Mix-ups

Four new local compilations

by Brett Milano

Like the seven-inch single, the four-track tape recorder, and Cheap Trick, the compilation album might have been a long-dead entity if indie rock hadn't given it a new lease on life. Comps are springing up everywhere to document regional scenes and subdivisions thereof. In Boston the tradition goes back to the early '80s, when classics like This Is Boston, Not LA (Modern Method, now Wicked Disc) and Nobody Gets on the Guest List (Throbbing Lobster) did a better job of documenting the hardcore and garage-rock scenes than any individual band's albums.

Most comps don't wind up being that influential, but the best ones provide a snapshot of a particular musical trend or a circuit of bands. And sometimes they just say a lot about the compiler's musical taste. That's the case with Dreamboat (just out on Cassiel). Listening to the 23 tracks, you can tell how musically voracious owner/compiler Dan Sutton is. The CD plays like a mix tape, with a seemingly random set of material from Boston and elsewhere. Rare tracks by currently hot bands (Spoon, Olivia Tremor Control) stand alongside obscure local demos (including a miserably recorded one by the Punk Monkees). Early tracks by now-established locals (Push Kings, Bright) are there among previously released ones by bands who broke up more than a year ago (Twig, Quivvver). It's a diverse mix, but Sutton swears that everything on it is great.

And Sutton can be persuasive. "There is a theme to the disc," he points out when we meet at Inman Square's 1369 Coffeehouse. "Most of the songs are in different ways about desire, and that's all I'll say about that." The point of Dreamboat, he says, is to build up his label without doing anything overtly commercial. "I wanted to mimic my friends and role models at Sub Pop, Touch & Go, and Shrimper. If you have a label, you can either do the ultra-earnest thing and stick with unheard-of acts, or you can ask famous friends of yours if you can release their records. I went for the former when I started, in order to raise my label's profile by releasing songs by bands I really liked."

Sutton's always been inclined to take the do-it-yourself ethic to heart. During the early '80s he started the fanzine Anhedonia, giving all the issues away and not taking ads in order to preserve its integrity. "I made 100 copies of the first issue and left them in the door at Newbury Comics. Then my stepfather, who's a very moral man, gave me a lecture about unattributed criticism, so I started putting my name on it."

He started Cassiel (named for one of the angels in Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire) under similar circumstances, after reading a review of the UK band Statuesque that said, "If you're thinking of starting a label, you could do worse than start with this band." Sutton did just that, releasing a Statuesque CD last year. He figures the band have some commercial potential. Their track on Dreamboat -- with a nifty distorted guitar sound and a plodding groove recalling Pink Floyd's glory days -- bears him out.

The label's now getting even more ambitious, with a split single planned for the fall featuring a side each by pop icons Scott Miller (Loud Family) and Matthew Sweet. "I realize it's going to give him some indie credibility, but there's no way I'd do it if I didn't really like Matthew Sweet." Also coming is a solid three-song single by the loud-guitar pop band Swizzle, which they'll celebrate at the Middle East on August 15. And he's got full-length discs planned by two of his favorites, Statuesque and Nashville's Methadone Actors. Big hits and world domination may be next.

"If you look at what I do, you can see a pattern of incredible arrogance," he admits. "But it comes to an incredibly humbling dŽnouement every month when I get my credit-card bills."

If you want to draw some generalizations about the music on Boston Elektro 101 (SINless), just check out the back of the booklet, which shows most of the participants in a group photo outside Man Ray. You've never seen a group of musicians looking more pissed off. That's the essential paradox about this subgenre of electronic music: it underlines insistent dance beats with a dour sensibility. Still, I'd be disappointed if some of the music here didn't offend my guitar-driven sensibilities, especially since the CD leaves out the city's more pop-driven electronic bands (notably Splashdown and the various Think Tree spinoffs).

Everyone on this disc has learned how to get neat sounds out of his or her synths and sequencers, but the best bands come in with some kind of agenda -- whether it's sexual (Sleep Chamber), political (the now-defunct DDT) or social (Institute of Technology). Institute contribute the most intense thing here: "Miserable," which airs the repressed thoughts of a social scapegoat ("I am the one they call the human punching bag/I'll be the best friend you never had/Cut me wide open and stuff me in a can"). The vocal is a menacing whisper, and the dance rhythms are muffled, as if they were coming from somewhere else and the singer couldn't break out -- it's dense, disturbing stuff. Elsewhere, there's too much reliance on whispered and/or distorted vocals. Zia's track stands out because leader Elaine Mullen can actually sing. The best track is largely instrumental: Sector 7G's "Needle Whore," a bundle of aggression that sports a furious pulse and some band interplay.

