Post-grunge

The new sounds of Sub Pop

by Jonathan Perry

The financial future of Sub Pop may be shaky, but the label that made grunge part of rock's vocabulary still seems committed to ushering in new music by reshaping the old and following

no one's musical impulses but its own. A showcase sampling of five new and not-so-new signees at the Central Square World's Fair in Cambridge last Sunday offered an eclectic taste of what the label (which maintains an office in Boston) has been up to since the bottom fell out of the grunge market.

First up was former Eric's Trip bassist Julie Doiron, whose new Loneliest in the Morning is a study in introspective tension. (The disc was produced by Dave Shouse, whose own group the Grifters turned in one of the day's most compelling sets.) Despite having toured with her former band while still a teenager -- and despite possessing the kind of confessional, crystalline voice ideal for this sort of songwriting -- Doiron has a reputation for being shy in front of an audience. But before an attentive crowd, her subdued demeanor was well suited to the ruminative calm of her material. A five-piece backing band helped to flesh out her skeletal songs, adding urgency and sense of simmering desperation. As with labelmates the Spinanes, Doiron's sparse songs seemed to stand still at first -- until you decided there was something palpably darker underneath the pretty folk melodies, moving all the time, yet hidden from view.

Next, the 1-2-3-4 count-off clack of Ryan Epsys's drumsticks and the knotty cluster of notes springing from Billy Dolan's guitar introduced the angular "post-rock" (Sub Pop's description, not mine) of Heroic D. The trio played a pungent all-instrumental set that toyed with hipster surfabilly, scruffy new-wave noise, and exploratory neo-jazz/funk -- precisely the kind of mix that would have made lyrics a superfluous distraction. Heroic D evoked the precocious spirit of Television, the early Police, and Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet; in the end they sounded mostly like, well, Heroic D. Dolan's playing was by turns meditative and scrappy, elastic and moody, sometimes resting on the blanket of Nick Macri's bass, at others lurching forward in a staccato burst. Save for a brief "Thanks" after each instrumental, the group didn't speak, but they said plenty.

How many Sub Pop artists can get folks old enough to have voted for FDR to square-dance in the middle of Mass Ave? That's what Mike Ireland & Holler, the label's twangcore outfit, did during a performance laced with tales of -- what else? -- woe and heartache. The Kansas City-bred band (who recently completed recording their Sub Pop debut) played a brand of straight-no-chaser C&W that was more archly traditionalist than most contemporary alterna-country revivalism. It didn't hurt that Ireland as a singer is a dead ringer for Dwight Yoakam. He delivered vengefully tear-stained lines like "I lost it all when I found you" with just the right touch of resolve coming apart at the seams; lead guitarist Michael Lemon underlined his sentiments with the baying of a mournful lap steel. "That last song was about revenge," said Ireland at one point in the set. "This song's about revenge too." Yee-haw! It wasn't hard to imagine these songs playing on a banged-up Wurlitzer jukebox at an all-night Memphis truck stop.

And who'd be plugging quarters into that Memphis jukebox? Why, the Grifters, of course. Roughly a decade into their career, these art-damaged Memphis boys just seem to get better -- or at the very least stay the same, which is good enough. Like their new Full Blown Possession, the Grifters' eight-song set showcased the band's knack for cross-indexing a cosmic record collection that by now includes everything from the Stones to Sonic Youth and Pavement. Like those artists, the Grifters have perfected the art of controlling self-made chaos, knowing when to slash and when to sprawl. Vocalist-guitarists Dave Shouse and Scott Taylor were in fine, frayed form; together with bassist Tripp Lamkins and drummer Stan Gallimore they made the music groan, crash, and howl around them, especially on new numbers like "Re-Entry Blues."

Add the Blue Rags, who return to Cambridge to open for Southern Culture on the Skids this Saturday at the Middle East, to the list of artists playing music that's as old as their grandparents -- or great-grandparents. Closing the Sub Pop showcase, the Asheville (North Carolina) stringband quintet performed the infectiously upbeat ragtime-and-jazz standards of their debut album, Rag-N-Roll, which includes material written by the likes of Huddie Ledbetter, Alan Lomax, and George and Ira Gershwin. In covering songs like Leadbelly's "Bourgeois Blues" with playful verve, the young band not only put on a display of their appreciation for the sepia-toned history of their musical forefathers, they made the music new again. For one delicious moment, it was if grunge had never happened.

Blue Rags open for Southern Culture on the Skids this Saturday at the Middle East. Call 864-EAST.