BUDDERBALL is an eclectic power trio from San Francisco that threatens to make a niche for itself by destroying a few conventions that make modern rock music typical, bland, pale, and unforgivingly vanilla. In a slightly more perfect musical world, BUDDERBALL -- with their witty and subtly sinister songs about nothing in particular -- would be given a fair chance to stand up against their more popular contemporaries. Hype? Sure. But they have a sound down. A new sound.

Some of these guys -- specifically David Newman and bassist Frank Wilson -- had another band once in Providence, RI, right before grunge. It was a sort of confused and convoluted time for music: post-hardcore, post art-core, but ripe times for heady experimentation. A mythical, self-reflective time for the under-pop world, where four-track experiments reigned as the supreme expression of the aesthetic. In Providence, so did playing at art openings and pizza parlors. Which these guys did. A lot. They played some other places, too. Local clubs, where they had a small following. But then grunge broke. While the other kids headed to Seattle, they moved to San Francisco.

Hard work, up times, down times, and a thousand drummers. . .through playing tons of Bay Area shows while swapping styles like so many fancy hats, they'd found a new maturity, vision, and a batch of pretty great songs. Then, almost as if making an actual commitment, they decided to make one of those real recordings. Not one of those four-track things of which they had plenty, but the real thing. You know. . . something that could be pressed to a CD, but had the four-track aesthetic.

The Great Pepper Shaker in the Sky is the fruit of those efforts, a showcase of what a little genre-blending can do. Webmistress Cary says, "They have some funky grooves, their sound can be postmodern surf and can sometimes get pretty loud, but they also have a real Bay Area sound. There's more than a hint of Jefferson Airplane when Kyra does backup vocals over those eclectic chords. Very cool." 4:20 Records VP Chris Stimson thinks they might be channeling Frank Zappa. You'll just have to decide for yourselves.

"The Great Pepper Shaker in the Sky"

You can hear a sample of Budderball's "Livin' in the city."