They’re ready and set, but OK Go still need some lessons

Rock n’ roll never forgets, and never has its memory been sharper than in the past few years. Just as mainstream music began to drown in the deluge of its own watered-down creations, label execs realized if they were ever going to trick people into buying records again, they’d need to recycle some of the sounds and images that were exciting in the past. Consequently, 60s-style punk bands like the White Stripes were hoisted up the flagpole, and we all saluted.

Now, in the midst of a swarm of garage sound-alikes, a new trend is developing-recalling with fondness the power pop and new wave of the late 70s and early 80s. It’s from this latest strain of bands that we get OK Go.

The Chicago quartet has enjoyed substantial coverage and radio airplay since the release of their self-titled album last fall, and, in addition, has landed a supporting slot on the latest Donnas tour, which stopped in Boston for a sold out engagement at the Paradise.

Although the pairing of these bands seems peculiar, bassist Tim Nordwind was quick to point out in a pre-show interview that a common thread runs through the tour.

‘The music is different enough that you’re not seeing the same thing twice in the same night, but the spirit of both bands is positive and fun,’ he said.

While there exists a similar spirit, there’s nevertheless something very different about how these bands carry themselves. The Donnas are most certainly aware of their campy female-Ramones act, but they’re not afraid to play it up with Scorpions T-shirts and a barrage of riff heavy anthems about growing up and acting out. Fun and sex aren’t anything to be ashamed of, and nobody knows this better than the Donnas.

OK Go write incredibly catchy songs as well, but they don’t seem quite as comfortable in their own skin. Their album is solid, and the songs will stick in your head longer than you might be prepared to deal with, but at times the whole package reeks of formula. It’s great to be influenced by the Pixies and The Cars, but ultimately the goal of any band should be to find its own identity.

Nordwind insists that OK Go prides itself on a focused message. ‘What we do when we write a song is try to get at people’s base emotions,’ he said. ‘Whatever we do, I hope it’s clear and that we don’t confuse people.’

This is where OK Go runs into trouble. Their lyrics, written mostly by Brown graduate and prototypical shaggy-haired singer Damian Kulash, don’t always come across as succinctly as Nordwind would like to thinkwhich is fine. Not everything can be ‘Love Me Do,’ but their forays into wordiness and abstraction are often vague. The song like ‘Hello My Treacherous Friends’ has a beautiful melody, but it might just be gibberish. At least when the Pixies baffled us with ‘Debaser’ and ‘Wave of Mutilation,’ we knew it was our own ignorance to the inner workings of Francis Black and his surreal catalog of lyrics that kept us from true understanding. On their more direct songs like ‘What To Do,’ the lyrics are simply too standard to warrant labels like ‘smart pop’ that have been thrust on the band.

Saturday night, OK Go struggled to play the songs with the same force as on the record. Possibly due to Kulash’s illness, or maybe just an off night, the songs failed to resonate. There was some jumping and posing, but any momentum they attempted to build was stifled as soon as it started. The addition of a fifth member served no purpose other than to interject obtrusive percussion breaks and extraneous tambourine dancing. Even the single ‘Get Over It,’ as good a pop song as any written in the last couple years, failed to come across with the beer commercial bombast it’s capable of.

OK Go have yet to establish their own voice in the way other pop revivalists like Phantom Planet or Hot Hot Heat have, but they also make no claims of being rock saviors. The overriding picture is of a band excited to be in the whirlwind of stardom.

‘If you think of rock ‘n’ roll as a kangaroo,’ Nordwind suggested after consulting his spiritual guru Jorge (whom he demanded accompany him), ‘any band would be stupid to not get inside the pouch and go along for the ride.’

This is true, but while rock ‘n’ roll never forgets, the public does, and if the band doesn’t set itself apart soon there’s no telling how many miles this kangaroo’s got left.