Copyright 1991 The Times Mirror Company   
Los Angeles Times
February 21, 1991, Thursday, Orange County Edition
SECTION: OC Live; Page 6; OC Live
LENGTH: 469 words
HEADLINE: HERE COMES THE SUN;
JELLYFISH ECHOES THE BEATLES' CHEER, BUT IS BRIGHT ENOUGH TO CRAFT
ITS OWN STYLE
BYLINE: By MIKE BOEHM, Mike Boehm covers pop music for The Times
Orange County Edition.
BODY:

     Little darlings, it's been a long, cold, lonely winter.
     In short, early '91 has been a season in which we could all
use a little Beatlesque cheer. Paul McCartney's tour has come and
gone; George Harrison is still stage-shy. But here comes Jellyfish,
a new San Francisco band whose Beatles-derived pop and light
hearted thrift-shop fashion sense figure to bring around a little
sun.
     Jellyfish debuted last year with "Bellybutton," an album that
seemed intent on carrying on the job begun by Badfinger around the
time of the Beatles' demise -- keeping alive the Fab Four sound in
a world no longer graced by their collective Fabness.
     "Bellybutton" is rife with smart stylistic borrowings and
occasional overt sonic quotations from the Beatles. At the same
time, Jellyfish's songwriters -- singer-drummer Andy Sturmer and
keyboards player Roger Manning -- are quirky and literate enough in
 their own right to make Jellyfish sound like a fresh take on an
old style, rather than a stale rehash.
     Both in their mid-20s, Sturmer and Manning have been working
together since their high school days in the Alameda County
community of Pleasanton. They got their first exposure as members
of Beatnik Beatch, a San Francisco band that put out a 1988 album
o
n Atlantic Records. Seeking greater control over its sound, the duo
left to form Jellyfish, which also includes guitarist Jason Falkner
and Manning's brother, Chris, on bass.
     Jellyfish stepped forward last summer, swathed in imagery
calculated to conjure up the Summer of Love: floral pants and
printed shirts out of Haight-Ashbury and Carnaby Street; hats out
of Lewis Carroll and Dr. Seuss. The "Bellybutton" album cover cast
t
hem as colorful Lilliputians swarming around a nude body decorated
with blue-gel toothpaste.
     "This band has always enjoyed presenting itself colorfully,"
Roger Manning said in an interview last fall. "A lot of that stuff
we wear day in and day out. We just raided a lot of thrift stores."
     While Jellyfish's music is sometimes as light and sunny as the
band's name, album title and outward trappings would suggest, the
group also is capable of delivering substance. One song, "The Man
I Used To Be," is all too resonant in this long, cold, lone
ly winter. It's a strange, sad ghost story in which a sailor killed
in battle watches helplessly as, years later, the son he left
behind prepares to fight in yet another war.

     What: Jellyfish.
     When: Friday, Feb. 22, at 9 p.m. (A show on Thursday, Feb. 21,
at        Bogart's is sold out.) With Standing Hawthorne and the 
          Fishermen.
     Where: The Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan
          Capistrano.
     Whereabouts: Interstate 5 to the San Juan Creek Road exit.
Left onto
          Camino Capistrano. The Coach House is in the Esplanade
Center.
     Wherewithal: $13.50.
     Where to call: (714) 496-8930.

GRAPHIC: Photo, The Beatlesesque Jellyfish carries on where
Badfinger left off.