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The Weisstronauts
Lounging at the Abbey and Hopping at Toad

Brattleboro, Vt,  June 30  -  "If there's such a thing as a forward-thinking surf band, Boston's The Weisstronauts are it."  This quote from the Nashville Scene's Jack Silverman currently adorns The Weisstronauts home page.  Darien Brahms, a personal favorite rocker out of Portland, Maine, has been known to call her own music "retro-progressive," so maybe there is sense to this "forward-thinking surf" thing.

The Weisstronauts' latest CD, Featuring "Perky", is a real delight, marked by an authentic mid-1960s guitar sound and just enough psychedelia and later grooves to keep listeners on their toes.  Though the band has a kind of instrumental rock-roots style, after repeated listenings to Perky we find ourselves edging away from the word, "surf."  So we asked Pete Weiss about The Weisstronauts' listening and playing backgrounds outside the surf zone.

"We very often get pigeonholed as a 'surf' band," he said.   "I think it's an easy label because we play generally clean, non-dissonent electric guitar melodies and harmonies.  But the 'surf' label is incomplete.   I think it's more accurate to say that we blend genres such as western swing, psychedelic, jazz/lounge, garage rock, punk and even electronica.   A few people have coined it 'spy music,' which I kind of like as a catch-all name."

The Weisstronauts do invest West Coast rock guitar with a pinch of psychedelic garage-punk energy while adding certain modern touches.

The first half-dozen tracks of Perky are a good introduction to the album's variety, featuring, for instance, several 60s psychedelic passages.  "Berlining," the second cut, at one point has a sound like an electronic instrument imitating a slide whistle, while elsewhere the track features one of the disc's noisier, yet more interesting stretches.  "Berlining" is followed by the oddly-named "Creosote," which is instrumental soft-rock at its pastoral best.  Next, "Fibonacci" could be someone's idea of some surf-rock piece off the Hair soundtrack, while "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" sounds most familiar  -  which it ought to do, having been written by one of the biggest-ever rock-era hit-making teams, Burt Bacharach and Hal David.  Ending the opening run of six is the perky, catchy, mainstream rock of the title track.

And there's country grit.  On Perky, the cut, "Odysseus Goes to America," got us imagining The Ventures backing Johnny Cash, while "Uncle Turtle/Johnny Drama" gave us a double shot of rockabilly rhythms.

I published three "Best of 2006" lists at year's end, each aimed at a somewhat different audience, geographically.  Featuring Perky made all three lists.  This is a really fine album (that benefits from cranking the volume).

Weiss seems to like to be part of several acts at once.  When asked why it would not be better to concentrate on just one band, he answered, "Variety is the spice life, right?   I relish the chance to musically collaborate with a variety of different people.   Bouncing a musical idea off of one person can yield completely different results from bouncing it off another."

This Weisstronauts crew now has a slew of new tunes and another CD in the works.  "For the new album, we've reached out a bit further.  There is a dramatic George Hall composition called 'Seven X's' that sounds sort of Eastern European and Javanese at the same time.  Kenny Lafler wrote a lilting bossa nova tune called 'Caixa Dos Moluscos' (which is Portuguese for 'The Clam Box.')  And one of our drummers, Jeff Norcross (also an accomplished guitarist/bassist) wrote an infectious 60s-style party anthem somewhat reminiscent of the old song, 'Cool Jerk.'  I think it qualifies as our first 'party tune.'

"Meanwhile, I wrote a few new songs, one of which is kind of a blues filtered through a truckin' piano beat; hard to describe, but my point is that none of these new songs I've just mentioned would be confused with what is traditionally called 'surf music.'

"That said, there are at least two new songs that are pure surf; they're sort of companion pieces called 'Sir Fee' and 'Sir Wacky.'

"We would love to get this new album done and released by this fall, which would be about two years after Perky was completed and pressed," he said, adding that the record is "tentatively called Weisstronauts IV (as in the number 4)."

We wondered whether work on the new disc may represent a quickening pace of writing and recording activity among the Weisstronauts.

"[T]he pace of writing and recording this new album has been furious," said Weiss.  "The band concentrated on playing live in 2005-06 and we really only got down to the task of writing new material this past winter.  I think we kind of panicked, in a way . . . realizing we had gone about 18 months without writing a single new song!

"Suddenly every member of the Weisstronauts started writing songs independently and presenting demos to the other members.  Also, some songs were written collaboratively by the whole band.  After just a few weeks of this mad productivity, we had assembled a group of nearly twenty songs to work with."

