`Running With Scissors' Cuts Its Niche In Thrash

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

Running With Scissors, Sky Cries Mary and Central Washington Guitar Quartet. Tonight at 7:30, Rialto Theater, 310 S. Main St., Tacoma. Tickets: $10, all ages. For information, call 591-5894. -----------------------------------------------------------------

On experiencing the sartorial splendor of Running with Scissors' lead vocalist Denny Porter, one is almost immediately reminded of that line from "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon: "I'd like to meet his tailor."

One is also reminded of a Scotch Tape ad. Porter seems to have a

perverse love of plaid.

Running With Scissors is a little more than three years old, younger than some, older than most, a Tacoma-based band that shares few similarities with other Tacoma-based bands. If any. The same holds true for the Scissor's Seattle members. Porter and his bandmates John Fox (bass), John Atten (guitars), Brian Parker (keyboards) and newest recruit Chris White (drums) are more in tune with the Brits, than, say, the Kinks. Certainly dedicated-follower-of-fashion Porter has a Ray Davies bent, or perhaps David Bowie in almost any incarnation.

But Porter blames it on the Beatles.

"I saw `A Hard day's Night' when I was a kid and said, `That's it, that's what I want to do.' I started playing guitar in the eighth grade and I joined a ninth-grade band and I've been doing it ever since. And I still go back and look at `Hard Day's Night' every now and then. Old Stones, too. And the New York Dolls and early Alice Cooper. People don't realize what a big influence those guys were on a lot of people."

But isn't just appearances or demeanor, no matter how odd, that set the band apart, it's the music. Keyboards, especially synthesizers, are not the featured instrument they were in the '70s and '80s. Trios and two-guitar quartets are much more the norm in rock, and usually work at some level for those involved. But RWS has more stuff to do. The songs, with lyrics tailored by Porter and group-composed melodies, tend to be more complicated than the standard 4/4 issue. They require that greater instrumental augmentation to float the loftier ideas and cover for those more scurrilous. Porter's little lyrical perversities are those of a man who likes to look long at the underbelly of life - and then tickle it. Yet the music whips and soars enough to keep him and everything else from getting too soiled. Still, he tries.

The band released its third CD "Ordinary Leper" in November and is readying to go back to the studio again.

RWS has also played almost every club in the greater Tacoma/Seattle area and has ventured farther south as well. And while the road isn't always all that great, it's always something to talk about.

"There's a place called Al's Cafe, down in the middle of L.A.," Porter said with relish, "that doesn't have a square inch that hasn't been violated by some sort of excrement. All I could do was walk through and videotape it. Incredible. You couldn't vandalize it, it was already too trashed. But in a really good kind of way."

And then there is the plaid thing. Really, when all is said and done, is plaid really his favorite material? "Always has been," he readily replied. "Always.