What’s Up starts up a series of Local Wrock Reviews

with the Masters of Local Wrock — Mos Generator.

If there are to be Local Wrock Reviews of albums coming out of Kitsap, it’s fitting that it should begin with the Mos Generator and T. Dallas Reed.

Also known as Tony, Reed is an illustrious local sound engineer and guitar man with Shawn Johnson on drums and Scooter Haslip on bass in Mos Generator. He’s one of the masters of local wrock and the CDs, 7-inches, LPs and other wrock recordings coming out of the county.

From his Temple Sound headquarters in South Kitsap, he’s probably produced more than half of them.

You know that Bremerton band Kane Hodder who rose to area fame with their seminal full-length “The Pleasure to Remain So Heartless” in 2004? That was Reed at the board. Hodder guitarist Eric Christianson said they’ve recorded with Reed exclusively thus far.

And the Olympia-band Schoolyard Heroes with their catapulting piece “Fantastic Wounds” in 2005? Reed as well. Neutralboy’s 2006 gem “Weapons of Mass Seduction? — Reed. And that’s just the short list.

The guy lives and breathes it.

So amidst the 2008 fall CD release season, What’s Up ambitiously cranks the generator on a new series of Kitsap Local Wrock Reviews, starting with the Mos Generator, a band which opened for Rush at the Gorge this summer, and another Reed-produced work — the new Mos release of songs from the past seven years, “Destroy!”

It’s a 12-song CD/19-song double LP album of live, previously released, unreleased and remixed goodness out on RxEvolution Records of Olympia. Somewhat an overview of the band’s career since 2001, it’s a collection focused on their thunderous live set.

Mos is one of those bands where there’s nothing like seeing them live.

(Which means you should go see them at the Bremerton CD Release for “Destroy!” this Friday at Winterland.)

Short of that, this album comes damn close.

“Come on, man!” the sonic curtain rises on Track 8, with Reed jibing an applauding live crowd at Winterland in June 2007. “I know you can do better than that!”

They scream. Louder. And louder.

“Alright,” Reed agrees. “Now, hold on … this is called ‘Sleeping Your Way To The Middle.’”

Swing.

This whole CD is basically a collection of favorites from the Mos’ live show, Reed said. But in a few cases it actually takes you there, including a song from the Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Holland, April 2008, and a few from that June 2007 set at Winterland.

Midway through “Sleeping Your Way,” Mos breaks it down, as they’ve been known to do, into a wicked five- or six-minute long improvised jam. They string it along and, at one point, string it out into a lingering, swaggering, single guitar note.

Then, as they bring it to a close, they sledge into a skulking, slowing-down-syncopation for an extended-duration, as you-hear-someone-shout, from out-in-the-crowd — “Keep it goin’!”

You can almost feel it … hanging … in the air.

And that feels a lot like the essence of a Mos Generator show.

Match that with the other 11 tracks on this CD, plus seven more if you get the extra-rad LP set on vinyl. (BAM)

LocalWrock Review