'70S BAND RIDES AGAIN BY ANY NAME, WAR'S SOUND STILL HOLDS UP.

Byline: Fred Shuster Music Writer

Look up ``lowrider band'' on the Internet and you'll find a quartet described as ``ambassadors of Swedish psychedelic stoner rock,'' an Australian group specializing in corporate parties, and the ensemble that performed such hits as ``Cisco Kid'' and ``Slippin' Into Darkness.''

That last group, which created a string of memorable Top-40 singles in the '70s (including that song -- ``Low Rider''), was known as War, but for legal reasons, the principal members now call themselves the Lowrider Band.

Regardless of name and the company it keeps in cyberspace, the seven-member outfit maintains an appealing mix of blues, funk and r&b, a much-sampled sound that holds up almost 35 years after War's landmark ``The World Is a Ghetto'' album was released.

Based partly around the harmonica of Copenhagen-born Lee Oskar, the Lowrider Band also includes ex-War members Harold Brown (drums/vocals), B.B. Dickerson (bass/vocals) and Howard Scott (guitar/vocals), plus other players. The group, whose members are spread throughout the country, opens for Los Lobos in two area dates -- Tuesday at the House of Blues Anaheim and Wednesday at the House of Blues Sunset Strip.

``The sound is the same,'' says Oskar, 60. ``We play it like we always did, with plenty of room to jam. It's the sound of the streets before everything got stupid.''

We second that emotion. On stage or off, ``Slippin' Into Darkness'' remains one of the most perfectly realized funk workouts in pop history (right up there with the Meters' ``People Say'' and the Ohio Players' ``Fire''), while tunes like the 13-minute-plus jazz-flavored ``City, Country, City'' and ``Four Cornered Room'' are the ideal soundtrack to just about anything.

``We dug the blues, jazz, the Latin stuff,'' said Oskar, whose line of namesake harmonicas, introduced in 1983, is well-established in musician circles. ``The big thing was to find a groove and stick with it.''

Along with record-buyers, the critics agreed. DownBeat magazine, the jazz bible, labeled War's music, which was often spiced with timbales and other forms of Latin percussion, ``a godsend ... irresistibly funky without bludgeoning the beat.''

Meanwhile, War's songs have been covered or sampled by artists ranging from Janet Jackson, Shaggy, Macy Gray and TLC to Korn and Smashmouth.

But even as the Lowrider Band performs ``Cisco Kid,'' ``Spill the Wine'' and the other '70s hits on tour, so does the group that got to keep the name War. That band features lone original member Lonnie Jordan (vocals-keyboards).

According to record producer Jerry Goldstein -- who got legal rights to the War name -- he put the band together to back British blues-rock singer Eric Burdon after seeing the musicians playing in 1969 at a topless beer bar in the San Fernando Valley, backing Deacon Jones, the pro football player.

``Eric was so blown away by what he had heard that he jumped on stage to jam with them,'' Goldstein relates on the War site. ``The guys were so sheltered, that they hadn't even heard of Eric or the Animals. I had them in the studio within a week, and the rest is history!''

After Burdon and War scored with the Latin-flavored single, ``Spill the Wine,'' the group went to London, where Jimi Hendrix jammed with the band at Ronnie Scott's Club on Sept. 17, 1970, the night Hendrix died.

Upon returning to the States, Burdon bailed, and War was left to its own devices. The band soldiered on, creating a string of hit singles and albums, until disco apparently made funky street rhythms seem old hat. Eventually, the musicians split into two camps.

``The world is still a ghetto,'' Jordan states on the War site. ``There will always be a reason to play our songs. ... We're like Levi's, and there's nothing nostalgic about Levi's. In fact, they're not really good and funky until they've been worn awhile.''

Fred Shuster, [phone]

[e-mail]

LOWRIDER BAND

Where: House of Blues Anaheim, 1530 S. Disneyland Drive, Anaheim; House of Blues Sunset Strip, 8430 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. Opening for Los Lobos both dates.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday (Anaheim) and Wednesday (Hollywood).

Tickets: $32.50 both venues. [phone]; ticketmaster.com.

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The Lowrider Band, which includes former War members, has an appealing mix of blues, funk and r&b, a much-sampled sound that holds up almost 35 years after War's landmark ``The World Is a Ghetto'' album was released.