Jams

Some sound guys have been doing it so long that they’ve completely fried their main asset — those things hanging from both sides of their head that used to be for listening. You tell them what you want and think they understand, but they just nod up and down like that for everyone. Congratulations, you and your band are on your way to being butchered. Your only recourse is to tell people that the screeching feedback that mars your first six songs was intentional.

Thank goodness for guys like Jamal Ruhe, Nita’s trusty sound man in its early incarnation and back again this year. Since we’ve conducted actual conversations with him, we know his woofers are working fine. Ruhe knows every inch of this room intimately, he’s played there a kazillion times and retains uncanny information about every band that’s done likewise. Performing is nerve-racking enough without having to worry about having an adversary behind the mixing board. Jamal is your friend, not your funeral director.

It must be 10 years and holding for Carvin Jones and his familiar visage, ever grinning back at us from the local club ads. Ten years of wearing that black gaucho hat. Ten years with that heavy, solid-body Stratocaster slung over his back. Whew, just think of the pattern baldness and irreparable spinal damage this pose would cause someone who tried this at home for a decade solid.

But if you spy the real Carvin in the flesh, there isn’t that much of a difference between the way he looks today and his appearance in the old 1990 8×10. Which makes us suspect some kind of Faustian bargain going on — perhaps something to do with eternal youth and recycled Hendrix riffs.

We just don’t get it. It can’t be because of healthy living — Jones sings in smoky clubs several nights a week. And if we read The Picture of Dorian Gray correctly, shouldn’t his club ad be rapidly aging like bad cheese right about now?

Think of a “guitar hero” and the image usually involves the over-the-top wankings of some limey with six-string phallus in hand, offering up trite “ROCK ‘N’ ROLL FOREVER!” proclamations. But the Valley’s premier axman, Greg Simmons, has taken the road less extroverted to the top. A shy, sensitive sort offstage, Simmons becomes a reluctant firebrand when he straps on his trademark Telecaster.

Although Simmons’ fretwork is front and center as part of his regular alterna-pop troupe, the Royal Normans, his most impressive playing has come during the loose-knit sets from roots-rock collective Los Guys. Simmons manages titanic blues runs, subtle country picking and fierce freeform jamming, all delivered with an “aw shucks” attitude — one of those rare guitar slingers definitely not from the face-grimacing-smugly-smirking school of hard licks.

Grunge, neo-punk reggae and rock-rap have done nothing to propagate the species once known as “guitar hero.” In an age where you can flip an audience the bird to tumultuous applause, it’s no wonder new musicians don’t get better acquainted with their instruments.

That’s why Big Blue Couch’s science-fiction band bio, which claims the group was cryogenically frozen in 1969 and exhumed last year, seems to ring true. Axman Chris Doyle harks back to the days when rock stars didn’t play their guitars so much as wrestle them to wring every last screech or sigh. In a local music scene when the best guitarists seem to be roots-based traditionalists, Doyle’s white-rock influences range from the fabled (Live at Leeds-era Townshend, Mick Ronson) to the forgotten (spacey Robin Trower, Fred “Sonic” Smith) to the far-fetched (Bruce Cockburn on acoustic numbers).

Propelled by an ace rhythm section and an energetic front man, Doyle takes extended instrumental flights of fancy that continue to make other local guitarists put down their beers and sweat bullets. Despite frequent gigs, the bulk of the band’s dates have been thankless opening-slot gigs or last-minute replacement shows. Those who’ve ventured out early have witnessed a combo capable of being as arty as King Crimson and as belligerent as the Stooges, largely because of Doyle’s extended vocabulary of sounds and showmanship. With Big Blue Couch’s much-delayed debut CD finally mixed and ready for public consumption, this talent won’t remain in the shadows of the local music scene for much longer.

In 1993, when KEDJ debuted on the local airwaves, starting an alternative-rock radio station was a safe bet. Nirvana and Pearl Jam had shattered the old programming order, and Lollapalooza Nation was congregating every summer to celebrate the shared triumph of a new music revolution.

In 2000, Nirvana and Lollapalooza are both history, and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder is about as relevant to today’s youth as Eddie Cantor. Not surprisingly, the alt-rock format has taken a pounding in many markets. But KEDJ, also known as “The Edge,” has survived it all: Kurt Cobain’s suicide, the teen-pap meltdown of MTV and even a 1999 sale that saw New York-based conglomerate Big City Radio take over the station.

The Edge has survived by adapting to the changing definitions of “alternative,” loading up on the rap-metal dementia of Limp Bizkit and Korn, while maintaining a soft spot for three-chord pop-punksters like Blink 182, the Offspring and Green Day. In a city that loves to moan about its lack of a college radio station, KEDJ remains the best bet for guitar-based music that fits in the wide demographic slot between prepubescent and postmenopausal.

Readers’ Choice: KEDJ-FM 106.3/100.3