E-Mail This Article to a Friend Buffalo Bill’s new ride Buffalo Tom’s Bill Janovitz takes a cruise with Crown Victoria; plus Henry go Underground BY TED DROZDOWSKI

When Bill Janovitz hits a chord and steps to the microphone, all of his signatures come booming through. Often literally. Although a few Saturdays ago at the Paradise Lounge he’d left his big Marshall and Fender amps at home for what looked like a pair of their offspring, his guitar was teeth-rattling loud, creating a spray of distorted tones that flitted like tiny hornets around his chords and even the notes in the spare melody lines of his solos. His sound is big and uplifting enough to blow Marilyn Monroe’s skirt higher than that subway grate did.

Then there’s his stance. Eyes narrowed, Janovitz bends at the knees and approaches the microphone from its bottom, singing up from beneath. "That’s a punk-rock thing," he says, laughing. "You wear your guitar low and sing aiming high."

Also, there are Janovitz’s lyrics. No matter how streaked with cynicism or futility they may be — after all, he is the author of the gem "Taillights Fade," a radio hit for his main band, Buffalo Tom —there’s always a silver lining or at least an escape clause for the people who dwell in them. Even for the boy seduced by teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, the subject of the song "Mary Kay" on the new album by Janovitz’s other group, Bill Janovitz and Crown Victoria.

That disc, Fireworks on TV (Q Division), is essentially Janovitz’s third solo release, following 2001’s acoustic-guitar-based Bill Janovitz (SpinArt) and 1997’s Lonesome Billy (Beggars Banquet). But Janovitz has been working enough with drummer Tom Polce and keyboardist Phil Aiken, who also has played with Buffalo Tom, that they’ve jelled into something more than boss-plus-sidemen.

That was obvious at their Paradise set in advance of Fireworks on TV’s September 7 street date. Although the CD’s bassist, Josh Lattenz, was replaced on stage by Matt Taheney, there was a discernable give-and-take in their performance, especially when Polce pumped up the dynamics to underscore the drama of Janovitz’s mercurial howl, or when everybody pulled back to let Akin emphasize a sensitive passage with some atmospheric tones or to allow the high capo’ed chords of Janovitz’s Telecaster to gently ring out through the ballads.

"I wrote the songs and the guys play them, but everybody contributes so much to the arrangements as we work them out in rehearsal that it’s really a group effort," Janovitz explains a few days after the show when we meet, like the clean-livin’ guys we are, over salads and soft drinks at Joshua Tree in Somerville’s Davis Square.

Janovitz is taking some time from his third endeavor, selling real estate — a job that provides the flexible schedule he needs to both rock and earn a living for his family — to talk about his latest album and band, and about Buffalo Tom, who fans will be happy to learn are still alive and well, albeit on their own terms. He’s also writing a book in his spare time, on the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street, for the classic-rock-obsessed "33 1/3" book series.

"I don’t know if or when Buffalo Tom will make another album, but we might, and meanwhile playing shows seems to be enough for us," Janovitz says.

"When we come together as Buffalo Tom, as much as we like to think we can break our old habits, the music falls into certain patterns. It’s unavoidable. We’ve spent so much time together we’re like brothers. But playing with Crown Victoria, I get a chance to play differently. I can explore the soul music I love with call-and-response vocals. I can really sink my teeth into something closer to classic rock or to country at times, instead of that big alternative-rock sound that’s associated with Buffalo Tom. Playing with different people lets me bring those things out easier."

Indeed, there’s even more of that lingering, dirty, Neil Young–like intensity in some of Janovitz’s solos with Crown Victoria and in the way he’ll slide between brief melodic fills and fat, buzzing chords. Of course, it’s not like he’s ever hidden the Young, Townshend, Richards, or even Mascis in his playing. After all, Buffalo Tom and J. Mascis’s Dinosaur Jr. came out of the same Western Massachusetts scene in the late 1980s. And when it comes to establishing a big guitar sound, there are few models better than Janovitz’s influences.

