Factoids

• The Experiments have played with bands such as Quiet Riot, Metal Shop, Atomic Punks, and Moving Pictures.

The group's first full-length album, Who the Hell Are They? (Shaking Porch), continues the grungy rock'n'roll style of its debut EP, 1997's Smacked in the Head. Although the Experiments hardly resemble a pop group in the usual sense, the band's roots in the sound of the early Who and Ramones remain evident. Hell's best tracks, "Detached from Reality" and "It Never Ends," compel you to crank the sucker up to fully appreciate their punky-pop amalgamation of the Romantics, the Damned, Cheap Trick and Soul Asylum. Otherwise, while "Taking My Time" and "Foreign Exchange" are adequate exercises in hard rock, much of the rest moves along too ploddingly for the pop crowd, although it may please the K-Rock portion of the audience.

To the Experiments' credit, the track titled "Animal Instincts" almost sounds like a Dead Boys outtake. Considering that the Dead Boys specifically set out to blend the punk venom of Iggy and the Stooges with the pop artistry of the Raspberries, perhaps that brings the pop-punk influence full circle.

Murphy's Law ruled when The Flashcubes played their 20th anniversary show at Styleen's Rhythm Palace Sept. 19. The power pop four-piece had announced that its long-awaited CD-ROM would be available for sale at the gig, but the disc remained unshipped at the pressing plant. Instead, the Flashcubes sold the disc's colorful jacket (designed by Gretta Gallivan), with the CD manufacturer promising to mail the finished product to each purchaser within a week or so. In the grand punk spirit of "God Save the Queen," the pressing plant claimed production was delayed by a higher priority product: Elton John's Lady Di tribute version of "Candle in the Wind."

The Experiments and the Dead Ducks opened for the Flashcubes that night, and though the Experiments hail from San Diego, Calif., the punk-pop combo includes two faces familiar to local music fans: singer-guitarist Dan Bonn (also of the Dead Ducks) and guitarist Andy Guyette, former six-stringer for the Antics. That short-lived punk group also featured the future Maura Kennedy on bass, back when she was Maura Boudreau, a local teen with three notes and a vision.

The Experiments' debut five-song EP Smacked in the Head draws recognizable inspiration from Bonn and Guyette's alma maters. The disc charges out of the stereo with its amps at 11 and its sense of decorum bludgeoned into submission. With influences audible from the Ramones, Cheap Trick, Generation X and the Who, Smacked in the Head is just what you'd imagine the Dead Ducks would sound like if they'd stayed together after high school.

During the Experiments' two Syracuse appearances (playing with Jersey City's SuperThrive at the The Wolf Inn in addition to the Flashcubes' gig), Bonn recalled the early Ducks' days, when Bobcat Goldthwait was still with the band and they hadn't yet met the Flashcubes: "Bob smashed a tambourine that first time when we played," Bonn recalled with a laugh. "So we hadn't met Gary or anybody yet, but we knew they worked at Gerber Music in Shoppingtown. So me and Bob walk in there with this bag full of the tambourine that he had bought there. And he says to Gary, 'Um, I bought thus tambourine here and it doesn't work anymore.' And Gary's like, 'What's the problem with it?' And Bob turns the bag over and all these little pieces of tambourine fall out. Gary just looks up at us and says, 'You guys are the Dead Ducks, aren't you?'"

The Ducks reunion set brought together drummer Jim Spagnola and bassist Paul Stephenson with Bonn for one more rendition of "Summer in the Suburbs" and "Can I Have My Amp Back Now?," penned for the Ducks by then-Works leader Ed Hamell.

--Carl Cafarelli