The tight little four-man band out of Knoxville is actually named for the French Broad River, which meanders down through the Tennessee hills to Knoxville where it joins the Holston River to form the mighty Tennessee. The name choice, with its obvious potential for misinterpretation and wonder, is typical of the outlook these decidedly non-rock-stars bring to their first album, "My Friend Speed."

"Speed" is a curiosity of sorts. It follows few of the conventions of modern rock even though it is not an overly complex record sound-wise or production-wise. What it is is a fine little record by a group of seasoned musicians who have left the road band life and don't care if they ever "make it." Like one of the partners in Disgraceland Records Todd Steed said about his own recordings recently: "I do my records to amuse myself." The French Broads deliver with that same ethic. It must be a Knoxville thing.

What emerges is a well played, well written album of catchy, innocent, do-you-no-harm music. Although there is just a pinch of the punky/garage attitude, this is essentially a fine example of how good pop-rock can be. Give or take a surf instrumental.

The French Broads remind me of the Old 97's more than any other band. For one thing, John Baker's singing voice is very similar to Old 97's front man, Rhett Miller. There is a certain country vibe, but this isn't country or even alt-country. Like the 97's, the Broads have carved out a sound that rocks but not too hard, that's jangly and twangy in spots, but that at the end of the day is in fact part of the pop-rock lineage. And like the Old 97's, the French Broads do pop-rock with the occasional hint of country flavoring very well.

Ironically, the French Broads didn't start out to even play music. According to guitarist/songwriter/singer John Baker they came together, in of all places, a bicycle club.

"At the bike club, Chris Hurt, our drummer, kept saying when are we gonna get together and play some music? We never had any intention of forming a band. It just came together."

Eventually they were playing casually with guitarist/songwriter Jim Rivers, who had been a band mate of Baker's in the Memphis band Martini Age, and bassist Brian Williams. All the French Broads had been in other bands or had done various solo projects, so songs weren't hard to come by.

"We started with back catalog sort of stuff and built our set out of that," Baker said. One of the first songs the band worked up is the first cut on the new album, a real charmer called 'Hook.' "This is an older song I actually recorded on a solo do-it-yourself album I put out on tape back in 1994 called "Paddleboat"." From a jangly beginning, 'Hook' falls into a pretty, pop-rock, Petty-ish sound with some fine guitar work. And "hooked" we are. With the jaunty sound, it takes a while for the realization to set in that there is a dark underlining to the lyric as Baker details the "hooks" in life, like our jobs that hang us up and lie at the bottom of much of our unhappiness.

That crooky wire on which you dangle
That crooky wire on which you strangle

They've hooked you hired and let you strangle
They've hooked you hired, scrubbed and tangled
They've hooked you hired, you sleep in pain again

Although the following tune, another Baker song called 'Welcome,' isn't the first song on the album, it is a classic set-opener. Previously recorded by Baker on his 1997 'Woods" CD, it is one of those table-setters, an invitation to the audience. On "My Friend Speed," we get a laid back, almost live acoustic-guitar-strumming version recorded in an unfurnished room in Jim Rivers' house. The only non-live parts are some very restrained but tasteful electric guitar lead and the backing harmony vocals. As might be expected, this song has that picking-party-in-the-living-room feel.

'Summer's Over' catches that Frankie Avalon-Annette Funicello movie vibration and no wonder since, according to Baker, it was recorded "fast and furious" for inclusion on a compilation CD called "Burnt Marshmallows and Teeny Bikinis" released Memorial Day 2000. It is a perfect example of the light boy-loses-girl song that Avalon and others popularized in the early '60s.

The engaging 'Forgotten' would be a perfect fit on any Old 97's album, both vocally and instrumentally. With a "tinky" rhythm track played by guitarist Rivers on a Martin Backpacker (you know, those tiny triangular-shaped guitars), this poppy song could have been a radio hit in the day of Herman's Hermits. Although in the 21st century it seems almost like an antique, there is an irresistible simplicity and charm about this good-vibes song.

The somber, unhappy 'New Year's Day' (which sounds like nothing on any Old 97's album!) is probably the most produced and tinkered-with song on the album and Baker rates it the best song on the album from a technician's point of view.

"Brian had an old Wurlitzer electric piano sitting in his apartment, so we brought it down to Baker Acres and added it to this song. We spent lots of time working on the sonic space on this recording." This is certainly the "arty-est" track on the record and probably comes closer than any other track on the record to what modern rock radio is formatting these days.

Despite the snappy melody and the cherubic British invasion vocal, 'Danny Boy' sees Mr. Baker making a subtle environmental statement about the proposed damming of Costa Rica's picturesque Picuare River, which he canoed last year. Perhaps Mr. Baker understands that the deepest messages should be encased in the friendliest, most likeable pop-rock music packages to effect their subterfuge.

The smart 'Holly' is another poppy little number that was recorded for the "Burnt Marshmallows and Teeny Bikinis" compilation. It is a bittersweet song of regret about an attempted beach tryst. I suspect some kind of catharsis was taking place when this one was in the final draft stage.

'Serf,' a Jim Rivers' instrumental composition, isn't a big speed-metal surf song of the Dick Dale vein re-popularized in "Pulp Fiction." River's recorded all the guitars on this too-cool track and then brought his tape to the Bakers Acres studio where drums and a bass line were added. Rivers' surf music is from the mid-tempo, spider-walking-the-strings mold of 60's hits like 'Telstar,' 'The Brave Bull' or the mystical 'Apache.' I could listen to this one over and over. This should be the music in elevators and airports and dentists offices, not that purified placebo pabulum we hear now.

Baker's ode to mindless consumption and the marketing power of television, 'On Saturdays,' the basic tracks of which were also recorded live in Rivers' house, is perhaps the most ambitious lyrical track on "My Friend Speed." Rivers hangs in the background with his spider-fingers picking and Baker delivers some extremely heady and sarcastic brain-food lyrics with a wonderful sung-through-a-megaphone quality.

It all starts on a Saturday morning, the TV shouts at the kids who started early
The GI Joes, ballerina slippers and the Brady Bunch dream home
To me it was the coolest

Thanksgiving nears, the leaves are all crisp, just before the ball game
The last of the sugar-coated sticky goo from the salesmen
Gets pushed inside the convoluted skull bone of the curly-headed schoolboy

The French Broads finally shed their nice boy images and let it blast on the punky anthemic 'Sunzabitches.' This is the song you get when you buy one of those "Mean People Suck" bumper stickers. The Broads give this track that touch of out-of-control-and-pissed-off we occasionally get with their labelmates, Opposable Thumbs.

"My Friend Speed" is the kind of rock record you wished your kids would listen to when you hear Destiny's Child coming through the walls while you're trying to watch PBS, the kind of rock you wish the little jerk in the motorized boom-box was listening to when he pulls up at the stop sign near your house at 2 a.m. with his speakers turned up to "KILL" and his bass turned up to "GOD." It's smart, it's engaging, it has some laid-back, cool-school playing, and it is unlikely that you'll ever hear it unless you live within driving distance of Knoxville because the French Broads aren't out to "make it" in the music business. I'm beginning to think there's a whole colony of don't-wanna-be-rock-stars up in Knoxville, Tennessee, laying low, writing interesting songs, recording interesting records, and playing their asses off.

* Go to www.disgraceland.com and order a copy of The French Broads album "My Friend Speed." Not only is the cover cute, but if enough folks buy the record it'll scare hell out of the French Broads. They'll fear that they are becoming Rock Stars. And that would be very uncool.

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