So, let me get this straight. There's a (relatively) new band out of

Seattle on Stone Gossard's LooseGroove label called Devilhead, and they can't

seem to get any other band to take them on the road. The guitarist and

songwriter/singer are both named Wood (Kevin and Brian) and their late brother,

Andrew, was the singer in Mother Love Bone, which begat Pearl Jam. Eldest

brother Kevin formed the band Malfunkshun in 1979, a band credited with

influencing practically every group to come out of Seattle (although he denies

it) and Devilhead's new CD, Pest Control , is one of the wildest,

intriguing things this side of the Melvins. It's sort of like if two members of

Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, for instance, got together to record

a new album and then couldn't convince anybody to take them out on tour. Okay,

maybe it's not really like that. But there's no doubting the fact that brothers

Brian and Kevin Wood were as musically influential to a whole raft of bands, in

their own small (and seemingly forgotten) way, as the Zeppers, and they can't

even get anyone to take their band out on tour. Even though their

true debut for LooseGroove (their first effort,

1994's

Your Ice Cream's Dirty was just a poorly-recorded demo) Pest

Control is a charming, weird and wonderful amalgam of jazzy numbers and

funky metal freak-outs, the Seattle brothers are doomed to sit at home this

summer. Kevin, along with his departed brother, Andrew (later of Mother Love

Bone), started the seminal Seattle band, Malfunkshun, and as a family the Woods

have been sawing away at the musical bit for over 16 years. Which brings us

back to the Devilhead tour. When last I spoke to eldest Wood, Kevin, he said

the band still didn't have a booking agent, and furthermore, in the cruelest

irony, when they begged their pals in a BIG Seattle band to try and get them on

Lollapalooza, the message came back that they were "too young and inexperienced

a band" to join the festival. "I guess the feeling was that we hadn't paid our

dues," said Kevin, whose been in bands since 1979, but strangely, never toured

the country, laughing to himself. Devilhead plan to beg Pearl Jam to take them

on the road in the fall, and if that fails, well, they'll just wait around some

more and keep bugging people.