Fight songs New music from the Mutineers and Portland's Jug Band Army BY SAM PFEIFLE
	THE MUTINEERS Releasing Where Mockingbirds Roam | Blue, Portland | Oct 21 | 207.774.4111 THE HALF MOON JUG BAND Releasing Jug Band Army | Acoustic Coffee, Portland | Oct 28 | 207.774.0404

This column has lately been perseverating on the local roots scene, but with quality and quantity forcing the issue, I’m feeling defenseless to resist. This week, fortune shone down upon me and conspired to simultaneously place on my desk new discs by the Mutineers and the Half Moon Jug Band. It’s the perfect license to both group a couple of local bands who play in similar circles and also use the word "juxtaposition" with total legitimacy.

They couldn’t be from more opposite ends of the roots spectrum. The Mutineers are classic and traditional, laid-back and utterly acoustic in their timelessness. The Half Moon Jug Band are progressive and contemporary, frenetic and crazed, with drums and amplification to make a rock band blush. The Mutineers record doesn’t contain a single original, chock-full of traditional numbers; the Jug Band wrote all but two of the 15 tracks that populate Jug Band Army, their second studio effort and third overall, considering their live Christmas album from 2003.

And the Half Mooners come out swinging. "Jug Band Army" is a military anthem, through and through, aggressive and immediately chantable. It breaks down into a parody of "Airborne Ranger" — "jug band’s music’s me and you/ and there ain’t nothin’ we can’t do/ we’re mighty (repeated in lots of silly ways)" — and contains a recitation of Jug Band qualities: "We like mooses and fart jokes and drinking beer/ We’re wicked friggin’ thrilled to be here." Like the best of the songs here, the silliness is infectious and intellectual and the music is heart-pounding. "Let’s Get Naked," "She’s So Good (but in a bad, bad way)," and "Jeezum Crow" are other similar standouts. And "Lovers Often Do" even succeeds as a sweet love song, quite pretty and poppy, actually, featuring a melody led by the tin whistle and lead vocals that are gritty and substantive, not silly at all.

Sometimes their silliness gets the better of them. "Drive Thru" is a recording of the band messing with a Tim Horton’s employee — fine, but don’t put it at track eight. It messes with the flow of the album and makes it hard to play at a party unless you can program this track out or just eliminate it when you upload it to the iPod. And their campy version of "Tombstone Every Mile" made famous by Dick Curless and covered locally by Hollerin’ Man on his 2001 disc falls a bit flat. Instead of lonesome and wistful, they play it Celtic and rocking, like Johnny Cash doing a jig. It might succeed better as a finishing track.

There’s nothing silly about the Mutineers. They declare themselves a pretty serious bunch with the traditional "Motherless Child" (no, not the Depeche Mode tune), which opens their full-length debut, Where Mockingbirds Roam. Covered by everyone from Eric Clapton to the Blind Boys of Alabama, it’s a mournful song that the Mutineers make all the more sober and wistful, full of lilting harmonica a soulful guitar break nicely executed by Richard Hodges.

Singer Stuart MacDonald (who also organized all the arrangements here) has some great flexibility. He can do a high-voiced Neil Young thing, as on "Lakes of Pontchartrain," just as easily as he can do a more low-voiced Richard Thompson on "Lily of the West." The latter tune is probably the coolest one here, helped by Willam Colehower’s drums and cool old-timey lyrics that reference "Shady Grove."

Throughout the disc, the trio make good use of their spare instrumentation, never threatening to overpower a song, and showing good restraint in their pacing. As every musician knows, it’s hard to play slow and sound good than to play fast and hope people don’t notice when you screw up. The Mutineers play slow and sound great.

Particularly, "Across the Blue Mountain" has the possibility to be that song that some poor schmuck listens to about 1000 times, after his girlfriend leaves him for his roommate and tells him she just wants to be friends. Oh yes, it’s some serious cry in your beer music.

There you have it: a fine juxtaposition. You can grab the aggressive punk-roots of the Half Moon Jug Band (holding down a corner near you), or pick up trad roots to woo girls with in the Mutineers. Better yet, do both.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam@phx.com