Mere Imitation of the Stars

Presumably for self-aggrandizement's sake, Gutterboy describes itself as: Active, tough, indifferent, [and] sexy" on the cover of its second album, St. Stanislaus of East 7th. Alongside this character analysis is a photograph of the five musicians standing on a city street, all cloaked in Black army boots and urban-punk regalia.

Yet, this self-styled "Underground" group from New York city--beyond its unlikely combination of skinhead veneer and pedestrian "pop" music--fails to offer the chic innovation its style implies.

Gutterboy seems to be trying a bit too hard to seem hip, when it could have used that time to improve the lyrics. Indeed, although MTV assures us that visual images is everything these days, someone should have informed Gutterboy that quality music still counts for something. There music is flawed because it lyrics are meaningless--even though they perform behind a facade of meaningful rebellion.

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then U2, Sting and Blues Traveler should feel gleeful upon hearing "St. Stanislaus of East 7th." Gutterboy seeks to combine the masterful musicianship of all three, but in an amazing musical feat somehow manages to dilute their power instead of combining the enormous talent.

In fact, this selective borrowing produces songs--like the first on the album, "She Gone"--that have about one-eighth the energy of U2's, seem like Sting's, and allude to Blues Traveler's.

The lead singer, Dito, does sound like Bono--but sans the passion. His voice is even scratchy enough at times to mimic Bryan Adams', but, again, with a fraction of the fervor.

Dito's singing style is clear and easily understood. Gutterboy seemingly invites the listener to sing along, for she will have no trouble discerning Dito's lyrics (although she may be annoyed by the too frequent appearance of words like "wanna," "gotta" and "ain't").

The drummer, Johnny Koncz, must either be untalented, restrained or woefully bored. His beat varies little both within and between songs. The guitarist, Danny Hulsizer, however, is kept superbusy making noise. Sure, his strumming sounds fine in isolated spurts, but its constancy tends to overload the listener. This lack of gaps plagues many songs; empty spaces of silence often are as valuable as the music itself.

Sometimes the band offers the listener some Spanish lyric and then translates them into easy-to-grasp English. In "She Gone" is the line: "On the sunny side of the street/en el lado soladio de tu calle." I am not sure of the intent here; maybe this is an allusion to U2's recent bilingual title: "Achtung Baby?"

In "It Is True," the female vocalist, Barb Morrison, joins Dito. Instead of constant noise, more ethereal moments alternate with heaviness--offering the listener a much needed respite. One wonders, however, whether the band repeats the line "Is it something that I can change" 10 or so times at the song's end because 1) it says so much about existential angst that it merits repetition of 2) because they sought to fill time. (I chose #2.)

"Close By" offers less noise but replaces it with bothersome rhyming--ostensibly only for rhyming's sake. One quite comical stanza of poetic silliness is: "Ya see I've been clickin these heels to gether/hoping for a change in the weather/puttin on a hat with a yellow feather/ya see I wanna make it all better. "I wonder, is the phrase "yellow feather" a reference to some little-know Shakespearian drama, or is it just the first phrase that Gutterboy found to fit the "-ether" rhyme scheme? Hmmm?

Similarly, "Every Other Night" begins with: "There was a certain sadness about her/that I noticed each night/it was alright/it was summertime." With these lines Gutterboy succeeds in bringing sappiness and triteness to new heights.