Bob Forrest

As the front man for local noise boys Thelonious Monster, Bob Forrest is known for performances that border on self-exorcism. So it's semi-logical he'd some day take this one-two combination of spleen-venting and soul-baring into that confessional rocker's refuge known as The Acoustic Set. As the opening act Sunday at Club Lingerie, Forrest and his Monster partner, guitarist Mike Martt, at least showed they still had enough brain cells left to keep it under 20 minutes.

Jason Davis, a 25-year-old heroin addict and grandson of oil billionaire Marvin Davis, was the most shameless cast member on "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew" last season, a distinction akin to being the nerdiest person at a "Star Trek" convention -- the bar is so high, you really have to reach for it. The show's medical team, led by addictionologist Drew Pinsky, spent the season trying to impress on Davis the direness of his disease. Among the earnest pleas, one voice seemed to crack through Davis' defenses.

Bob Forrest, the main creative force behind the rock group Thelonious Monster, says he's through with excuses. For six years, Forrest, 31, has written and recorded songs that spoke about post-teen alienation and insecurity with much of the truthful, insightful ring of the Replacements' Paul Westerberg or Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. But three albums and countless live shows failed to lift the Los Angeles band out of the college/alternative rock circuit and into the commercial mainstream.

In "The Bicycle Thief," Vittorio De Sica's 1948 film about working-class struggles, the story's protagonist, Ricci, rides a bike as part of his job as a movie-poster hanger in Rome. It gets stolen one day, setting off an agonizing and fruitless search by Ricci and his son, Bruno. In the end, Ricci succumbs to temptation and steals a bicycle himself, thus perpetuating a cycle of crime and poverty. At one point, Ricci says to his son: "You live and suffer. To hell with it! You want a pizza?"

Bob Forrest, the main creative force behind the rock group Thelonious Monster, says he's through with excuses. For six years, Forrest, 31, has written and recorded songs that spoke about post-teen alienation and insecurity with much of the truthful, insightful ring of the Replacements' Paul Westerberg or Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. But three albums and countless live shows failed to lift the Los Angeles band out of the college/alternative rock circuit and into the commercial mainstream.

The passage from underground rock cult figure to big-time contender is reputed to be something like puberty. It's a change that can be fraught with previously unimagined pressures and unpredictable mood swings, as an erstwhile champion of the underground's art-for-art's-sake ethic adjusts to the single imperative of pop's major leagues: sell a bundle of records, or else.

Thelonious Monster is as irreverent and fiercely independent a rock band as any to come out of Los Angeles in the '80s. The group's live shows early in its career were so unruly that I twice left clubs assuming the group had just broken up. If lead Monster Bob Forrest wasn't battling with his own bandmates, he was causing havoc with club owners or sound men. "We've got four managers," Forrest once said. "And they don't do anything except tell club owners, 'I'm sorry for the way the band acted.'

In "The Bicycle Thief," Vittorio De Sica's 1948 film about working-class struggles, the story's protagonist, Ricci, rides a bike as part of his job as a movie-poster hanger in Rome. It gets stolen one day, setting off an agonizing and fruitless search by Ricci and his son, Bruno. In the end, Ricci succumbs to temptation and steals a bicycle himself, thus perpetuating a cycle of crime and poverty. At one point, Ricci says to his son: "You live and suffer. To hell with it! You want a pizza?"

Jason Davis, a 25-year-old heroin addict and grandson of oil billionaire Marvin Davis, was the most shameless cast member on "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew" last season, a distinction akin to being the nerdiest person at a "Star Trek" convention -- the bar is so high, you really have to reach for it. The show's medical team, led by addictionologist Drew Pinsky, spent the season trying to impress on Davis the direness of his disease. Among the earnest pleas, one voice seemed to crack through Davis' defenses.

Bob Forrest, the main creative force behind the rock group Thelonious Monster, says he's through with excuses. For six years, Forrest, 31, has written and recorded songs that spoke about post-teen alienation and insecurity with much of the truthful, insightful ring of the Replacements' Paul Westerberg or Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. But three albums and countless live shows failed to lift the Los Angeles band out of the college/alternative rock circuit and into the commercial mainstream.

Bob Forrest, the main creative force behind the rock group Thelonious Monster, says he's through with excuses. For six years, Forrest, 31, has written and recorded songs that spoke about post-teen alienation and insecurity with much of the truthful, insightful ring of the Replacements' Paul Westerberg or Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. But three albums and countless live shows failed to lift the Los Angeles band out of the college/alternative rock circuit and into the commercial mainstream.

The passage from underground rock cult figure to big-time contender is reputed to be something like puberty. It's a change that can be fraught with previously unimagined pressures and unpredictable mood swings, as an erstwhile champion of the underground's art-for-art's-sake ethic adjusts to the single imperative of pop's major leagues: sell a bundle of records, or else.

Thelonious Monster is as irreverent and fiercely independent a rock band as any to come out of Los Angeles in the '80s. The group's live shows early in its career were so unruly that I twice left clubs assuming the group had just broken up. If lead Monster Bob Forrest wasn't battling with his own bandmates, he was causing havoc with club owners or sound men. "We've got four managers," Forrest once said. "And they don't do anything except tell club owners, 'I'm sorry for the way the band acted.'

As the front man for local noise boys Thelonious Monster, Bob Forrest is known for performances that border on self-exorcism. So it's semi-logical he'd some day take this one-two combination of spleen-venting and soul-baring into that confessional rocker's refuge known as The Acoustic Set. As the opening act Sunday at Club Lingerie, Forrest and his Monster partner, guitarist Mike Martt, at least showed they still had enough brain cells left to keep it under 20 minutes.

*** The Bicycle Thief, "You Come and Go Like a Pop Song," Goldenvoice. If people remember Bob Forrest at all, six years after his last record with Thelonious Monster, it's probably as the L.A. rock scene's quintessential loser--an eccentric, ingratiating talent who caught all the breaks and quickly squandered them. Forrest knows it too, and his first album with his new group is a scrappy, sprawling jumble of regret, defiance, despair, anger and hope.