary at this point, because I like the songs that Kustomized has been playing for the last couple of years and I'm not looking forward to dumping them. But I have a feeling that this will be different enough -- probably more stretched out, more loose and funky. These guys are big-time young, so they bring in some oddness that I really like. It kind of offsets me, who can be fairly stodgy and set in my ways."

Prescott's new band will be recording in the fall and should hit the boards soon afterward. As for Kustomized's break-up, he notes that "it's a problem when you're punkers and you're turning 40; you do it while it's still fun and then you move on . . . A few months ago I was terribly upset about the coming demise, but now I'm kind of curious about what this new thing will turn into."

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COMING UP

New-country hero Jimmie Dale Gilmore plays the House of Blues tonight (Thursday); Clutch play early at Axis and the eternal NRBQ are out at the Beachcomber . . . Expanding Man have a CD-release party at the Middle East tomorrow (Friday) with Poundcake opening. Mung are at the Linwood Grille, Rippopotamus are at Mama Kin, and Four Piece Suit share a bill with Deb Pasternak at the Tam . . . Sloan play T.T. the Bear's Place on Saturday, headlining a star-studded bill with Johnny Nickel & the Dimes (who sound like Cheap Trick but look a whole lot like Gigolo Aunts) and Butterscott. Ramona Silver and recent Demo Derby runners-up the Sterlings are at the Linwood, rockabilly survivor Sonny Burgess plays the House of Blues, the always-catchable Yo La Tengo play the Middle East, and a two-day "punk Olympics," with 10 bands each day, starts at the Rat . . . On Sunday that sensitive guy (and, in all fairness, rock-and-roll pioneer) Ike Turner, whose band is rumored to be fronted by a Tina sound-alike, plays the House of Blues . . . Former Hot Rod leader Paula Kelley's cool band Boy Wonder play Bill's Bar on Monday . . . A man who's never played a bad show in his life, King Sunny Adé, hits Mama Kin on Tuesday.