O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Ceremony: First Rite of Passage

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO —  We critics are supposed to be an evenhanded bunch, but every so often it’s hard not to be predisposed to hate an act.

More often than not, this attitude stems from reading a group’s record-company publicity releases. These things supposedly intend to engage and inform us writers; more often than not they’re such annoyingly formulaic and platitudinous drivel that the labels would do better to send us a hose to spray their acts with.

Consider the new group Ceremony, which made its debut Wednesday at the Coach House. Judging by the tone of its press release, we’re supposed to somehow appreciate the fact that the group’s writers/singers, Chastity Bono and mono-monikered Chance, have backgrounds in cloistered drama and arts schools but haven’t been bothered much with that messy business of actually playing music for people.

Bono, their bio weeps, also bears the burden of having grown up with rich and famous parents Sonny and Cher, which--sorry--doesn’t quite tug at the heartstrings the way the Billie Holiday story does.

But then, given such TV shows as “Beverly Hills 90210,” America clearly loves watching rich kids struggle to express themselves. So who’s to complain that Ceremony’s situation is such that the group exists in a world where it can make its concert debut after recording its major label album, though that smacks of the star-factory process that recently brought us Nelson, Wilson-Phillips and other too-perfect packaged products?

All that said, Ceremony’s performance turned out to be a pleasant, if not major, surprise. Their soon-to-be-released Geffen album “Hang Out Your Poetry” is a tuneful, predigested blend of ELO and the Bangles, and in concert the group fortunately tends toward the latter band’s buoyant ‘60s pop harmonies.

They’re not quite as pretty as Nelson, but Chastity and Chance are virtual twins. (If they could only find a third singer named Contraceptive, they’d be the only band starring the three major forms of birth control.) They dressed nearly alike in professionally torn blue jeans and hippie-era tops, and both sported ‘60s “Cher hair,” with bangs and the perfectly straight tresses women used to use an iron to achieve.

Unlike her mom, Chastity’s no belter. But both she and Chance took turns singing lead with likable voices that nimbly navigated their sometimes complex harmony interplay. The only time that either faltered was when they tried to emote extemporaneously near the end of some songs.

The pair’s well-intentioned but dippy lyrics--such as “Everyday is the first day of my life”--sound as if they were bagged at a Hallmark store, but those were easily forgotten amid upbeat melodies and richly harmonized choruses.

The well-received 10-song set came from the “Hang Out Your Poetry” album with one exception, a rote peace anthem evidently titled “Only One World.” The only real clunker in the bunch was the album’s title track, in which poetry was notably absent in its exhortations to pursue the creative life.

The standouts of the album songs were “Steal Your Heart,” which boasted some fine post-Everlys duet harmonies, and “Ready for Love,” which benefited from some McCartney-like melodic bass playing from Louie Ruiz. He, guitarist Pete McRae, keyboardist Steve Bauman and drummer Bryn Mathieu weren’t mere hirelings but clearly account for a large part of the music’s cohesion and its modicum of invention.

Ceremony wasn’t the only surprise of the evening. Usually the only question about opening acts around here is whether it’s U2 they’re going to rip off for their sound or the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

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Wednesday night’s opening act, Stranger, proved to be fresh, tight, creative, and downright exciting, inspiring one of the most crowded, vociferous dance pits the Coach House has seen in some time.

The South County band takes a tough funk sound, atypically fleshes it out with a 12-string acoustic guitar, and chops up and recombines rhythms in a way that is both novel and propulsive.

Lead guitarist David Hada’s sculpted playing was nearly cliche-free, while Evan Richards’ assured vocals overpowered even the band’s campy selection of “What’s the Buzz” from “Jesus Christ Superstar.” They also made the Motown classic “My Girl” their own, but it was their feisty originals that carried the show. This is a band well worth keeping an eye on.