GIRLS AGAINST BOYS' Eli Janney is standing stage right at the Black Cat last spring. Cradling a bass, standing behind a keyboard, he says to the audience, "We all used to live down here. You guys are so weird." The irony of the self-deprecation is not lost on the crowd, thick as it is with the band's friends from the days when they played in other bands here, went to school here, grew up here. (They return to the Black Cat Saturday.)

Though they now live in New York, Scott McCloud, Alexis Fleisig, Johnny Temple and Janney are part of a small but fecund, cross-pollinating music scene. And, having signed with Geffen Records, they are also part of the select club of local bands (Shudder to Think, Jawbox) that play for the behemoths.

By the time Chicago's indie Touch and Go label released "House of GVSB" in February, the major labels had cocked their ears like so many RCA dogs. Interest was high enough that the group was able to partially finance its last European tour by accepting perks -- hotels, meals -- from interested suitors.

"There were a lot of perks thrown in," says McCloud. "At that point, we hadn't decided what to do. We wanted to see if this was for real.

"Hey, it was a big decision," McCloud adds. "We picked Geffen because, as a group, we felt most comfortable with them, though I don't really want to talk about all the fine points in the contract." Geffen may not have made the biggest dollar offer, but it reportedly gave GVSB the most creative freedom, including the ability to honor their Touch and Go contract. To their credit, the band members delivered a strong final album rather than a throwaway effort, actually doubling their production budget; they'll start work on the first of three Geffen albums next year.

The evolution of Girls Against Boys, or GVSB as they spell it on their releases, began as friendships at Deal Junior High and Wilson High School in Northwest. After graduation, they played musical chairs in assorted local bands. Guitarist-singer McCloud and drummer Fleisig played in Soulside and Lunchmeat, bassist Temple in Soulside and bassist-keyboardist Janney in Edsel, also working with a slew of groups on the production side. They played d.c. space, the defunct incubator-cum-club, various churches and community centers, and the alternative Tanglewood of Ward 3, Fort Reno Park, in the summer.

Of those bands Soulside toured the most, having what McCloud calls "an outward focus." In 1990, he moved to New York to begin film school and Temple went away to college as part of his "branching out." For a while, they swapped unfinished songs by mail, but eventually Soulside broke up. By the end of that year, the four friends were all living in New York City and though they had played together in different incarnations for five years, a new band was not a foregone conclusion.

"I wasn't thinking `band,' or that this was going to be our main existence," Temple reflects. Prior to that, GVSB existed only as an on-and-off basement tape collaboration among friends for friends, midwived by Janney. All of the current members of the band participated at different times, as did Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty and bassist Mike Fellows, who has toured with Royal Trux. In 1992 they played their first live show and have since released four albums, an EP and a few singles.

New York City, where last call never really arrives, is the perfect home for a band with what Temple describes as "a nighttime sound." With two bass players on most songs, they sound like the throb of a disco as heard from down the street. It colors the band members to the point that they all found it strange to play a handful of Lollapalooza dates in 1994, what with all that daylight and sun. This summer they'll play the second stage when the rock festival comes to Charles Town, W. Va., July 16.

Lyrically, the band is dark as well. Temple, the full-time bass player, deadpans, "Our lyrics are base . . . with an underbelly rhythm." The topics suggest a cafe society travelogue peppered with snippets of conversations overheard at the bar. In "My Martini" off 1995's "Cruise Yourself," McCloud begins by singing, "I should have left a long time ago." He continues his after-hours tale looking to use a phone and then, in the chorus, searching for his martini. Unresolved, the scene is likely to be replayed some other night, with the goal not a drink but a liaison. Girls Against Boys are about want and the tension inherent therein, the sort of rush of adrenaline that can render the pervasive smell of a nightclub -- a cocktail of leather, beer and sweat -- into an aphrodisiac.

Last year, the band got added exposure on the soundtrack to the slacker hit "Clerks" (which leased the single, "Kill the Sexplayer") and on a Joy Division tribute album, for which it recorded "She's Lost Control."

"At the time that came out, it was good because we hadn't had a record in a while," says McCloud. "But in England it didn't do well. . . . I shouldn't say that . . . it didn't do well critically. They were like [feigns British accent] `How can you [Americans] touch Joy Division?' " And, in what seems to be the current fashion, McCloud and Temple have a side project, New Wet Kojak, a horn-oriented lounge band that released its debut last year. "We're halfway through another record, which should be out this winter."

GIRLS AGAINST BOYS -- Appearing Saturday at the Black Cat with Therapy and Skeleton Key and at the WHFStival at RFK Stadium on July 1 [transcribers note: This is a typo. The HFStival was June 1. I know. I was there. And I was one of the few sober ones.] New Wet Kojak will perform at the 9:30's WFHS Ultra Lounge on May 31, along with the Friends of Dean Martinez, Love Nut and Fred Schneider.