Ian Moore Strives for Broader Image

For a young musician, the task of finding one’s own identity is tough enough. For Texas-bred guitarist, singer and songwriter Ian Moore, that job is made more difficult by those who have labeled him “the next Stevie Ray Vaughan.”

Though well-meaning and basically complimentary, comparisons to the late Texas blues guitarist distort, if not ignore, the expanding musical terrain that Moore has explored over the course of two studio albums and a live EP.

“The Stevie Ray thing is like an albatross, particularly if you’re a young blues guitarist out of Texas,” Moore, 27, said recently via cellular phone from the Feather River outside of Chico, where he and his brother were fly-fishing.

“I’ve gone out of my way to avoid the comparisons--first, out of respect and secondly, I don’t feel like it would do me any favors in terms of what I’m trying to accomplish musically.”

Moore honed his skills working in country-rocker Joe Ely’s band several years ago. He also had high-profile opening slots during the 1993-94 Bob Dylan and Rolling Stones tours. Even rapper Ice Cube joined the action, directing the 1994 video of Moore’s “Harlem.”

It’s his latest release, though, that captures an emerging talent starting to hit his stride. Throughout the album, “Modern Folklore,” the Berkeley native does indeed strut his guitar chops, particularly in his dazzling solo electric turn during the George Harrison-inspired “Dandelion,” the slide-guitar flavoring in the plaintive song “Today” and the wah-wah bends that drive the hard-chugging “Train Tracks.”

At the same time, themes of personal struggle and redemption continually lock horns with social injustice and false messiahs in his songs. He cites the likes of Dylan, Leonard Cohen and John Lennon as influences on his songwriting, and he puts his spin on the Almighty in “Muddy Jesus,” in which God is personified as a cholo from Mexico who gets blown away in a border scuffle.

“I’ve looked to a lot of things, but I just don’t find spiritual fulfillment anywhere,” said Moore, who performs tonight at the Coach House with his band, featuring keyboardist Bukka Allen, drummer Michael Villegas and bassist Chris White. “But I believe it’s an individual thing, and I have to find my light . . . or my way . . . on my own terms.”

In a number of his other songs, Moore takes issue with a society he sees as manipulative and increasingly more exclusive.

“American culture is so puritanical,” he said. “It’s this kind of mentality, like hide our eyes and don’t look at the reality. Our country is basically a small group of people who are running everything, and if you don’t go along with the status quo, then you’re an outcast. In ‘Society,’ ‘Stain’ and ‘Bar Line 99,’ my attitude is ‘accept me--accept everyone--on our own terms and keep us from becoming clones.’ ”

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His rage against homogeneity extends to the music industry.

“At the big record labels, everyone is scared of not having a hit because there’s so much money involved. I understand the reality of it, but it’s a terrible system because they do as much as they can to strip your identity. They don’t have their ear to the ground.”

Consequently, he said, “kids are growing up knowing nothing about music today. Their musical palette is all Green Day and Alice in Chains. Not to put those bands down, but there are great hip-hop, soul and rootsy bands [out there], but these kids aren’t going to get exposed to the real cool stuff because it doesn’t fit into radio or MTV’s little format.”

Having signed to the Nashville-based Capricorn Records, Moore insists he can carve out his creative niche without too much resistance.

“They let me do what I want for the most part, although they’re a little more conservative than I’d like,” he said. “They seem to understand where I’m coming from. It’s like that time when you’re about 8 years old and people have been calling you weird, and all of a sudden you go, ‘Yeah, I am. That’s cool. I like that.’

“That’s what I’ve started to enjoy about my music--the idiosyncrasies, the experimenting . . . doing my own thing. I’m convinced that the better I can do my own trip, eventually it will work out because the best way to sell myself is to be myself.”

* The Ian Moore Band, Free Wheelers and Radio Storm play tonight at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $10. (714) 496-8930.