Music

The Murdocks cut their teeth on Nirvana, not on ska

"I have sort of a love/hate relationship with the Austin scene," says Murdocks singer/songwriter/guitarist Franklin Morris. "I guess I'm liking it more right now, but it's not necessarily because of a sense of community. It doesn't feel like a scene where people help each other. It's very competitive."

Consider the Murdocks in the running. The band, which in its current form is about a year old, is holding an album release party Friday at Flamingo Cantina for its brand new longplayer "Surrenderender."

Joining them will be the Cooties, Eta Carinae, Awesome Cool Dudes and Steers. That's a pretty broad range, from straight-ahead rock to oblique noise, and reflects the sort of local bands that Morris, 23, is actually into. "If we're putting together a bill, we don't care who can bring out the most people," he says.

Photo by Thanin Polviriyakij Guitarist Frank Morris, bassist Robert Houghton and drummer Ryan Cano are the Murdocks, who'll have a release party Friday at Flamingo Cantina for their CD 'Surrenderender.'

"Yeah, it's turned out that way," Morris says. "We didn't really focus on Austin in the beginning, because there are plenty of bands that play around here a lot, and then eventually just die off. We always set out sights on more of a national goal, and we ignored Austin for a long time."

The trio has toured solo several times, building an audience in the old-fashioned way, one crowd at a time.

"We'd always get booked with various terrible emo pop-punk bands," Morris says. "In fact, I think that's what people here thought we were for a long time. We even ended up on a ska show. I felt bad having to ditch the bill, so we just played it. We had some hecklers asking us to play ska, but I wasn't really afraid of guys dressed like the Blues Brothers."

In fact, the melodies and songwriting on "Surrenderender" are a bit sharper than your average emo pop-punk band. In fact, the core of the Murdocks' sound goes back to a rock that was at its peak when Morris was in middle school.

"I don't think we have our roots in any one particular type of rock," Morris says, while bassist Robert Houghton, deep in the background, yells out his affection for the Breeders. "But I grew up on Nirvana," Morris continues. "Just loved them. The Pixies, R.E.M."

So it's the music from the years that punk broke, when it seemed that this newly above-ground rock could alter the landscape on a mass scale, that's the root integer of these kids' rock. Not to discount modern indie rock altogether: "I find I'm inspired by different stuff," Morris says. "If I listen to the Shins a lot, I write like the Shins."

Morris was an oil industry brat who spent time in Zaire, Angola and um, Houston. "Yes, African music is all over our stuff, can't you hear it?" Morris says with dripping sarcasm. "I didn't listen to much music when I was in Africa, actually."

His family ended up in Houston, and he moved here, as many do, to go to school. Or was it to start a band?

Morris thinks the two are intertwined. " I went to University of North Texas for a while, then moved to Austin with the intention of starting a band. I joined the Commercial Music program at Austin Community College where I stayed for not long enough for it to matter."

Morris is convinced ACC functions in much the same way that art schools functioned in England during the birth of punk rock.

"In a large way, it's a meeting point for people," he says, "Rob was going to school there and I met Ryan through an ad in the paper."

But Morris has been writing songs since he was 13, usually starting with a vocal melody and a couple of words here and there. He varies his songwriting among fictional characters, real-life situations and a canny combination of both.

"I guess fictional characters dominate," Morris says. "But there are also characters based on people I've known personally. I do a pretty good job of disguising."

Thankfully, no angry ex-girlfriends have showed up at shows.

Major labels have come a-courting, but nothing has been set in stone yet. "We had some interest from one label, but they wanted us to play faster, produce a radio single, that sort of thing and we're not really interested in going down that road," Morris says. "We'd rather not start our career on the receiving end of a major label (expletive)."

Kurt Cobain would expect no less.