POP MUSIC REVIEW : Road Block Needed for the Speeding, Raucous Georgia Satellites

You’ve probably heard about James Brown’s latest blowup with the Georgia police: the one where the Godfather of Soul led the cops on a car chase clear into South Carolina, driving the last several miles on his wheel rims after his tires had been shot out.

Saturday night at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, the Georgia Satellites played as if trying to recreate that recent episode in their home state’s musical lore.

For almost two hours, the Satellites unleashed a deafening maelstrom whipped up by speeding guitars that went so far beyond the limits of safe driving (and sensible concertizing) that somebody should have set up a road block.

The Satellites’ credo is that extremism in the defense of Chuck Berry licks is no vice. If the Satellites had stopped when their tires blew, the show could have been remembered as a fine, hell-bent sprint. But they kept driving on their rims, bashing on for 23 songs that were pretty much variations on the same Berry/Rolling Stones theme. Consequently, the show seemed at times like an arduous marathon--especially when the band’s invasive decibel output defied its sound engineer’s efforts to shape it into something coherent.

Toward the end, with no piano in sight, it sounded as if some Jerry Lee Lewis-style keyboard banging had been added to the mix. It might have been the result of sound waves boinging out of control, or of eardrums going into fibrillation.

While the Satellites’ sound is based squarely upon the stuttering, greasy piston-pumping guitar bashing of Berry, the Stones and the Faces, the experience of their Coach House show came closer to a concert by AC/DC or the Ramones, where the emphasis is on reaching nirvana through repeated mind-blotting blows with a sonic truncheon. The Satellites seemed to acknowledge as much by kicking off their encore with the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

Still, there was a lot to like about the show. High on the list is the Satellites’ attitude, a completely unpretentious approach founded on the band’s earthy pleasure in rocking out. No rock star self-aggrandizement here: this band’s version of a stage-smoke generator was guitarist Rick Richards taking a drag on his ever-present cigarette and exhaling in front of an electric fan.

The Satellites aren’t using volume to disguise lapses in craftsmanship. The vocals (when audible) were leathery, but on key. On songs like “Nights of Mystery,” Richards and Dan Baird reproduced the lurching guitar-tag that was a trademark of the Faces--an appealingly sloppy sound that actually requires good, responsive musicianship. Sharp, high-voltage renditions of a couple of Beatles tunes, “Don’t Pass Me By” and “Rain” (which featured some deft bass work by Rick Price), were among the many covers the Satellites mixed with liberal samplings from their two albums.

While they are no ground-breakers, the Georgia Satellites certainly are wall-shakers, a quality of a first-rate roadhouse band. But it would be better if they could shake the walls without drowning themselves out.

The Broken Homes, which opened, is no original, either. Vocalist Michael Doman’s singing style and stage moves are unabashedly derived from Mick Jagger. But if you’re going to borrow, the Jagger style and the early-Stones sound is not a bad place to turn. Broken Homes’ new album, “Straight Line Through Time,” suffers from too much production polish, but playing live they broke free with a raw but well-honed show delivered with confidence and passion.