Musical philosophers sport a healthy mix of styles

By DAVID SCHNEIDERMAN
Collegian Arts Writer

There is definitely something to be said about any band brave enough to immortalize a stupendous movie classic like Ishtar in song.

That's right, the Dustin Hoffman vehicle is the opening track on the aptly titled Funkus Spelunkus, by Plato's Cave.

The album is a healthy mixture of everything that rock 'n' roll is and was for the past 30 years. Hailing from Erie, Plato's Cave is a septet with something many of the small-time, fly-by-night college bands lack -- talent.

The grooves are catchy, the lyrics thoughtful and the rhythm unstoppable.

When lead vox, Erik Walker, croons "dreamt a man had come to call on you/I woke up and shot him through the eye," on "Evangeline," shades of The Band, a group that once backed up Bob Dylan, come rushing back.

The track could have seamlessly fit on The Band's Music from Big Pink, and it sounds just as good.

Yet, this is a group whose refusal to be pigeonholed into one rock genre sets them apart. Known to play obscurities from the sonic explorations of Phish to the early rap of the Sugar Hill Gang in live shows, the Cave's Funkus Spelunkus is like a simple random sample of the past.

From the Santanaesque pounding of "White Summer Blues" through the Jefferson Airplanish surrealism of "The Journey," Plato's Cave makes each style their own.

On "It Ain't Over Yet," a gritty tune of dreamy realism, the band takes Pete Townsend's genius and updates it for '95.

"See the people in the city/faceless people on the street/Life is hard and it ain't pretty/Oh, but honesty's rewards are sweet." Tommy anyone?

What separates those guys from the canon of classic rock past is innovation. Though the styles seem vaguely familiar, the risks they take with them are not. The twists and turns of Funkus Spelunkus, which clocks in at more than 70 minutes, are a wild journey fusing past and present, pointing to the future.

Once the ride is over, it's hard to tell how they progressed -- the road from "Ishtar" to the last song, "Blind," is punctuated by stops at every well of inspiration that rock has to offer. It's a road worth going down again and again.

The liner notes mention the All-American Rathskeller, 108 S. Pugh St., as one of many groove spots where the Cave honed their skills, and the sounds of State College are definitely buried somewhere under the musical mish-mosh.

In an age of designer flannels and copycat attitudes, a Platonic musical ideal seems to be in the realm of a utopian Republic. But it may just be a little closer -- maybe it's in a cave.

Editor's Note: Plato's Cave can be seen at 10 p.m. tomorrow at The Saloon, 101 Heister St.