Blues Traveler: Nothing Wrong With The Band's Music, Or Looks

----------------------------------------------------------------- Concert preview

Blues Traveler, 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, Seattle Center Arena; $19.50, 628-0888. -----------------------------------------------------------------

When MTV wouldn't play Blues Traveler's videos because its frontman, John Popper, was fat, the band didn't just get mad, it got even.

It produced a video for the song "Run-Around" that mocked the snub, showing Blues Traveler playing behind a curtain while a fake band of slim, good-looking young men lip-synched in front, for a wildly appreciative young audience. Then the curtain falls, the audience sees the real band of normal, if imperfect, human beings - and doesn't care what they look like, because the music is so good.

MTV couldn't deny the video, because it was clever, funny and good-spirited - and the song was dynamite. Besides, as soon as they played it (initially late at night) they started getting requests for it. It quickly was in heavy rotation, and became one of MTV's most popular videos of the year. VH1 also picked it up, and it is that cable channel's third most-played video of all time.

The song turned out to be a turning point for Blues Traveler. It was the key to an elusive success that the gifted, eclectic band had been working hard for since it released its debut "Blues Traveler" album in 1989. "Run-Around" soared into the Billboard Top Ten singles chart, and the disc it came from, "four," hit the Top Ten albums list, and went double platinum. Even the band's back catalog took off, with its debut album going gold six years after it was released.

No band deserved success more. Blues Traveler is an amazingly talented bunch, starting with Popper, who is a virtuoso harmonica player and an exceptional singer. Guitarist Chan Kinchla shows impressive range, playing solos and fills that interconnect blues, jazz and rock riffs. When the band improvises, which it does often, he really soars, demonstrating inventiveness, wit and style. Bassist Bobby Sheehan and drummer Brendan Hill provide a solid rhythm foundation for the band's wildly diverse range of styles. Its eclecticism used to be considered a problem, because the band is hard to categorize. Are they blues? Rock? Jazz? Funk? They are all that and more, and their diversity has turned out to not matter because they do everything so well. They've developed their own style.

The band is well named. It has traveled constantly since its first album, winning audiences on the road when its eclecticism kept it off radio and its looks kept it off MTV. The band built a large fan base, which helped when the group exploded in popularity earlier this year. One of Blues Traveler's goals was to play all 50 states. It will accomplish that one week from the show here, when it finally plays Hawaii.