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		Mon. May 24.1999 8:32 PM EDT
		Buckcherry Cop A Big Attitude In Small Club   Band took its collage of hard-rock sound to San Francisco and 'Lit Up' the place.   by Correspondent Jenny Slater
			Buckcherry are touring the U.S. to support their self-titled debut album. (Brian Cross)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Singer Joshua Todd doesn't say much onstage, but then his band, Buckcherry, is not about talk. It's about attitude. Heavily tattooed and sporting low-slung camouflage pants, Todd made immediate contact with Sign up to receive FREE UPDATES for Feedback! E-Mail this story to a friend Add RSS Headlines Add VH1 News to My Yahoo the audience as he greeted a packed crowd at the compact Bottom of the Hill club in San Francisco. As the show went on, he liberally punctuated his lyrics with shouts of "Oh yeah!" and "San Francisco!" and "C'mon, yeah!" The crowd responded in kind. "This sound is the future of rock," Oakland resident Tom Daniels, 25, said. "These guys are going to be huge. They're like Zeke or the Murder City Devils, but not as heavy." The huge, shiny tour bus parked outside the club Friday night gave the first clue that Buckcherry are going somewhere. The Los Angeles, quasi-hard-rock glam band -- think Black Crowes meeting Aerosmith at Jon Bon Jovi's house -- is crossing the States behind the April release of its self-titled debut album. The quintet is gaining popularity faster than you can say "major label push." Buckcherry's reputation as the next big thing precedes them; it's fueled by a loud buzz and what would seem to be some serious promotional dollars. Their album, co-produced by Steve Jones (formerly of the Sex Pistols), is on the nascent "power label," DreamWorks Records. At Bottom of the Hill, after warm-ups by local favorites Hammerlock and Me First, Buckcherry took the stage in front of an amped-up crowd. Following the obligatory "one-two-three" drumstick clicks, the band launched a full-scale aural assault. Dual Les Paul-slinging guitarists Keith Nelson and Yogi, along with bassist Jonathan Brightman and drummer DeVon Glenn, filled the small club with arena-rock noise. The coiffed and glammed Yogi stalked around behind an impressive bank of effects pedals, relying heavily on the wah-wah pedal to distort his brief three-chord riffs. Attempting to resuscitate a sound that melds '70s glitter rock and the self-seriousness of '80s metal, Buckcherry are tapping into a vein of both revisionist nostalgia and mindless rocking fun. Each song sounded as though it could be a cover: Isn't that a Kiss song? Wait, that sounds like Guns n' Roses. Was that a Zeppelin riff? The band has lifted its sound liberally from the work of many who came before, each song sounding as if it had been carefully constructed from bits and pieces just tiny enough to keep them from being sued. Songs such as "Lit Up" (RealAudio excerpt) ("Oh yeah/ You wanna find it/ I'm on a plane with cocaine/ And yes I'm all lit up again") and "Dirty Mind" (RealAudio excerpt) ("I saw your old lady in a porno mag/ In a porno mag/ Yeah") were paeans to the requisite rough and dangerous lifestyle, complete with heavy guitar hooks and pummeling drums. In contrast to these hard-edged screamers were slower, more sensitive ballads, such as "Check Your Head" (RealAudio excerpt), a song about losing friends too young ("I dressed in black today/ It represents this phase I'm in"). Todd worked the stage, sweating and grinding and beating a tambourine now and then. His banter to the crowd was expletive-laden but sounded sincerely happy. All five men seemed to be having the time of their lives, striking poses and making I'm-rocking-out faces without a trace of irony. Many in the crowd sang along through the 50-minute set, pounding their fists in the air, or jumping in place as best they could. Derivative or not, it was clearly a sound these people wanted to hear. "You guys f---kin' rock!" shrieked someone from the back of the room. "No, you guys f---kin' rock," a sweat-drenched Todd responded solemnly. A few naysayers back by the pool tables remained unconvinced. "Who are these people? Is this a joke?" fretted San Francisco resident James Killen, 35, who wore a Zeke T-shirt. "These guys are so L.A. they might as well have Aaron Spelling on that bus with them. This isn't what I was expecting."

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