Dr. Frank, founder of Berkeley's venerable Mr. T Experience, would not

exactly describe his group's career as successful.

But that's Dr. Frank for you.

"We started out in the gutter, and gradually climbed up to the curb and 10 years later, we're standing on the sidewalk," the 32-year-old singer and guitarist said recently.

With Tuesday's release of MTX's eighth album, Revenge Is Sweet, and So Are You (Lookout), the pop-punk stalwarts may finally get the props that a small legion of fans and critics has insisted Mr. T deserved all along. And then even Frank, aka Frank Porter, may have to acknowledge some sense of accomplishment.

Lookout Records, former home to Green Day and Rancid, is certainly aiming

high on the band's behalf. The indie label filmed a video (a rarity for

Lookout) for the single "And I Will Be With You" and will feature the Mr.

T Experience as the highlight of its showcase at the College Music Journal

conference.

Lookout is even sending out reprints of an MTX career retrospective penned by esteemed critic Ira Robbins for his Trouser Press Guide to '90s Rock [Disclaimer: SonicNet Inc., which publishes Addicted To Noise, co-publishes the Trouser Press web sight]. The album "mates spunk, hooks and insightful intelligence as if inventing a new musical form," wrote Robbins of MTX's last effort Love Is Dead. Frank called Robbins' critique "flattering and swell."

It matters little that after more than a decade of making records, Frank stands as the sole original member in what he semi-jokingly calls "MTX Starship." His detailed melodies and intricate wordplay have always defined the experience de Mr. T. Even in the face of his own low expectations for MTX's impact, Dr. Frank has sallied forth with the band rather than let it fizzle.

With the release of Revenge is Sweet, Frank said he can't help but

wonder how the world will receive his offerings. "With any kind of rock

music, or pop culture in general," he said, "it doesn't actually exist

until the public observes it in general and there's feedback from that."

MTX, however, has never let its curiosity about audience reaction color its

creativity by pandering to this month's trends. (In fact, they even

skewered such stooping with the single "Alternative Is Here to Stay.")

After 10 years in the game, Frank doesn't even attempt to predict what

music will succeed. "By the time an album comes out, it's a mystery to me

what anybody is going to think," the singer said.

Fans of Mr. T are likely to find Revenge Is Sweet a suitable

addition to and validation of the tunefully wordy pop niche that Frank has

now spent years refining. Produced by long-time MTX sidekick Kevin Army,

the album features 16 cuts, including the endearingly titled "The Weather

Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful." Revenge Is Sweet finds Frank

again chronicling the East Bay scene he first documented in "Gilman Street"

(four years before Gilman ambassadors Green Day broke big), this time with

the Berkeley punk-phrased "Hell of Dumb" (or "Hella Dumb" in East Bay

parlance). The song's pedal steel guitar is something of a stretch for

MTX, but the band pulls the tune off with grace.

Such risks, and more predominantly Frank's quirky writing style, have

always put the band a bit outside of the punk community as well as the rock

mainstream. "We're in this strange place," Frank said, "where we're one

foot in the territory of being a real band, and one foot in the territory

of not quite."

Although Frank said he doesn't recommend that any band follow an "MTX

Career Guide to Not Quite Success," he said Mr. T's history has had its own

small rewards. "We're not even within reach of the least successful of the

real show biz entities. But the fact that we somehow still manage to

barely keep afloat, and we can keep launching these forays into the world

that sometimes make these tiny little splashes -- it makes the splashes a

little more special."

Had the Mr. T Experience found the fortune of signing a major label

contract early on, it's unlikely that they would have had the opportunity

to make eight albums over the last decade. Frank, who claims he has a

"long, slow learning curve," said he believes that the time and experience allowed the band to make mistakes and learn from them, something seldom afforded by high pressure, big money contracts. "If anybody had ever expected us to make a perfect album and a commercial success, of course we wouldn't have been able to do it. If that would have been our last chance, then we

wouldn't exist anymore."

With a small section of the pop world beginning to finally take notice of

the Mr. T Experience, Frank said he believes the band's once ignored body of work is now held in its highest regard ever.

"Obscurity isn't something necessarily to be sought after or to be proud

of," he said. "But if you've got it, you can make it work for you."