The Walkabouts are like that stubborn bit of organic material. Probably the most undefinable, and possibly the most underrated group in these parts, the Walkabouts have a little piece of the Seattle music scene practically to themselves. Originally lumped with Room Nine and the Dwindles in the early neo-psychedelic movement, the Walkabouts moved through pop rock and who-knows-what-else (they don't) before settling into a gutsy folk-rock sound. If the word folk makes you think of Michael Tomlinson's eunuch pfiffle, forget it. The Walkabouts draw on the folk tradition like a 'Full House'-era Fairport Convention, as one listen to their live demolition of "Satan's Reel" will attest. They never lose sight of the concept of being a rock 'n' roll band, a fact I can't emphasize strongly enough.

Says singer/guitarist Carla Torgerson, "We learned how to take the simple, plain, direct, sincere part of folk and learn to play that well."

Adds singer/guitarist Chris Eckman, "If you can keep it simple, you can rock it out."

If that leaves the Walkabouts as a group without a genre, they seem ambivalent about it. "People don't always like stuff that's not easily definable," says Chris. "We've no niche. Well, we have our own niche, but it's not a wonderful place to be."

Yet being unique has its advantages, as drummer Grant Eckman points out. 'It's a healthy scene, but if Swallow wants to play the same night as Soundgarden, there's no way they can do that because everyone will go see Soundgarden because they're the bigger group. We can play anytime."

"We always wanted to get ourselves into a position where, if we tried something new, and threw it at the audience, they wouldn't walk away. I think if someone like Soundgarden did something totally different than what they usually do, they'd lose their audience," explains Torgerson, without malice.

The Walkabouts' best bet to find their audience lies with their new L.P., 'See Beautiful Rattlesnake Gardens,' just released on PopLlama Records. Balancing dreamy, introspective songs with sprightly rockers, both acoustic and electric, and tied together with Chris' enigmatic lyrics, it's like that old joke about Seattle's weather: if you don't like it, wait five minutes and it'll be doing something different. It's hard to imagine many people not liking 'This Rotten Tree,' with its propulsive acoustic guitars and bassist Michael Wells' breezy harmonica, or Torgerson's reading of the folk classic 'John Reilly,' filtered through the Byrds.

'See Beautiful Rattlesnake Gardens' is the Walkabouts' first L.P. after four years together, but it shouldn't have been. There have been a couple of appearances on compilation albums, an E.P. ('22 Disasters,' of which Chris states, "We were a really young band and it sounds like it"), and last year's successful 'Linda Evans'/'Cyclone' single. But the saga of their proposed debut album, 'Weights and Rivers,' is a singular horror story. Explains Chris, "If I wasn't feeling so good about things right now, I'd feel more depressed about it. we recorded this whole other album that never came out."

In the fall of 1985, the Walkabouts laid down some tracks and shopped the proposed L.P. around while on a five-week tour of California. They received some nibbles, but no real bites. Continues Chris, "We came back that spring and finished the album. We shopped it to a number of labels, and this one label out of Los Angeles, Wrestler, just called us up and said 'We wanna sign you guys.' We were pretty blown away and thought 'hey, let's do it!'

"We flew our sound man down to L.A. to talk to them, and made this incredibly good offer. They wanted us to immediately release an E.P., and then put us in the studio to finish an album. They were going to give us tour support, make sure we had a van, everything."

The deal looked reliable enough. Wrestler had the Tailgators and their three records were sitting in every little record shop in Seattle. In addition to the Walkabouts, the label had also signed the Wild Seeds, a hot band out of Austin, Texas. Says Chris, "But the whole thing that was going on underneath all this that we didn't know about, was that they were banking on selling the Tailgators to a major label. They were going to sell their option and dump that cash into these other bands. Well, that never happened."

What did happen was that Wrestler held onto the finished master tape of the Walkabouts' L.P. for a year, continually promising that release was just around the corner. The band finally got the contract dissolved, but by then the tape was practically ancient and the band was less than enchanted with the songs anyway, feeling them dated. The record never came out, and in all probability never will. Before the contract was dissolved, though, the Walkabouts tried something a little desperate. Says Chris, "Finally we released the 'Linda Evans'/'Cyclone' single because we wanted something out. We had alternate masters of those songs. It isn't illegal now, but when it was released it was very illegal. For an album we spent $3,000 to record, we got a single."

Adds Grant succinctly, "Basically, we bootlegged our own single."

'Linda Evans' is as good an example of any of Chris Eckman's opaque lyrics. Chris writes the band's lyrics (though Carla retains considerable editing power), and never draws a straight line from A to B. "That's my really obtuse period," admits Chris of 'Linda Evans.' "It's about as un-understandable a song as any."

But while the line "Linda Evans, this world is your mistake" may at first seem like a bit of a harsh judgement, not matter how bad of an actress she may be, it ultimately makes sense. Linda Evans is just a figurehead and the song is sung for the lemmings who live their lives vicariously through the mass media. Ten years ago, it would have been Farrah Fawcett. Chris' lyrics require some audience participation and that's deliberate.

"I grew up on punk rock, where everything is really direct, and I loved that for awhile, but I felt it ran out of steam. There's an approach where you're clever and the approach where you reach some kind emotional statement, and they're not always the same thing."

Chris sees the L.P.'s lyrics as a watershed. "I spent a lot of time on these lyrics trying to make them more concrete," he states.

Concrete isn't a word I would have chosen for them, but they're filled with lingering images that give you the sense of the song, a blur of peripheral vision that conveys as much as a focused glance.

The same goes for Chris' guitar playing. His leads tend to be jagged, yet linear bursts that seemingly come out of nowhere, instantly moving the songs into another plane.

Grant Eckman lives up to the hallowed tradition of American drummers named Grant, and is probably the major factor that prevents the Walkabouts from ever sounding wimpy. Native Angelino Michael Wells, with his cap, goatee and glasses, looks plucked from a 1959 Greenwich Village bistro, but provides the solid base that all bassists should. Yet the group's most interesting figure is Torgerson. Her role is as guitarist, keyboardist and singer. Like Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads, her gender is never a factor. It's neither exploited nor denied and that's a refreshing thought in a world where most female rockers still need a gimmick to survive.

In this band, that shouldn't come as a surprise. The Walkabouts have learned that doing things their own way is best, even if it means falling flat on your face every once in a while. They learn from their misfortunes. Their unreleased L.P. cost three grand and was recorded on 24-track. 'See Beautiful Rattlesnake Gardens' came in at half that, and displays just as good sound quality from an 8-track console.

With a short California trip booked for April and an Eastern jaunt hoped for later this summer, the Walkabouts may well get some national exposure. They already feel an affinity with other regions. Says Grant: "We have more of an affection for what's happening in San Francisco than what's happening in Seattle. We've been forced to look outwards more and find identity with other bands in this country, England and Australia."

They should go down a storm in Australia. After all, walkabouts were invented there.

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