Darkness at the edge of town

If you believe ? and the Mysterians represent the zenith of Western music — I’m not arguing with you — if you swoon at the “I got your cheesy right here” sound of the Farfisa organ — then the unholy white boy alliance of Eric Burden and King Curtis that was Dark Side is for you.

An anthology released a couple of years ago by a Baltimore band, “Dark Side Anthology 1977-1995,” has that ferociously thin, low-fi, “hey, I just learned a new chord” 60s sound down, from the honking sax and Farfisa bleats to the psychedelic garage sound that launched a thousand Nuggets collections. Somewhere, dozens of accountants, factory foremen and 7-11 owners are pondering why their one-hit wonder bands from 40 years ago couldn’t have purloined one of these songs and kept the Saturday night dream alive for at least another few months. Teenage angst, I suppose, can only be sustained so long, poseurs like Billy Idol notwithstanding. It is, as the great sage Neil Young once observed, better to burn out than fade away. Unless one wants to become a staple of weddings and bar mitzvahs everywhere, with an audience participation novelty such as “YMCA” or the “Chicken Dance.” (as an aside, some people shouldn’t wear Speedos and some shouldn’t do the Chicken Dance in public. You know who you are.)

Such is the rock ‘n roll life. Back in the pre-digital days — you know ,when musicians had to play real instruments in real time — ownership of a Vox amp with two twelves and the right haircut could virtually guarantee entree into an assemblage of like-minded striving to be wasted youths, writing songs about girls they’d never have and riches they’d never enjoy. Oh, and how rotten their parents were for insisting on regular school attendance, completed homework and occasional bed making.

Every song may not be a gem — even the Beatles had a few duff tracks (“Why don’t we do it in the road,” anyone?) — but you can’t fault the band’s commitment to its art, if art is the right word. These men that would be boys pound away like there’s no tomorrow, leaving subtlety in a smoking wreck by the side of the road. No slaves to the 60s sound, Dark Side’s touchstones include the Bonzo Dog Band (no surprise, since several band members were also part of the sometimes psychedelic, sometimes progressive, sometimes just plain weird OHO), the bubblegum that mutated into power pop, the post-Elvis sneer, the Plimsouls, the Clash, the criminally underappreciated dB’s and the charming notion that rock ‘n roll can save the world.

Maybe it can.