Second only to "Hello Cleveland" in the pantheon of rock cliches is the "road album," a concept Moe guitarist Chuck Garvey admonishes as "wanky." |

Still, there's no denying the jam band's latest release, Tin Cans and Car Tires extols the wanky, boasting road daze as its primary theme. And, what the hell, if anyone can relate to an album about being on the road, it's the itinerant armies that follow Moe and their musical brethren, who criss-cross (or dream of criss-crossing) the country more times than you can say Jack Kerouac.

"But we're not your average Joe Rockers chasing down some vague pharmacological American dream and trashing hotel rooms," Garvey hastens. "Beyond that, you write what you know."

Limp protestations aside, moe. does know the road. Their Odysseyian tour schedule has them on it more than 200 dates per year, stretching their unique brand of jamming out to sometimes three hours each night. Yes,unique. More Primus than Phish, moe. blends elements of funk, country and delightfully indulgent late Seventies guitar calisthenics, complete with a smattering of talkbox and delay. It's an unlikely combination, and one that Moe's had trouble making work on wax in the past. The band's 1996 major-label debut Noy Doy was solid, but stifled. "[That record] got a little genericized from the production gloss," admits Garvey.

Recording woes are a common malady for jam bands, many of who incubate their material in the live setting where raw, expansive tendencies become inextricably linked to the song. Trying to cram them into structure ofcompact, radio-friendly listens is a daunting task, to say the least.

For Tin Cans and Car Tires the band enlisted the help of producer John Alagia, whose work with the Dave Matthews Band proved that it's possible for a jam band to effectively transpose their live sound into the studio. Engineering the project was from-the-hip tech-whiz John Siket, whose eclectic resume includes jammers like Yo La Tengo and Phish and mid-fi Aussie rockers You Am I.

"Alagia was a charming motherfucker," Garvey recalls. "From the first moment we met him, we definitely considered working with him because we had good personal chemistry. [In other words], he wasn't a typical big money producer spouting catch phrases and trying to blow smoke up our asses." Siket, on the other hand, was the "anti-Alagia," he says. "John would make these rough mixes that just slammed. They worked really well on a visceral level. Alagia was all about the fine details."

The bi-polar production alliance worked, and although they won't win any awards for thematic originality, Tin Cans is a welcomed leap in energy and studio mastery. The entire record is dotted with sharp vocal harmonies and elegant guitar interplay. It's compact and edgy, but still retains the same airy flow of a live moe. performance. In fact, under the guidance of Alagia and Siket, Moe may have inadvertently recorded a radio hit or three.

"You think so?" asks Garvey nervously. "I couldn't see [guitarist/vocalist] Al Schnier's voice on the radio. It'd be too weird. I definitely couldn't hear mine. We haven't gotten much radio play in the past, you know. On thelast record, [Sony] pushed 'She Sends Me,' which was a terrible choice anyway."

ISAAC JOSEPHSON(Sept. 11, 1998)