Ondine Is On The Way Up With Its Own Soul, Sound

WHO ARE THE MEMBERS OF ONDINE? LUCA SACCHETTI, VOCALS ERIK CASTRO, GUITAR RAY ZOZAYA, BASS JAMIL HAI, DRUMS

Have you ever wished you had seen a band before they hit big?

What if there were four guys, on the verge of it, playing at RKCNDY Thursday night? Would you go?

The band is called Ondine.

That's pronounced On-dean, as in "Right on, Dean," or as in the French play about the water nymph and the prince who dies of a broken heart.

Maybe you've heard Ondine before. The End has been throwing the band into the station's Sunday night mix of local talent, right along with Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Soundgarden.

Or maybe you've seen the band before, probably on stage at the Colourbox or the Off Ramp or the Fenix Underground.

You would remember if you had. The lead singer likes to dress up. Usually he performs in a silk European suit that ends up drenched in sweat. But once he came out dressed as a king, with a robe and a crown. Once, as a Catholic priest.

But it's not so much the band's look you'd remember. It's the musicians' sound.

You could say Ondine is a cross between any number of bands - Smashing Pumpkins and Roxy Music, Screaming Trees and Echo and the Bunnymen. But the band has a kind of soul that's all its own.

Don Gilmore, who has worked with Pearl Jam, produced its latest self-titled CD. The five songs on it, with their deep, powerful vocals, hypnotic guitars and driving rhythms, send out a

spiritual, majestic vibe. Some songs like "Dirty Shirt in a Dead Man's Closet" can make you want to boogie in the rain with your best friend, and others like "Under the Table" can persuade you to meditate in a flickering circle of candlelight.

Ondine went to the New Music Seminar in New York this summer. Though the band thought there was "too much record-exec politicing" going on, the members said the audience there was warm and receptive to their music. They played at a nightclub called The Cooler, a renovated meatpacking plant with meathooks still hanging from the ceiling. (The club gets so hot inside that it has been nicknamed The Boiler.)

The band members left Los Angeles a few years ago in search of a better music scene.

"The club scene here is more like a community . . . we've been out here for less than two years and we've already developed a following," guitarist Erik Castro said. The band's following is bound to grow even more. It's just a matter of time before they can quit their day jobs, pulling espresso and waiting tables.

Where to hear Ondine:

Thursday, Sept. 8: RKNDY, 1812 Yale Ave.