In a recent interview, David Minehan said he thought his band, The Neighborhoods, could manage to fill engagements anywhere on the East Coast reasonably easily.

"That's cool and not surprising," said Weiss.  "The Neighborhoods have a bit more history and drawing power than the 'Nauts, so I'm sure they could easily make the numbers work."

Asked what The Weisstronauts might be able to do, touring-wise, he explained, "I'm not sure we are in a spot right now where we could pull off, say, a two-month tour.  Everyone in the band has a day job and most of the members have kids.  So, while it would be awesome and great fun to be able to do that, I think for the time being we'll concentrate on 10-day tours at the longest.

"Of course, money talks.  If anyone offered the kind of funding that would allow it to happen, anything's possible!"

Do we have any tour promoters out there?

As for day jobs, when he isn't rocking out at clubs, Weiss is kept quite busy at his southern Vermont recording facility, Verdant Studio.

While home recording has grown cheaper and easier, we notice that smaller-size professional studios, often situated out from cities beyond the suburbs, these days are typically really busy.  What do they offer that an artist cannot get just as well at home?

"The main thing is an experienced pro engineer and/or producer.  As inexpensive as it can be to record at home, there has never been a substitute for having a qualified person taking care of the technical end of things.  To try to be a musician and technician simultaneously is usually an exercise in driving oneself crazy.  It's two different sides of the brain.

"Studios also, of course, offer amenities that not everyone has in their home, such as acoustically designed rooms, a comprehensive microphone collection, higher-end gear and instruments in general.  These things add up to making it easier for the artist to, for example, get drum sounds that don't sound like they were recorded in someone's boxy spare bedroom."

Vermont's many coffeehouses and small-ish listening rooms are fertile ground for folk bookings but are not necessarily equally attractive to everyone else.  Many artists and bands are routed around the state instead of through it, maybe zipping into Burlington  -  Vermont's principal city  -  for an isolated show.  We were curious as to whether any similar dynamic is at play with respect to recording studios.  Weiss said he has noticed this in regards to concert bookings.  As for the recording end of the business, "[B]ecause Verdant Studio is so close to Boston, Northampton, and even New York City, I haven't seen it so much with artists from these areas wanting to come up to work on music.  [On the contrary,] because we have overnight lodging, artists/bands have been overwhelmingly eager to get out of the city into a more rural, less distracting work environment for several days at a time."

Asked for an anecdote about one of those strange occurrences that come up, sooner or later, in a career, Weiss recalled, "In Norfolk, Virginia  -  I believe during our 2003 tour  -  we were playing a song which normally features 'round-robin' guitar solos.  We were a bit road-punchy and thought it would be hilarious to pass around a whoopie cushion, so that each of us could 'solo' with that instead of on guitar.  Why we had a whoopie cushion with us still remains a mystery.  But, it was one of those mega-silly moments that was almost unbearably funny to us  -  on stage, doubled over with laughter.  And guess what?   Through tear-blurred eyes, I looked out to the audience (it was a pretty decent crowd at this place called Cora's . . . ) and absolutely no one in the crowd thought it was funny.  Crossed arms, no smiles.   I mean . . . come on folks!   Lighten up!   How many times do you get to see a band trade off whoopie cushion solos?"

At their next shows, The Weisstronauts will be playing for a Boston-area home audience, including an appearance at Toad and a residency at the Abbey Lounge through July.

Speaking of Toad, Weiss said, "We love playing there.  There's something kind of perfect about Toad's size and layout.  The stage is tiny, especially for us being a five-piece and using a lot of floor pedals, so that's a challenge, but the vibe is so friendly and supportive there that the challenge is a happy one.  And the sound is usually great.  Plus, I've never met a bartender there that I didn't like."

Do these Weisstronauts have anything out of the ordinary planned for the Toad audience?   "[L]ive, over the past two years, we've basically played songs from a pool of about 40 or 50, which allows for a decent amount of variety.  But this Toad show will be one of the first in which we debut a good amount of new material  -  songs from the upcoming album  -  in a live setting.  So that's pretty exciting for us and hopefully for our fans who have been itching to hear some new stuff!"

Everybody knows that we are going to wind up this article by repeating that The Weisstronauts have a new album in the "Pipeline."  Having gotten it out of our system, we will just add that . . .

For the latest tunes by these trad-rock innovators, those in the know will leap-frog over to Toad.

• Who:   The Weisstronauts
• Where:   Toad, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• When:   Saturday, July 7
• For more information:   www.toadcambridge.com, www.weisstronauts.com

The Weisstronauts  also have a Boston-area July residency at the Abbey Lounge every Thursday.