The Litter Box

POWER POP IS a genre for suckers, and this maxim can be applied to all sides of the debate. The fans tend to be hard-core, regionalized pockets of folks who are easily driven into a low-grade frenzy over big hooks and lush harmonies. The bands tend to toil in obscurity for the better part of their – if not their entire – careers, with nothing but a clutch of out-of-print discs being traded on eBay and a dazzling critic's overview provided by The Trouser Press Record Guide as proof of life. Sure, the occasional bubble rises from the underground to burst the surface of commercial music, but when you consider that the biggest-selling power pop hit of the past 10 years is the theme from Friends, there isn't much in the way of intrinsic reward.

Yet the bands and the fans keep on coming. There's no accounting for love, and anyone involved in attempting to foist melodic yet gritty rock and roll on the general public is, for better or worse, working on sheer zeal. That's the case with the East Bay's own the Effection, the latest greats to write their name on this ship-of-fools manifesto.

Composed of Billy Bouchard (ex-Waterdogs, whom you probably don't remember from their lone gasp on Atlantic Records, as well as a former Dance Hall Crasher), Scott Goodell (also a Crasher), and Chris Dugan (formerly of the Happy Regrets), the Effection have loosed a tiny power pop tour de force called Soundtrack to a Moment (Adeline), featuring 12 tracks that recall everything from the Who's power bash to Elvis Costello's brash to Joe Jackson's talking trash – the general requisites you come to expect when naming names on the list of influences. You can also make references to kind of well-knowns like the Raspberries and super-unknowns such as the Greenberry Woods. Then there's the straight-up feather-lite Britpop championed by eccentrics like Paddy McAloon and Roddy Frame.

It's all there waiting to be excavated for comparison, and of course it will be, because power pop fanatics are just that way about their music. And, if they're honest with themselves, they'll come to the realization that Soundtrack to a Moment is, top to bottom, one the finest power pop albums to come out in years. Bouchard and his pals are unabashed pigs for harmonizing, which, when welded to the chassis of their punk background, makes for some pretty cathartic stuff. Forget all the buzzwords like genuine and sincerity that are tossed around to keep power pop down in its cult ghetto, and you'll more likely than not find yourself wondering why a song like "Agony" shouldn't be on the charts. Here's to hoping for better days.

On the other side of the spectrum but no less spectacular is the Husbands' first release, Introducing the Sounds Of (Swami), an album that's even more amazing if you know how far the band – which includes filmmaker extraordinaires Sadie Shaw and Sarah Reed, who've both done time in the fab Lies and Bonnot Gang – have come in their year or so together. I recall the Husbands coming out of the gate strong and sucking relatively hard for the first handful of gigs, though I could hear the potential for more; like maybe someday being able to start and stop songs together at the same time.

Cut to last week, when a certain arrogant, dismissive "critic" popped his copy of Introducing into the disc player only to have it reach right out of the speaker and slap him in his know-nothing puss. With 14 songs clocking in at a hair over 24 minutes, the Husbands have created a raw, primitive, simplistic, and utterly fantastic album that crunches together Bo Diddley, Pebbles, Volumes I, II, and V, the Ronettes, the Pleasure Seekers, and two-string guitar solos to form a heaping slab of unmitigated rock and roll. Amid all the hoopla about the rediscovery of lo-fi rock and roll done the "old-fashioned way," here's one vote for the Husbands, who have turned out the best (with the possible exception of the latest by the Deadly Snakes) recording so far. Their album is pure, unaffected fun as well as an instant San Francisco classic. Big words for a self-avowed garage homer to spew for sure, but the Husbands have laid out an album that is as first-rate as anything my main men the Mummies or Flakes ever released. I was wrong, they were right. And I remain too cool for school and too dumb for the real world.

The Husbands' CD-release party, with Beehive and the Barracudas, takes place Fri/4, 10 p.m., Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, S.F. $6. (415) 923-0923.

The Effection play, with Link and the Librarians, July 12, 924 Gilman, 924 Gilman, Berk. (510) 525-9926; with Orange Park, July 27, Red Devil Lounge, 1695 Polk, S.F. (415) 921-1695. Call for times and prices.