LAWNDALE, DESCENDENTS SHARE BILL AT WHISKY

Surrealism rules, as evidenced by the cluster of hard-core punks slam-dancing their way through a 35-minute set of ad-Ventures-ish surf instrumentals from the South Bay-based quartet Lawndale on Thursday night at the Whisky.

Although rocking a little harder than on its “Beyond Barbecue” LP, Lawndale doesn’t exactly take these jams for a toes-on-the-nose ride around the rings of Saturn. Peppy, poppy, pretty ‘n’ placid are more like it.

More dissonance, more outside material, more use of effects boxes by the front-line troika of guitarists/bassists Steve Housden, Rick Lawndale and Jack Skelly, more everything , dudes.

In all fairness, the crowd was there to see yet another South Bay outfit, the Descendents. Fronted by a vocalist who carries on like a wigged-out teaching assistant on leave from his Computer 101 duties, the three-man backing band drove long and hard, but to no apparent destination. When the most memorable moments come from a hyperkinetic version of the Beach Boys’ “Wendy,” the generic quality of the original material becomes all the more obvious. It’s not 1978, or even 1981, anymore, y’know?