by
CINDY MCGLYNN

Slow. Smooth.

How do you like it?

Quick. Warm.

How do you want it?

Fierce. Playful.

Come on, girls. If you know what it is it that gets you to shift gently in your seat, mindlessly mouthing the ends of your hair while you remember your first run-in with love, then you'll be a better consumer of the various quality services designed to satisfy your needs. Especially this week.

I think tension is nice, don't you? Tension, lingering just below the surface, far enough to be out of reach; close enough to make you sweat.

Girls Against Boys singer Scott McCloud is nice, don't you think? He's got an easy laugh and his band can work up the tension faster than you can say, "On your knees!" I'd say just getting near them is the kind of thing that makes you wriggle uncomfortably.

Scott says singing those naughty songs on House Of GVSB (Touch And Go/Cargo) gets him a little tense. "It's both a releasing feeling and a frustrating feeling to play. Sometimes the songs just aren't long enough. From other people's perspective they might have gone on for seven minutes. But to me, it's like, God, I could keep going."

And I bet he could. Still, one has to wonder how they found the groove on their fourth full-length CD, especially after 1994's Cruise Yourself, easily a climax in itself. "Usually we get the low lights going in the rehearsal space, so it's kind of vague and a little bit misty. There's a little bit of smoke in the room. We don't do too much role-playing. Actually, maybe we do, within the band. 'OK, guys, I'm the plumber and I'm coming into the practice space and I've got this guitar line. We don't know each other!' "

A sense of humor's nice, don't you think? So is good hair. These guys still use their standby Blue Magic pomade to keep it that way. "It makes you feel a little wet behind the ears," Scott says. "It's not so much the slick back thing, it's kind of a wet thing."

Add that to an almost indecent sensuality that knows no boundaries, as evidenced in songs like "Cash Machine" that will make your own fantasies seem just a little bit square. "The cash machine is this thing that I use all the time and never think about," Scott says, explaining how he came up with lyrics like "come on cash machine/ Invisible hands control everything/ Slinky kinky dream," etc. "And it is this kind of sexy machine. It's keeping track of your money. It serves you at command. It's very submissive."

Mmm-hmm. Whatever you say, darling.