Bath Tub’s Greatness Spills Over

“Corporate Rock Still Sucks” was a statement the seminal independent record label SST printed on T-shirts and bumper stickers when punkers began entering the mainstream a few years ago.

In most cases it’s true, especially this year. Many of the bands that once lived by those words and pushed rock to the limits are now punching the time clock for giant corporate labels and have resorted to conventional approaches. And the majority of them, today, well. …

Not Steel Pole Bath Tub, which plays Mother’s Pub on Wednesday. Perhaps more than any other band, Steel Pole Bath Tub lands in the mainstream with its enormous creative force still intact. In fact, the only real difference between 1995’s SPBT and last year’s version is that lawyers have dissuaded the band from its loose usage of samples.

SPBT’s fourth album and major label debut “Scars From Falling Down” ranks as one of the year’s best major label releases.

SPBT, whose members include drummer Darren Mor-X, guitarist/vocalist Mike Morasky and bassist/vocalist Dale Flattum, exists in another dimension where cyberspace collides with comic-book-style science fiction.

The San Francisco-via-Seattle-via-Bozeman, Mont., trio has been the pride of the underground since its inception in 1987 because of its ability to take songs, using the barest arrangements, past the boundaries of rock ‘n’ roll.

SPBT thrashes, it forges impenetrable walls of sound and noise, it floods its music with grating dissonance and, at times, it dismembers rock ‘n’ roll into an unrecognizable mess.

But it’s not just bombarding the listener with nightmarish soundtracks that earns this band greatness. Rather, it’s SPBT’s stunning and luring melodies, masterful musicianship and cleverly constructed songs that seize the listener.

Local noise purveyors Fatty Lumpkin plays second. Buddha Leadbelly opens.

Show starts at 9:30 p.m. The cost is $5.