NEW YORK—Sitting in a concrete park on the edge of Little Italy, Scott McCloud and Alexis Fleisig of noise rock band Girls Against Boys -- or GVSB -- are reminiscing about their previous musical incarnation as Soulside, which was part of the D.C. hard-core punk scene during the late '80s.
"The D.C. scene is really nurturing and supportive," says drummer Fleisig, who like the rest of his band mates was raised in Northwest Washington. "It's a great place to be in a band. Whereas in New York everyone hates you, so you have to work so much harder and be really strong to survive."
McCloud -- the band's front man with an easy charm and movie star looks -- agrees. "It's much easier to start a band in D.C. than in New York."
GVSB started in Washington as a studio project that included Fugazi's Brendan Canty. When the band members (minus Canty) moved to New York, GVSB was reincarnated as a blistering live band that soon became a favorite of the rock cognoscenti here.
Tonight, GVSB takes the stage at the 9:30 club in what should be a triumphant homecoming. The band's new album, "Freak*on*Ica," is not only its major-label debut, it's also one of the most enthralling albums of the year, combining pile-driving rock-and-roll with the abrasive studio effects normally associated with electronica.
The band has great interest in dance music, as evidenced by the album's title (a play on the word "electronica") and by the song "Exorcisto," which is, McCloud says with a smile, "about taking your punk [behind] into the techno future."
The idea of combining punk and disco is not a new one. It's been around since the late '70s and early '80s, when British bands like Public Image Ltd., Joy Division and the Gang of Four tried to occupy a provisional space between the local rock club and the global dance floor. Making arty funk for an audience that doesn't really dance might seem like a thankless task, but the edgy, experimental dance-rock produced in this period proved to have an enduring influence on everybody from Nine Inch Nails to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to the Prodigy. And, of course, Girls Against Boys.
"Growing up in D.C., I always gravitated to groups like Public Image and the Gang of Four -- rock bands that experimented with textures and grooves -- much more than straight-up punk stuff like the Ramones," McCloud says.
"Whenever the concept of mixing punk and disco comes up, musicians start messing around with different tones, sounds and grooves," Fleisig says. "Mixing disco and punk is so wrong, it couldn't be righter."
But don't mistake GVSB for the sort of group that's jumping on the currently fashionable dance music bandwagon. Despite the album's name and the frequent exultations to "drop the funk" and "bass the nation," the quartet is still recognizably a rock band. So why have some critics labeled "Freak*on*Ica" a techno album? "Maybe it's because we use the Roland 303 keyboard a lot on this record," Fleisig says. (What the electric guitar is to rock, the Roland 303 is to techno and drum 'n' bass -- the basic instrument that underpins the sound.)
Indeed, if you listen closely to the lyrics -- which is difficult since McCloud's breathy voice is buried deep in the mix -- you come away with the strong impression that the band is making fun of club culture, particularly on the standout track "Roxy."
"I like the way dance music is geared towards pleasure and entertainment and making people's bodies move," McCloud says. "I like going to raves and clubs, but I question how much fun it really is. I hate being made to stand in line outside a velvet rope and being herded around like sheep. You're supposed to be riding the wave of the future, but it may be you're just riding a wave of hype."
The world of nightclubs is not the only scene that GVSB has a love-hate relationship with. On "Vogue Thing," the band takes on the fashion world, though some listeners have misinterpreted the song as championing expensive designer labels.
"I'm obsessed with fashion mags and all the advertising slogans in them," McCloud explains. "The idea of putting so many fashion brand names in that song was that maybe a brand name could become so well known that the label could stand in for a certain feeling. 'I'm feeling Gucci today,' for instance. Or you wake up in the morning and you're not feeling so good, so you say, 'I'm feeling kind of Gap.' "
"Just because we're in a noisy rock band doesn't mean we can't reference Gucci. Hip-hop groups do it all the time," adds Fleisig.
Too smart to be a conventional rock-and-roll band, yet still wedded to the music's idiot energy, GVSB is living proof that alternative rock doesn't have to be dour, sexless and angst-ridden. Yet, whether the band can attract an audience beyond its current small fan base is open to question. The alternative rock boom has long since gone bust. The group's songs don't follow a conventional verse-chorus pattern. And radio and MTV have reverted to playing the same handful of familiar songs again and again.
"We're a rock band who hates the music you hear on rock radio," says McCloud. "It's the same band you hear again and again. But what radio programmers don't realize is that there are a lot more people who hate Aerosmith and Hootie & the Blowfish than like them, but these people don't have negative buying power. If there was Hootie and an anti-Hootie, I'll bet the anti-Hootie would sell more records."
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