At the other extreme is The Vineyard Sound (Artists Only), an overwhelmingly pleasant CD that seems to support the prevailing stereotype of Martha's Vineyard folks as former hippies who made some money. Still, some of those hippies can still write good songs, and it's nice to find old balladeers like Jonathan Edwards and John Hall still at it along with Vineyard icons Carly Simon and James Taylor. And who knew that reggae great Toots Hibbert and former Clash collaborator Mikey Dread (who adds dub effects to a Susan Tedeschi track) were Vineyard residents? Also represented is Evan Dando, in a track that's ruffled some feathers -- producer Peter Simon apparently thought that the old Lemonheads B-side "Deep Bottom Cove" needed some sweetening, so he added some harmonica and percussion. Dando was miffed, and the track is coming off after the first pressing. On the minus side, I can do without Entrain's ersatz funk and Johnny Hoy & the Bluefish's cleaned-up blues. But nobody goes to Martha's Vineyard to work up a sweat. You go there to mellow out. Ditto for Vineyard Sounds.

Nobody's done more Boston compilations than Joe "The Count" Viglione, who began his Boston Rock'n'Roll Anthology series in 1980 and is about to release the 20th volume. The series has taken some justifiable knocks for its preponderance of suburban hard-rock bands. But it hasn't been without worthwhile moments. The new edition is even more of a mixed bag than usual. A handful of no-account bands still turn up, and the opening track, by Harriet Schock, is neither Boston nor rock'n'roll (she used to write songs for Helen Reddy and sounds as if she still wanted to). Yet a handful of collector's items are scattered among the 21 tracks, making Volume 20 a good investment for those with a sense of local history.

For a period piece, you can't beat Moulty & the Barbarians' 1974 track "Only in My World," a priceless bit of flower-power kitsch from the '60s punk godfather. There are a couple of solid new tracks by old-school Boston rockers: Kenne Highland's "Not Mental Enough" is a Jerry Lee Lewis-type rave-up that namechecks some notorious members of the Club Bohemia crowd; and the Varmints' "Ain't No Good" is a bratty rant that repeats the title 27 times (hey, I counted) in less than three minutes. In a more serious vein, "Blue Light" is a moving number by Steven Paul Perry, formerly the ace guitarist in Berlin Airlift and currently an AIDS survivor. The song describes his ache to pick up his guitar and get back into the spotlight -- "I'd give my soul to rock-and-roll," he shouts at the peak. Usually a line like this would be a clichŽ, but here you can tell that Perry means it, and you're glad that he's getting his wish.

The real find of the set is " 'Cause I'm Taking You to Bed," a 1973 Willie Alexander demo that was pulled out of mothballs by mastering whiz Jon Wyner. Fresh from a short-lived membership in the Velvet Underground, Alexander never sounded as nasty or as wasted as he does on this tale of love and excess. Even the incongruous "shoo-wop" female backing vocals add to the song's decadent air -- suggesting Lou Reed's Street Hassle period, which was still four years away. During the song's fadeout Alexander tries unsuccessfully to coax the band into playing a mambo, then sneers, "Are you sure Perez Prado started this way?" It's enough to know that Willie Alexander did.

RAT CLOSING?

A lot of local scenesters may not have even noticed, but the downstairs room at Kenmore Square's venerable rock spot the Rat has been dark since the July 4 weekend, marking the club's first extended shutdown in memory. Not long ago the thought of Boston without the Rat would have been unthinkable. But the club's profile has slipped in recent years, with a booking policy heavily slanted toward suburban hardcore bands. The old Rat punk/alternative scene has largely dispersed to O'Brien's and to various parts of Cambridge. Still, Rat officials insist that the downstairs club is closing only for renovation. "We hope to have it back open in the middle of August," says manager Hope Moon, though no reopening date has been set (owner Jim Harold couldn't be reached for comment). "Do I think Harold will ever close it permanently? I can't see that, it's too much of an icon."

COMING UP.

Pianist David Maxwell has his CD-release party at the House of Blues tonight (Thursday), former Knots & Crosses guitarist Rick Harris plays Johnny D's, Papas Fritas are at the Paradise, and Tidal Wave play the Middle East . . . Tomorrow (Friday) it's Fuzzy and the Gravel Pit at T.T.'s, Manbreak and Ultra Breakfast at the Middle East, Todd Thibaud and Mark Cutler at the Attic, the Pills and Nines at the Linwood, and Pooka Stew at Bill's Bar . . . Saturday brings Trona and Cherry 2000 to the Middle East upstairs while the eternal NRBQ appear downstairs. Permafrost (profiled here last month) come to T.T.'s for a CD-release show, Jaye Foucher is at Club 3, and Rippopotamus play Mama Kin . . . Celtic rockers Wooden Leg and Sunday's Well join up at Charlie's Tap on Sunday . . . And on Monday, prog-rock cult figure Fish (from Marillion) makes his first-ever Boston appearance at the Paradise, ska great Desmond Dekker does his thing at the House of Blues, and guitar experimentalists Eugene Chadbourne and Rich Gilbert share a bill at Charlie's Tap.