The Puzzle of Eli Riddle : What You Don’t Hear Is Bluster, but the Music Is Catchy, Melodic

How could a reserved pawnbroker with no taste for theatrics or self-dramatization be responsible for some of the most vibrant rock music ever to come out of Orange County?

Such is the enigma posed by Eli Riddle and its leader, Jon Melkerson.

Taking his very reticence as a core theme for his philosophically inclined songwriting, the 29-year-old Westminster resident has been a main cog in the creation of three excellent albums over the past five years. Two were by his previous band, Eggplant. Now comes “Eli Riddle,” the much-delayed but deeply satisfying debut from the band that sprouted from Eggplant nearly three years ago.

Tall, with a long face, a receding hairline and the stubble of a barely sprouted Vandyke ringing his chin, Melkerson looks a bit like a younger version of Richard Thompson. His talents parallel those of the great British musician, one of the few triple-threat rockers: He can write involving songs, sing them effectively and drive them home with electrifying guitar leads.

Melkerson writes with a fine ear for catchy riffs and melodic hooks, and an understanding of how to build dynamic, shifting song structures--something he shares with one of his key influences, Tom Verlaine, the New York City underground rock guitar hero.

Melkerson’s singing is steady and tuneful with a circumspect cast ideally suited to the central tensions in his songs. It’s with the guitar that Melkerson is best able to break through the restraints of a reserved temperament and speak with emotional force in a cascade of freely ranging but cannily harnessed notes.

Despite these abilities, and a five-year track record of steady local gigging, Melkerson and Eli Riddle remain one of the least appreciated, smallest-drawing bands on the local alternative rock scene.

Quiet wheels don’t get a lot of grease in Orange County, where the biggest acts typically have featured a hammering punk sound, flamboyant stage presence, or a striking look. Eli Riddle has none of the above. Melkerson estimates that the band’s average concert draw is a few dozen; low billings are common, including the one that finds Eli Riddle playing in the opening slot on a three-act program tonight at the Electric Circus in Anaheim.

“I’m just too careful. I don’t feel comfortable getting up and showing off, and if I do, it’s by accident,” Melkerson said Tuesday, speaking in his affable, low-key way as he sat in a restaurant around the corner from his cubbyhole apartment. “The only time I’m not careful is when I’m just jamming on guitar and playing spontaneously.”

A lot of the time, he said, he just shuts his eyes and tunes out his surroundings. “There’s always that bit of self-consciousness that can creep in. If I have my eyes closed, I can just think about the music; I can get closer to it. The songs have more personality than anything I can do onstage, anyway.

“How I work (on the band’s stage effectiveness) is by keeping the music busy,” he added. “I spend a lot of time on the arrangements, throwing in highlights, keeping the variety going. We’re more like a jazz band, where you’re watching a band play and not expecting them to do anything but get off on the music.”

That stage shyness has been there since the first gig Melkerson played with John Kelly and Dave Tabone, the guitarist and drummer who have been with him in both Eggplant and Eli Riddle. They debuted at a party at Kelly’s house in 1981 when they were all classmates at Westminster High.

“Everybody was afraid to be seen. It was a big question who would be up front. Having people look at you, analyze you” was a fearsome prospect, Melkerson said.

After high school, Melkerson took a brief stab at UC San Diego but decided he wanted to play rock instead. Eggplant took shape in the mid-’80s and emerged in ‘89-90 with two fine albums for Doctor Dream Records, “Monkeybars” and “Sad Astrology.” In Eggplant, Melkerson shared the singing and songwriting with Jeff Beals. They harmonized well and were good songwriting foils for each other; Beals interjecting a sense of whimsy that balanced Melkerson’s more introspective bent.

By 1991, though, Melkerson wanted full control and split amicably with Beals. Kelly and Tabone followed him into Eli Riddle, which was named after a song from “Monkeybars.” Joining them at first was David Black, an accomplished bassist whose main gig was with the Pacific Symphony.