"When Buffalo Tom began, we all needed to fill more space so we slid into the classic power-trio dynamic, where we all turned up to cover for each other and fill up the bottom of the music," he explains. "Crown Victoria came about because I wasn’t sure if Buffalo Tom was going to continue. We were sick of the touring grind and couldn’t do it anymore, since we had kids and all. We had just signed with Polydor and then got dropped by them, in 1999. They paid us for some options so we thought it would be a good time to take a break. But all the while, until we started playing live again, I didn’t know if we’d get back together. But even if we had stopped I think we’ve left a lot behind that we can be proud of and that will carry on."

Although Janovitz would like to keep Crown Victoria on the road, chances are they’ll only be making spins through the region and maybe to New York in the near future. The Janovitzes are expecting another baby. Nonetheless, after more than 15 years in the rock-and-roll trenches, he still gets off on playing live. "It’s like being an athlete, a Zen thing. I never feel as comfortable in my own skin as I am on stage. But that said, if I had to give up one aspect of making music, it would be performing live. I can’t imagine ever not writing and recording songs."

Janovitz’s fans can’t imagine it either. There’s something about the earnest tone of his voice, the pleas that creep into his most poignant singing, that ring dead-on true for the hard-core listeners who came to hear him play his new numbers with Crown Victoria or to catch one of Buffalo Tom’s rare performances. Buffalo Tom recently played the Beachcomber in Wellfleet, on Cape Cod, and Janovitz says he met fans from Chicago and one Buffalo Tom buff who’d made the trip from Italy.

"Maybe it’s because they think we’re going to break up and they’ll never get to see us again, or maybe it’s the ‘Jerry Garcia Watch,’ " Janovitz jokes, "but knowing that people came that far to hear us inspires me."

EVERY POP TRIO adopts a distinctive sonic strategy. Buffalo Tom went for big, sprawling tones. The comparatively new local outfit Henry have kept things more neat and tidy — at least in their recorded arrangements. They ricochet between the churn and angst of the Velvet Underground and the trim guitarisms of Television, especially in the push-and-pull "Fever Stay Low Fever Stay Late," which tells the story of songwriter Don Gould’s breakdown and how his sisters swept him off to the hospital in "a little Fiat."

That song is from a new album called A Little Fiat, which follows 2002’s Cyanide (both on the band’s Dumb Dufus Brain imprint). Although the relationships in Gould’s songs often run poisonous, his guitar provides a dose of sweetening, like the taste of almonds that accompanies arsenic. The band are completed by drummer Brian Toomey and the melodically wise bassist Tom Raskus. Caught live recently at the Kirkland Café in Somerville, they were edgy and clamorous — sometimes a little too loud to do justice to Gould’s lyrics, given the club’s light-duty sound system, and sometimes so loud they were dead-on, especially when making like the Underground in a cover of "Waiting for My Man." Overall, their music echoes back to a time when punk rock was artier and less codified but still captured, as Gould likes to say of his own writing, the "loneliness, paranoia, and dirt of the human condition." Henry will return to the Kirkland Café on Thursday, September 30.

Since this is back-to-school month, there are plenty of good shows scheduled in and around Boston, but don’t neglect the suburban clubs. For example, the Sit N’ Bull Pub, less than an hour away from the city, in Maynard, has two special shows coming. On September 16, Ronnie Earl returns to the stage after a long absence due to his ongoing battle with depression. And on September 29 and 30, Peter Wolf holds court in the small roadhouse and barbecue joint, making a rare appearance in a venue with seating. Call (978) 897-4663.

Bill Janovitz plays solo on WFNX/101.7 FM’s "New England Product" show between 8:30 and 10 p.m. on Sunday, September 26. Bill Janovitz and Crown Victoria play the Abbey Lounge, 3 Beacon Street in Somerville, in a New England Music Organization conference showcase on Saturday, October 2; call (617) 441-9631.