Q and not U.

READING THE LINER NOTES OF THE DISCHORD RECORDS 20th-anniversary box set, it would be easy to get the impression that Q And Not U is the shining savior of the Washington DC music scene. The book that comes with the three-CD set describes how the label's captains, Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson, considered giving it up because they were growing less and less in touch with the town's increasingly young punk scene. Then along came Q And Not U, with its striking twin-guitar onslaught of math-heavy post-punk.

It seems a little dramatic really, but Q And Not U is changing how people feel about DC punk. Although the scene there was never really dying, Q And Not U, along with a handful of young bands, have rejuvenated it nonetheless, injecting into the tried-and-true mold of punk creativity an avant garde artistic element.

Ever wary of becoming inert, Q And Not U has managed in its relatively short life to stay fresh. After releasing the stellar No Kill No Beep Beep in 2000 and losing its bass player Matt Borlik shortly thereafter, the band gleefully reinvented itself as a more finely tuned, tightly compact reflection of its original self.

"It's down to three of us and that is just going to change the sonic dynamic," says John Davis, the band's drummer. "The main effect, I think, is that we feel much more free to write what we want and try new things."

The new lineup forced the band to become multi-instrumentalists on its new record, Different Damage, with original guitarists Chris Richards and Harris Klahr trading off on bass duty and picking up all manner of ancillary instruments. Though the band's original configuration of dueling guitar is mostly absent in its contemporary form, that disruption seems to have affected the unit for the better. Davis says it's that willinguess to adapt and be creative that draws people to the band.

"Some people like the twin guitar thing," says Davis. "But there are other things too. If there's anything that keeps people interested in what we're doing it's that we're writing good songs and we mean it when we play"

Perhaps more difficult than adapting to a new configuration as a band is learning to meld the old with the new. Q And Not U, however, are enthusiastic about the task of adapting old songs to a new lineup.

"Right now, we can play about five songs from the last record," says Davis. "We'll keep relearning them along the way. It's fun for us to re-imagine them and make them interesting to play again."