“Actually, I felt intimidated,” Melkerson said. “He was so good, and he was an older guy. I didn’t think I could demand of him the same things I could demand of my friends.”

About two years ago, Melkerson brought in another bassist, Richard Ivemeyer, who had played in Huntington Beach punk bands. Ivemeyer was a customer at the Westminster pawn shop where Melkerson worked for seven years. (Melkerson since has gone on to become the manager of another pawn shop in Anaheim. Of his day job, he said: “Every person you deal with, you have to barter back and forth. It gets to be a grind. I try to keep on an even keel with people but it’s hard to have a heart in a pawn shop, that’s for sure.”)

Rounding out the band as a recently recruited harmony singer is Chris Fairbanks, Melkerson’s fiancee of four years. They plan to be married in April.

After an aborted first stab at recording in 1992, and a tepid attempt to attract a record deal, Eli Riddle set about recording its album about a year ago. The band secured a good deal at a Los Alamitos studio through another of Melkerson’s pawn shop acquaintances but could work only when the studio wasn’t otherwise booked. Consequently, the project stretched out to nearly a year.

Brought in at a total recording and manufacturing budget of $7,000, the 10 songs on “Eli Riddle” lay out Melkerson’s core dilemma: Given a world we know is fraught with disappointment and circumscribed by heartbreaking limitation, how can we get up the gumption to move forward?

“I can’t go on. I must go on,” is how the Irish writer Samuel Beckett put it.

In “Shellfish,” the album’s opening song, Melkerson puts it like this:

I cannot boast of many things,

I cannot hope for anything . . .

I’ll be myself, my enemy,

I keep on, I keep on.

As the album continues, we deepen our acquaintance with this sympathetic, very human speaker who is self-defeating, yet determined to overcome his weaknesses, who sees himself as an underdog, yet is quietly dogged in his conviction that the main thing is not to give up.

Melkerson says he accumulates fragments of thought in notebooks, then stitches together pieces that seem to fit after he has found a musical framework.

“I put it together more out of feel and phrasing and mood” than a concern for a unified theme, he said. “I like to leave it loose. But a certain philosophical thing is going on there. I’ve always been interested in that, just thinking about the whole deal. You can get overwhelmed. You have high aspirations, and you know your stuff’s good. But you know how hard it is. I do take the band seriously, and maybe that crops up in my lyrics: How hard it is to do what you want.”

True to the ambivalent outlook in his songs, Melkerson sees both hopeful and disappointing possibilities for Eli Riddle.

College radio could take to the album. A following could build. A record contract could result. The band members even might be able to quit their day jobs and make a living playing music.

But the world being what it is, Melkerson also knows the band could continue to do fine work in obscurity.

Without a manager, without label muscle to push the record, “I can only do so much. I would like to play to larger crowds. I would like to play to an enthusiastic audience that knows the tunes and wants to see us play, where we’re not just an addition on a bill. That’s my goal. But (achieving) more than that is a crapshoot.”

To get maximum local exposure for the CD release, he is selling it for just $5, at gigs, at Moby Disc stores or through the band’s own label, Vital Music (P.O. Box 908, Westminster, CA. 92684-0908). He said hearing the record “is what’s going to make somebody come back to see you again. If 10% (of those who hear it) come back, that’s enough to (gather) a following and get on (good) bills.

“I think the music is ripe enough that it would satisfy a lot of ears. It just depends if we get lucky and the buzz thing starts. If it doesn’t generate momentum, we’ll probably be just a hobby. But I’ll play forever; I’ll always be in a band. The bottom line that makes it all worthwhile is I play with really cool people. There’s a real good unspoken thing there. We’re all in it for wherever it goes.”

* Eli Riddle plays tonight at 9 at the Electric Circus, 314 N. Beach Blvd., Anaheim, followed by Down the Line and Full Tilt Gonzo. $4. (714) 827-1210. Eli Riddle will share a bill with the Violet Burning March 5 at Caffe Nove, 3474 E. Orangethorpe Ave., Suite A, Anaheim. (714) 976-2120.