Being the Brood

As hopelessly obscure as ever, Portland's greatest punk band release their fourth collection of raunchy garage rock

By John O'Neill

BROODING: Chris Horne, Crystal Light, Betsy Mitchell, and Asch Gregory.

Once, a long time ago, before MTV and David Geffen ruled the world, there was a brief and fertile point where music -- decent, unpretentious, and mostly enjoyable music -- was bubbling up from the underground at a feverish pace. This was some 20 years ago during the thaw of the '70s, when the few highlights of that otherwise nefarious decade -- power-pop and punk rock -- had melted together with new-wave to create a vibrant brand of music. Music from Nick Lowe, the Pretenders, and Jim Carroll was not only vital, but was getting airtime. Sure, some rough edges had been rounded down for easier consumption, but looking back, there was a lot more variety to be found. Pointedly smart music got played. Deliciously dumb music got played. Heavy metal still got played, too, only now instead of singing about trolls and gnomes, everyone was wearing lipstick and pantyhose, and singing about getting laid. It was all beautiful.

And just when things seemed, if not perfect, then at least a whole lot better than sipping Chianti, smoking weed, and mellowing out to Hotel California, along came the Great Garage Explosion, and things got even better. And from this epic era of creativity came Portland's all-time greatest punk act, the Brood.

The birth of garage rock and the Brood was a natural. There were folks bored by the fashion statement that had become punk, and they started delving back into record compilations like Nuggets and Pebbles to flip their wigs on punk's first true incarnation -- suburban, mid-'60s teenagers with a boatload of attitude and a modicum of talent. There are those who will site a litany of hardcore bands as the keepers of the punk flame through the early '80s, but the real underground was populated by acts with names like the Lyres, Chesterfield Kings, and Fleshtones -- bands who were intent on bringing music back to a time when boys were boys, girls were choice, and three chords was probably one more than you really had to have.

The first few days in Garageland were promising. The Lyres got what little critical respect existed, the Fleshtones were the party guys that were gonna break big, the Cynics were the rawest, the Fuzztones the ugliest, and the Chesterfield Kings were undisputed as the best dressed. But, out of all the initial squadron that were bit by the revivalist bug, it was Portland's own Brood who were the truest to the genre's intent when they made the scene in '83.

First off, they were four young chicks playing a style of music that was distinctly built by and for alienated boys. What could be more alienating then trying to steal the boy's ball? It gave them automatic outsider status. Armed with little more than the stupid passion for a previously obscure art form, and a no-frills delivery that smelled conspicuously of raw amateurism, the Brood actually sounded like a garage band was suppose to sound. After all, this was their first stab at being a band. Nobody had the luxury of playing the jaded ringer from some previous big deal outfit, and none of them had been around the block enough to work on their chops.

They even formed the way a garage band is suppose to form. As Brood guitarist/frontal lobe Chris Horne remembers, "I collected records and [Brood manager and producer] Richard Julio owned a shop called Wax Museum on the Portland waterfront. That's where I met Richard. It was '78. I was diggin' the '60s punk sound. At the time I was learning to play guitar and was like, `Wow, I can do this,' and I bought a Baldwin guitar in Lewiston."

Meanwhile, Horne's pal and Brood bassist Betsy Mitchell was taking lessons from her then boyfriend. Mitchell purchased a matching Baldwin bass to compliment Horne's guitar, and the gals were on their way to basement rehearsals with drummer Crystal Light and organist Asch Gregory completing the line up. ("When we were all, like, 10," quips Horne.) From there the Brood made their way around the New England garage circuit and landed their first full-length slab of vinyl on the well-respected (and Cynics-owned) Get Hip! Records in 1987. By this time, that brief moment when almost anything could happen had already evaporated. All the signs were pointing that way for awhile, but Bobby Brown's ascension up the chart and Guns and Roses being hailed as new geniuses sealed the deal. Even the garage scene that held so much promise had become overrun with impostors and half-assed jangle bands. The Long Riders had gone roots-rock and done a Miller commercial, the Fleshtones adopted and let a band called R.E.M. tour with them in Europe, and the Bangles (once Mersey-rockers the Bangs) became cute, and started hanging out with Prince.

The Brood's debut, In Spite of It All, is probably most important for setting the tone of all subsequent Brood albums -- 1990's Vendetta, 1993's Hitsville, and this year's Beyond the Valley of the Brood -- and can be remembered as one of the era's better documents. Layered under fuzz-drenched guitar riffs and cryptic farfisa organ, the band nailed a distinct slice of musical turf better than anyone the record labels were paying attention to. And Chris Horne was able to write been-done-wrong material better than most of her contemporaries. Sounding like Suzi Quatro in her Pleasure Seeker days, Horne's vocal delivery was a cool detachment. She sang about being left alone, guys who tell lies, hearts turned to stone, and pulled off the whole you-won't-catch-me-crying manifesto in under three minutes a pop. The Brood also remained unmistakably New England in their sound whether through a 1-3 tambourine beat (an indigenous little maneuver, while the rest of the world leaned on the traditional 2-4), or covering tunes by such long-lost (and barely known at the time) New England artists as the Mauve, Young Alley Cats, and the Legends. And, unlike the majority of the class of '83, they never went away. Just when you thought they'd probably cashed in (chiefly due to the time elapsed between albums), they'd show up for beers at the Bugs reunion in Boston, or turn up in Spain for a week's worth of gigs, or wind up opening for "?" and the Mysterians in Manhattan. You could never count the Brood out.

Cut to just last week, and the Brood, still in tact and still hopelessly obscure, are celebrating their fourth long-player, Beyond the Valley of the Brood (Dionysus). A send-up of Russ Meyer's famous girls/drugs/sex flick, Horne and company pose as the band behind the fictitious Swizzle Chicks, four naive babes who also happen to get lost in LA's pill and booze parties. While the concept is tongue-in-cheek homage, the music is all killer, locked-in on fuzz-stomp raunch and eight-bar guitar solos. Horne still hits between the eyes with numbers like "Come On, Come on" and "Don't You Stand In My Way," and the group pays tribute this round out to Dorothy Berry and the Chocolate Watch Band, who's Dave Aguilar was so impressed with their version of "Don't Need Your Lovin'" that he rang Horne up at home.

"It was totally mental," says Horne of the band's finest hour. (For those not in the know, the Watch Band are third only to the Stones and Kinks as garage staples). "I was like, `Oh shit! Either he wants money or it's cease and desist.' But he loved it! He told us he wrote the words in the elevator, and then he traded us one of his albums for ours."

And, with commercial music in a continued downward spiral, the timing is perfect for Portland's greatest and truest punk band to once again try to save us from ourselves. No matter which way the winds of music blow, the Brood's formula and the attitude are still the same: give the people 100 percent Rock Action for an hour, and hop back in the van for the long ride home. Everything else is either out of their hands or business. And the Brood can't be bothered as long as someone is willing to put out the next album and there's a venue that's willing to have them, even if most of the world still doesn't know who they are.

"I'm not bitter about how things work out because it all comes down to it's [still] fun to play in the basement. The audience changes over the years, but there's still a core who seem to appreciate the honesty," says Horne. "When it's not for money it's still all right, because you don't have this `we aren't getting this, or we aren't getting that' type of attitude. In the end, you're still a band . . . you just can't expect a drummer to lug all of their stuff for pocket change. You know how drummers are."

John O'Neill can be reached at johndelrey@yahoo.com.