Reverb Comes Home to Roost in Petaluma By Paige Turner (no known relation to Jeff) Pollo del Mar rocked the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma on Sept. 22, sharing the bill with The Mermen. Pollo del Mar was preceded by That One Guy, who played an instrument that was apparently a cross between an upright string bass and a plumber's nightmare, augmented by numerous electronic effects. This was interesting for a little while, but after a short time it seemed he had pretty well run through his repertoire of tricks and shtick and it became somewhat repetitive. That One Guy is clearly an accomplished performer; just not this reviewer's cup of tea. Then came our heroes, Pollo del Mar. The boys kicked the evening into high gear with "Cutlass Supreme, then followed up with several more high-octane numbers drawn from their 1999 release, "Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. (Reviewer's subliminal message: Buy the CD. Buy theT-shirt.) The band's gear was the familiar stuff: Ferenc had his trusty Reverend guitar, blackface Bassman, outboard reverb, and a few well-chosen pedal effects. Jono had his Fernandes guitar, Musicman combo and Kendrick reverb. Jeff slid his trademark fretless Jazz Bass lines through his GK amp with 2 x 10 and 1x 15 cabinets. New guy Jeremy drummed on a nice set of butterscotch Gretsches. The only complaint about the sound is that the drums, though very well played, were a little too prominent in the house mix. Your reviewer wasn't taking notes, nor did she swipe a set list, but numbers included: "Jonny Foo, Ninja Chiropractor," " "Devil's Slide," "Rt. 666," "South of the Border, "Annabelle Lee" and a new song titled "A Flash of Green." Ferenc covered the trumpet solo on "South of the Border" with a nicely effected guitar tone. "Moon over Marin," a cover of local legends The Dead Kennedys' classic, was particularly popular with the crowd, even though Petaluma is in Sonoma County. After the final number, "Insecticide," the crowd went wild, and pleaded for an encore, but Pollo del Mar had to make way for the headliner, The Mermen. Pleas for "Erik Estrada" had to go unheeded, alas. The Mermen: Your reviewer isn't about to wade into the "old Mermen vs. new Mermen debate." Equipment recitation: Vince Littleton's drums were Tamas with a mirror-like finish. Bass was a natural-finish Fender Jazz with a maple neck, which Jennifer Burnes played through one of the BIG Ampeg tube heads and many speaker cabinets (a bunch of 10s, and at least a couple of 15s, it appeared). Jim Thomas played a Strat through several heads and of course lots of pedals. The 3 amp heads appeared to be 2 Dual Showman heads, plus another of similar size but with built-in reverb. He also employed a plethora of speaker cabinets, hard to tell what was wired to what. The music was, well, The Mermen. Of note were two covers, "Latin'ia" and "Jack the Ripper." Jim invited That One Guy to participate on "Latin'ia," resulting in some delay while his gear was re-deployed, but it did make for an interesting twist to this surf classic. "Jack the Ripper' was less successful, not all that interesting. The Mermen do best when performing their original material. Overall, Jim Thomas is of course an original guitarist with his own vision of what guitar-based, surf-derived instrumental music can do. Unfortunately, his guitar tone sometimes got lost in the overall loudness. Jennifer seemed to be fond of playing barre chords on the bass, which didn't seem all that effective in light of how the instruments were EQ'd. Then again, this is The Mermen, perhaps one must assume that they meant it to sound like that. The Mystic's heritage as a grand old movie palace was evident, and the bands' performances were augmented by the use of a large screen with assorted images projected onto it. Some were random video clips, some were computer generated sequences. At times the images were interesting, at times they were distracting. The worst part was that images of Stonehenge came around periodically. This was perhaps not such a good thing, in view of the recent re-release of "This Is Spinal Tap." For The Mermen, the images seemed to change to scenes from the greatest surfin, movie of all time, "The Endless Summer," but with color effects and other weird things added. Bruce Brown may or may not know about this. All in all, an evening for Pollo del Mar and surf/instro fans to really crow about!