The Fluid: Denver Band With The Seattle Sound

The Fluid, rock music, with Killsybil tonight at RKCNDY, 1812 Yale Ave., $8, 623-0470, and with Alcohol Funny Car and Zip Gun tomorrow night at the OK Hotel, 212 Alaskan Way, 223-1721. --------------------------------------------------------------- It's tempting to say the Fluid is set to make a Mickey Mouse record deal.

That would be unfair, taken in the colloquial sense, but this is Mickey Mouse in the literal sense, as in the Disney-owned Hollywood Records. According to lead singer John Robinson and manager Art Collins, the Denver-based rock band with a strong "Seattle sound" connection may be days from finalizing a deal with Hollywood, one of the latest "major label" record companies to emerge.

A spokeswoman for Hollywood Records would neither confirm nor deny that the label is negotiating with the band.

The shows at RKCNDY tonight and at the OK Hotel tomorrow night, which will feature a number of the group's new songs, could be a triumphant return to the city that has recognized the band as honorary members of its scene.

The group has gone into hibernation since its 1990 split from Seattle's SubPop Records, where it released two albums and an EP. The Fluid played two Seattle shows last year, which featured several new songs, but its ultimately fruitless negotiations with several different record labels has meant no new releases and no publicity for the group. Robinson admits that morale was low for the band during that period.

"Before the last several months, when we started talking to Hollywood, we had a full run of emotional highs and lows," Robinson said from his Denver home last week. "Everybody in the group experienced times when they were about ready to give it up. Fortunately, we didn't."

If Hollywood does sign the band, it will be performing a public service in preserving one of the best American underground bands in existence. As the first band outside of Seattle to be signed by SubPop, the Fluid helped forge the "Seattle sound" as a spiritual extension of 1969 Detroit, where bands like the Stooges and MC5 were inventing punk rock.

Robinson says comparisons between the Fluid and the Detroit bands is something critics have all picked up on. All the essential elements are there: simple, straightforward songs, raw, angry vocals, caustic energy and guitar riffs as raw and meaty and American as steaks plopped on the grill on the Fourth of July.

Although the band's initial identity was as a SubPop band, there's a pop element in its music that set it apart from the first group of bands to sign with the label. The infectious energy in its live shows was one of the key similarities between the Fluid and the rest of the SubPop clan, and has been a primary reason the band has been able to draw substantial crowds to its last two Seattle stops despite having no new material.

The split with SubPop, which label co-executive Jonathan Poneman places as sometime during 1990, was an ugly one. According to Robinson, the group split because it felt its records were poorly distributed. He also contends that "we never really saw any money out of the label, and didn't get paid until Nirvana sales took off," referring to SubPop's deal with DGC that gave SubPop profits when Nirvana's "Nevermind" sold six million records.

Poneman, however, contends that the label spent considerable money on the group, only to have it ignore an offer for what he called a "large amount of money" two years ago when SubPop was attempting to negotiate a distribution deal with CBS (now Sony Music.)

Despite the split, the band and the label have a grudging respect for each other. Robinson said he has put his bitterness toward SubPop behind him and credits the label for helping them gain a footing in the Seattle scene. And Poneman, for all his resentment, still says the Fluid is a great rock band.

The group's new material will probably be marketed to college radio initially, but Robinson sees crossover appeal. "It's got heavy guitar, it's loud and fast, but there's a poppy vocal melody coursing through. It keeps getting more catchy."