Beyond the Wall of Voodoo.

Byline: Carolyn Lamberson The Register-Guard

The name Stan Ridgway may not ring any bells. But mention Wall of Voodoo and, more precisely, the hit single "Mexican Radio," and the bells will chime.

That twangy, nasal voice. The lyrics "I wish I was in Tijuana/ Eating barbecued iguana." And a defining image from the video: a guy's head popping up out of a bowl of pinto beans.

Yeah, that Stan Ridgway.

It's been more than 20 years since Ridgway left Wall of Voodoo, the avant-garde, new wave band he helped form in the late '70s. Since then, he's continued to produce his own peculiar brand of rock music.

And on Monday night, the Stan Ridgway Trio will stop by the WOW Hall in support of his ninth album, "Snakebite: Blacktop Ballads and Fugitive Sons."

Wall of Voodoo originally formed to produce sound tracks for low-budget horror movies. As the allmusicguide.com biography puts it: "The group was eventually swept up into the local post-punk new wave scene, where their combination of Ennio Morricone, Lefty Frizzell and crime novelist Jim Thompson was loved and hated with equal passion."

Ridgway left the band in 1983, at the height of its popularity. And while "Mexican Radio" is destined to forever put Wall of Voodoo among M (`Pop Muzik') and the Vapors (`Turning Japanese') as the great one-hit wonders of the '80s, Ridgway went back to the movies.

He collaborated with Police drummer Stewart Copeland on the sound track for Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 teen drama "Rumble Fish," and he scored a minor hit with the single from the sound track, "Don't Box Me In." Ridgway also worked on music for the films "Slam Dance" and "Pump Up the Volume."

In many ways, "Snakebite" continues the songwriting style that Ridgway established way back with Wall of Voodoo. Its 16 songs are quite cinematic, portraits of loners and losers that are painted with equal parts jazz, blues, country folk and rock - with Kurt Weill and Bo Diddley tossed in for good measure.

Ridgway even remembers and honors his past with "Talkin' Wall of Voodoo Blues, Pt. 1." It's a cautionary tale that recounts the band's rise and fall, complete with "shark" agents and contracts that are 200 pages long.

It also remembers the band members who since have died: drummer Joe Nanini and guitarist Marc Moreland.

`Didn't want no MTV/ Didn't want no VH1/ Was a time so long ago/ Yeah we had some punk-rock fun,' Ridgway sings in his distinctive voice. "Made a great big noise/ For all the girls and boys/ It was 1977/ Now two are gone to heaven."

CONCERT PREVIEW

Stan Ridgway Trio

With: DeVotchKa

When: 9 p.m. Monday

Where: WOW Hall, 291 W. Eighth Ave.

Tickets: $10 advance, $12 at the door

CAPTION(S):

Stan Ridgway still sings with a distinctive nasal twang.