Mindflower have been a tireless staple in the L.A. rock scene for a long while now, this night opening for headliners Modern English. As with most alt-rock these days, you can expect the token fishnet shirts, leather pants, and rock-star hair we've all come to love. You can expect to see the specter of The Doors, what with vocalist Randy Bates' stage antics and visual style and keyboardist Ira Saltzman's conjuring of Ray Manzarek's hammond organ by way of Kurzweil plug-ins. What you won't expect is the considerable lack of angst. Far from the typical guttural rage of their modern counterparts, Mindflower opt instead to quit the misery trip and take the high road to positive power-pop that doesn't seek to alienate, but include.

Seems a little out of place in this current market, I'm sure. But to be honest, I'll be willing to step up and say it's about time. Can't we all relate to joy at some point, even if it's not all that fashionable in these days of ultra-hip, devil-may-care nihilism? Mindflower are well down the road to expressing it in a way that doesn't make me cringe. I mean, let's be honest, there's only so much Korn I can take before I need to go chew on a doorknob or something. I don't need any more basses with the E string tuned down to C. I don't want anything thrown at me from the stage, punctuated by some four-letter word. I don't want to see anyone else's lily-white ass peeking out at me from strategically-placed holes in some hideous garment. I'm over it. Sometimes, you wanna just hop around with a big grin on your face and not care about how cool you look. This band thinks it's cool to be happy and manage to carry their message like grownups and professionals. May God bless them.

Bassist Martin Davis is apparently the band's other stage presence, choosing not to hide behind his hair or his instrument and instead making direct eye contact with the audience, as well as choosing a playing style that reminds me a little of Sting and playing with a precision to match.

Guitarist Craig Martin will give the rockers something to mull over, with his own backlight rig and Eddie Van Halen-esque ownership of the strings. Drummer Joey Klaparda is obviously the big kid of the group, infusing the set with a rare groove. Saltzman's mix was off at times, but once it got rolling, his arrangements added a lot to the overall feel of the set. It's refreshing to find a group of people like this who just play well and are getting better every day.

Mindflower, when assessed simply by name, probably sounds like some neo-hippie outfit, and I wish it didn't. It just isn't right for this band. And a name like that tends to make even the most adventurous shy away when confronted with the thought of one more tie-dye-and-Birkenstock rehashing. Fortunately, you're not going to get that here. Old-fashioned rock prevails, and the band cites influences from the Smashing Pumpkins to Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars" as influences.

Obviously, they've played a hell of a lot, and the effort shows (it may not seem like it in a half-empty club, guys, but trust me, you impress). I'm hoping that someone's going to see this and figure out that their day has come. I'm not sure I hear their first single yet, that one that gets on the radio that you can't shake out of your head no matter how hard you try. But I'm willing to bet that sometime soon, you just might find yourself humming along to something new on your usually-crummy modern-rock station.and it'll be Mindflower, ready to conquer the world with an awfully nice smile, for once.