March 18 2003

The Litter Box

IT'S TIME YOURS truly testified – no more waffling – about the Rock 'n Roll Adventure Kids. I have made allusions to their future as America's Greatest Living Rock and Roll Band, but since I sometimes write columns after a 12-pack, I'm not sure if either of us, me or the band, is quite ready to make that statement. But they are special. Unfortunately they're also from the Bay Area, which pretty much seals their fate as just another band on the road to obscurity.

As an outsider, I have always been amazed by the Bay's unparalleled record of backing the wrong horse. Don't get me wrong; every major metro area is guilty of foisting some heinous music on the senseless public. But only in northern California are shitty bands a point of civic pride. The problem extends as far back as the mid '60s, when the Flamin' Groovies were forsaken in favor of the Jefferson Airplane. The next thing you know, the Summer of Love breaks out, tepid "jamming" becomes all the rage, and we can now look back and agree it was at that exact moment when popular music went to shit. If only San Francisco had picked rock and roll, it's quite likely guys in bands would never have insisted on being called "musicians." Prog rock might never have come to pass. It's nice to think about living in a world in which Emerson, Lake, and Palmer register in your mind not as one band but as, respectively, the name of your clock radio, the place where you take the kids on summer vacation, and the guy who sells Jockey underwear on TV.

The Bay Area's list of bad taste is long and horrid. Locals chose the Grateful Dead over the Chocolate Watchband, Journey instead of the Dead Kennedys, and the Counting Crows rather than the Mummies. Northern California has produced some amazing rock and roll in the past 30 years, but you'd never know it. Unless you were somehow lucky enough to live near a cool record store or could manage to get past the "they sold out" letters that pepper the fronts of smudgy little zines like Maximumrockandroll, you'd be hard pressed to think it was never more rockin' than when Huey Lewis was on the case. This is where the Adventure Kids come in.

They're one of those amazing bands that people will someday refer to as "one that really mattered." I can't say when the truth will surface, but if California tastemakers stay the course, I'll bet it'll be roughly the same time as Columbia House's "buy one, get all you want for $2.99 (plus shipping and handling) sale" features Train's back catalog.

How can I see the band's future? For the same reason I love them: purity. The first time I saw them live, I felt like I'd been hit by a thunderbolt. Their singer, Marcos, was a cross between a young Jonathan Richman and a more amped-up Hasil Adkins. He whooped, hollered, and flopped around the stage like the legitimately out-of-time rock star. Oscar, the bass player, bravely delivered the low end while the proletariat pelted him with beer and exploding snappers. They delivered 30 minutes of booze-soaked pandemonium before some old-fart band followed them with awful retro-'60s hash. The set filled me with sheer delight. I still feel that way. It doesn't matter that their lyrics are complete gibberish or that every song is written in the same key (no minor chords, please). You just can't beat honesty.

My boys will be celebrating the release of their first LP this weekend. I have no idea what it sounds like, because I broke the needle of my turntable during a dance party of one and have yet to replace it. I can tell you it was recorded live at a Berkeley radio station, and the drummer who played on it has opted for a less-exciting lifestyle. And I can promise you this: the album captures the band in all their gloriously simple, no-B.S. beauty, and it will rock like nobody's business,.

As for the future, well, if things follow the predictable path, the album might sell out of its first pressing, and even that might be too optimistic. But I can say the world would be a much better place if everyone owned a copy. The scary times would be a lot less scary if we rallied around the Adventure Kids' cry, "Cock-a-doodle doo." The world needs an excuse to smile – and lord knows it's time to put the Bay Area's streak of musical horrors to rest.

Rock 'n Roll Adventure Kids, with Gravy Train!!!!, Glamour Pussy, and Merdiverators, play Bottom of the Hill, Fri/14, 10 p.m., 1233 17th St., S.F. $8. (415) 621-4455.