Garbage

Many a great band winds up in the dustbin of history, but Garbage seems to like it there. Formed by high-profile producer Butch Vig (Nevermind) and a pair of hometown buddies, the three got more than they bargained for when they picked their lead singer, Shirley Manson, off the TV. Although Manson had been in bands before, she'd never written songs, and Vig freely admits she was chosen because "we liked her voice." He chuckles: "We had no idea she was going to become a pop diva."

But diva she is, in her own twisted, rust-haired ex-goth kind of way. On Version 2.0, Garbage's sophomore release, she's a wolf, a vampire, a demon and a bonfire—and that's just on the first song. Ever the self-effacing producer type, Vig kicks most of the credit for the cast improvements of Version 2.0 Manson's way. The band's self-titled debut, he says, "came together much more fractured. We didn't have any grand plan of how it was going to sound." On V 2.0, he allows, "Shirley's singing is much more personal and direct, more confident." As opposed to the loop-based writing process of the first album, many of the new songs were written with Manson's vocal track as the base, leading to what Vig calls a "more cohesive and forceful" album.

Despite all the hits the band's taken for being prefab, don't be fooled by the bare stage, Top of the Pops appearance of their live show. The guitar and bass amps are kept in sealed offstage boxes to prevent interference with the enormous array of effects necessary to duplicate the album's sound, which runs the gamut from late '60s psychedelica to late '90s drum and bass. "It's actually a pretty quiet show [on stage]," Vig says. "If you were to turn off the PA, you'd just hear Shirley singing a capella, and maybe my hi-hat." And how does Vig, who plays drums, duplicate the album's blistering, blender-chopped rhythm loops? Playing acoustic drums that are linked to samples instead of miked, Vig scrolls through a set list's worth of programming choices on a small computer next to the drum kit. But even with all that technology, the pressure's still on Vig: "Basically," he says with a laugh, "I can't fuck up."

-Sam Adams

Garbage, Tue., Oct. 27, 8 p.m., Electric Factory, Seventh and Willow, 336-2000.