Club will jam in Virginia

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Hard-driving local pop rockers Washington Social Club do some short driving into Virginia Saturday night when they play Jammin' Java in Vienna.

"To be a pop-rock band coming out of D.C. was something of an aberration or an anomaly" in 2001, says bassist Olivia Mancini, laughing. District bands were supposed to be punk and on Fugazi's Dischord Records — "and we are neither of those things."

While the Club's 2004 debut "Catching Looks" makes clear they don't subscribe to an ascetic "straight edge" punk lifestyle, Dischord's do- it-yourself ethos does come through in hyperkinetic frontman Martin Royle's lyrics.

The opener, "On The Inside," proclaims "I've got nothing to do, I've got nothing to sell" and that "your friends have good jobs but they're miserable." The driving Jam-like pop-punk beat and clipped, insistent, Clash-like vocals are delivered with enough humor that it doesn't come off as (too) condescending.

"Dancing Song" has a great lo-fi beat, and yes, you can dance to it. Dancing and nighttime beats real life, since "Dad's real drunk and Mom's just a mouse." But the Club's rock-as-escape motif hits its apex on "Breaking the Dawn," via the chantable Ramones-y chorus "Goodbye shrink-to-fit, hello magical highway."

While the tight, exuberant energy of songs like "Modern Trance" and "Are You High?" may remind one of the Jam or Police, Mr. Royle's real love is Oasis and Britpop. On the new song "Jarvis Cocker" (coming on a new album in the fall) he struts like the Pulp frontman, amidst a neo-disco beat and some amusingly timed hand claps.

Jammin' Java is quite a venue shift for a group used to playing Velvet Lounge and the Black Cat, and that played the Warped Tour in 2004 — where Miss Mancini was the only female onstage.

She thinks Jammin' Java works for them: "It's kids from Northern Virginia whose parents don't always want to drive them to the Black Cat," she says. "They're still excited to be at a rock show."

That's especially true since under-18s don't have many concert options.

"I went to a lot of free Fort Reno shows in high school, which was a really great outlet for kids growing up," Miss Mancini says.