Sound Check — Geoff Carter: Setzer’s ‘Vavoom’ lacks verve

Friday, July 28, 2000 | 8:47 a.m.

Geoff Carter's music column appears Fridays. Reach him at carter@vegas.com

"You'll dance to anything," snarls the Dead Milkmen's tongue-in-cheek "Instant Club Hit."

When the band recorded it in 1987 they had much to rail against: Eurodisco bands by the dozen, including but not limited to the Communards, Book of Love and "Depeche Commode" were all over college radio, which left the Milkmen -- the brave and morally unassailable anti-Communards -- off the air and virtually out of mind.

Maybe the song was meant as a joke, you say? Tell that to "Instant Club Hit's" last, indignant gasp: "You'll dance to anything by any bunch of stupid Europeans who come over here with their big hairdos intent on taking our money instead of giving your cash where it belongs -- to a decent American artist like myself!"

Fast-forward back to 2000. One such "decent American artist," Long Island-bred hepcat and former Stray Cat Brian Setzer, releases his fourth album with his orchestra -- a real, honest-to-Basie big band. The Brian Setzer Orchestra's previous three records were critically acclaimed affairs that increased Setzer's solo audience to Stray Cats-sized levels; the last record, "The Dirty Boogie," won a Grammy.

So I drop "Vavoom," the latest from the Brian Setzer Orchestra, into the CD player, fully expecting a big, bad rockabilly reading of "Pennsylvania 6-5000." And what's the first thing that hits my primed ears?

A drum machine. Oh, no.

It's still the Setzer you know -- scratchy vocals, whiz-bang guitars -- but his close encounter with a Grammy has obviously rattled him. One only need listen to the orchestra's best disc, "Guitar Slinger" (1996), to hear the difference clearly -- it's like visiting New Orleans, then Disneyland's version of the same.

All the corners have been sanded off. Where mud stuck to "Guitar Slinger's" tracks, those on "Vavoom" have been buffed to a shine. On "Guitar Slinger," Setzer collaborated with the Clash's Joe Strummer; on "Vavoom," he draws aid from "You Oughta Know" writer Glen Ballard.

I still can't bring myself to say a bad word against Setzer. He's not greedy; he's just ... confused. In the studio, the programmed bop of "Gettin' In The Mood" probably sounded like an intuitive leap, but on the disc it's a commercial -- the "Hooked on Swing" revival that no one was waiting for.

Only a faithful reading of "Caravan" really survives Peter Collins' production sheen. It's driven purely by Setzer's savage guitar; the sterile drums and cartoonish horn charts are lost in favor of real sticks, real brass. "Caravan" hints at the sound of the live orchestra in high gear, a sound that Collins did his best to stymie.

It's all right. I know Brian's doing his best. But if he expects me to dance to this stuff, he'd be wise to delve back into the gritty Texas Swing that encouraged him to put together a swing orchestra in the first place -- that old dirty boogie, come to save us all from a flood of Europop.