E-Mail This Article to a Friend Rerocked (continued)

IT’S NOT HARD TO TELL how well-regarded Asa Brebner is on the local scene: all you had to do was note the musicians who filed into the Abbey Lounge during his three-night release blowout last weekend. Local rock legends (Dennis Brennan, Twinemen), roots-music guys (Session Americana), blues disciples (Chilly Kurtz, the Scissormen), first-generation Boston punks (Mickey Clean), even some North Shore guys playing Stones covers — they all hit the Abbey stage. The highlight came on Sunday when an expanded version of Brebner’s band was joined by Peter Wolf, who not only sang three tunes (including the old Geils Band barnstormer "Pack Fair & Square") but presented Brebner with his own Academy Award — a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

It’s enough to make a town cynic like Brebner admit that it ain’t bad to be local rock legend. "No big deal, I seem to put one of these things [CDs] out every year," he said shortly before the party last week. Then he reconsidered. "But sure, I love my life — it certainly beats a lot of other could-have-beens." Brebner is on his second or third career by now; and his current fans may not even realize that he played with Clean in the early days of the Rat, toured Europe as one of Jonathan Richman’s Modern Lovers, then made two major-label albums with Robin Lane & the Chartbusters in the early ’80s. "A lot of people never get reconciled to their 19-year-old dreams of being a rock star, but I’m glad I’m not on Behind the Music. I think about someone like George Harrison, who used to say he was miserable because he couldn’t go out without being recognized. And I’m lucky if I get recognized outside of Porter Square."

The weekend’s occasion was the release of Brebner’s fifth solo album, Hot Air (on Hi-N-Dry). It’s a serious songwriter’s disc with some real depth and emotional power — and that’s definitely the first time I’ve said that about an album with a track called "B.U. Pussy Bonanza."

In fact, Brebner originally planned a double CD called Devil/Angel. One disc would include the ribald rockers that have endeared him to local crowds; the other would allow him to slow the tempo and let his emotional guard down. He wound up condensing it to one disc and largely letting the "angel" side win out. Even the soon-to-be-notorious BU song gets a double edge, with co-singer Linda Viens helping to deflate its good-natured sexism. "I didn’t plan it that way, but in retrospect, it succeeded, to get a woman in on the joke. Sexism is like racism — the people who spend the most time denying it are usually the people who perpetuate it."

Aside from that track and another boozy rocker — "Showdown at the Hoedown," which is about that nightmare gig when all of your ex-girlfriends show up — the disc bears out his more thoughtful side. His usual band (Scissorfight drummer Kevin Shurtleff, guitarist Allen Devine, and bassist Andrew Mazzone, plus steel guitarist Steve Sadler) are aboard, but Brebner handles most of the guitar himself, and even the rockers have the film noir ambiance associated with the Morphine/Twinemen circle. One song addresses his picking up after the death of his father; others take unsentimental looks at love relationships. And the Spanish-sung opener, "Hijo Prodigal," harks back to a hidden bit of personal history: Brebner learned this traditional song from a fellow inmate when he served prison time in Ecuador as a teenager.

"That one’s a story in itself — I did six months in jail for marijuana trafficking. I was hanging out with a guy who had a few pounds of pot on him, and I basically took the fall. I didn’t get raped or beaten up, but I nearly had to get treated in a mental asylum as part of my defense. It was looking like a real One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest situation, but I got out just in time. That haunted me for years, but it’s also an eclectic record, so there’s my stab at Latin music. And the title means ‘Prodigal Son,’ so the record’s really a return to what I listened to when I was young — ragtime, blues, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott."

On stage last weekend, the band did a little of everything, as Brebner’s sets tended to open with twangy harmony-driven tunes (including "Last Bad Habit," a late-’80s local hit that he’s lately revived) and build to the roadhouse rock and roll. There were covers of both Little Walter and Jonathan Richman along the way, and on Saturday, a glorious mess of a punk-rock reunion with Clean. The whole thing was recorded and may be released, guest shots and all, on a live CD later in the year. Meanwhile, Brebner holds court at Toad in Porter Square every Tuesday of this month.