I was strolling around leisurely... why, just a few weeks back, I think it was. Yes, maybe a month ago at most, just kicking cans down the sidewalks of this here Windy City, a Chicago Bears cap on my head and bits of chewed sausage (I say "Sass-idge") in my stomach. That day, I was thinking about "The Day." You know, "The Day" that everyone always talks about being "Back In." "Back in The Day," I thought, "Chicago ruled the alternative music scene. Bands like Material Issue, Veruca Salt, and the Smashing Pumpkins were kicking ass all across this great land. But one-- only one band of them all-- got to cover a Neil Diamond song for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. That band was Urge Overkill. Man, those were the days! I wish Urge Overkill was still kicking that much ass..."

Or maybe it was someone else who thought that. Yes, come to think of it, it was. That was someone else, and I'm the one who got to review Nash Kato's first solo project, Debutante. I guess I'll never know quite how thrilled that other guy was on April 18, 2000 when Debutante was released. I can say with some certainty, however, that his expectations were probably a bit higher than mine. That in mind, anyone already offended may cautiously continue.

Now I'd like to assert that fans of Urge Overkill should handily recognize the hard rock musicality of Kato's new record. But can I even use the word "fan" in good conscience, here? "Fan" is a contraction, a shorter euphemism of the longer, more precise word "fanatic." Was anyone outside Chicago really fanatic about Urge Overkill? If anyone was, I apologize for not hearing about it.

Next, I'd like to explore the fact that Nash Kato very successfully toys with the expectations his fa-- well, let's just say "people who heard Urge Overkill"-- have built up over the years since Saturation lived up to its title in 1993. But just what were those expectations? Aside from Stone Gossard, whose Loosegroove label is said to have been "waiting" for Nash to re-emerge with enough material for a full-length, world anticipation of a forthcoming Nash Kato release couldn't rightfully be described as "at fever pitch." Or at any pitch, for that matter.

Thus, Debutante successfully defies my attempts at predictable rock journalism. If we can't comfortably discuss what's familiar about a record, we're left to revisit what makes it a surprise. Stuck between this rock and that hard place, what can one do but improvise, create, and extrapolate? The horror! Here goes:

Don't look now, but Nash Kato's Debutante reminds me of a fuel-injected, rock-oriented Steely Dan. That might be a more jolting comparison had Kato decided to leave a lackluster cover of "Dirty Work" off his solo debut. His faithful update of the Fagen-Becker classic seems freshly yanked from the soundtrack of some 1990s film about the '70s (Boogie Nights, I'm talking to you). Besides displaying an off-kilter J.D. Salinger reference, the album's opener, "Zooey Suicide," mimics The Dan with its kick-ass guitar line and ass-kicked narrative, this one of a short-lived, much-confused girl who's "one more flatliner/ by designer." Or so harmonize what Debutante's press calls the "soul sistah" backing vocalists.

Often, their involvement truly cements the Steely deal. I doubt I'll ever again hear Fagan or Becker record a sound so eerily hypnotic as when the "soul sistahs" croon, "Tonight I dreamt I saw an Octaroon." Just as damsels in modern forms of distress were fodder for Fagen's muse, so does Kato conjure beach scenes dappled with light shimmering off the brown skin of supermodel Laetitia Casta, the subject of this track. Even her song-worthy name gets the royal treatment; "Laetitia Casta.../ Hey, Octaroon!" is the bewildering but enigmatic chorus. As breakdown drums rumble, Kato philosophizes on the gray matter between the ears of models: "What's in your mind box, baby?/ Where you store all these scattered matters/ Try someplace cool and shady/ Transformer, Chutes and Ladders." There's a certain skewed genius in this blustery, rocking, sexy and sad number. Relatively unforgettable.

The title track similarly resurrects Kato's penchant for '70s rock swagger and matching lyrical chutzpah. "Whose escort services were you asking about for your jive cotillion?" Nash funk-queries. The response is a sistah'd "That's for me to know and you to find out!" of the backwards logic that made good '70s pop the distraction it was. Although the "Dirty Work" cover splits the album time-wise, and in terms of hyper-goofy creative juice, the mentionable "Born in the Eighties" issues forth some timely "Weird" Al-modeled cultural-historical detritus. If "Short hair, long in the back/ Working hard to look lazy" doesn't orient you to the attitude of Debutante's second half, what could?

When Kato concatenates the last 20 years with "Livin' in the Nineteen-Ninety-Eighties," we've successfully discussed four decades in all. Is that the definition of "timelessness?" Hmm... another matter for another time. Debutante, however, is that uncommon debut that paradoxically makes you re-appreciate much that has come before.

-Judson Picco