Deliverance

Chick-a, chick-a, chick-a, chick-a, chick. Sssssssssssssss.

Musicians do lots of things before shows—sleep, drink, lie around dressing rooms.

Chick-a, chick-a, chick-a, chick-a, chick. Sssssssssssssss.

Nathan Howdeschell, guitarist for Olympia's the Gossip, is manufacturing—sort of. Out in the courtyard behind San Francisco's Bottom of the Hill club, he's armed with a stencil in one hand and a can of pink spray paint in the other. Hanes white T-shirts are piled on a glass table, and he swashes each with a lightning bolt and the band's name underneath.

Chick-a, chick-a, chick-a, chick-a, chick. Sssssssssssssss.

Mind you, doors have been open for the Gossip's show—the last on their nationwide summer tour—for a half-hour. There are several fans milling about next to the T-shirt operation. If Howdeschell had an enterprising bone in his body, he'd boast about working with "just-in-time delivery." Instead he fesses up that the band ran out of shirts the night before. Though his voice is marked by dips and lilts and shyness, it's full of assured pride when he notes that the makeshift assembly allows the Gossip to charge a mere six bucks per shirt.

The Gossip—Howdeschell, singer Beth Ditto, and drummer Kathy Mendonca—prefer to make their rock 'n' roll as bare bones as their merchandise. But lump 'em with today's neo-trad newsmakers and they're likely to . . . well, they're too nice a bunch to do anything violent, but you'll definitely get a heap of indignant sass. And they've got a point. The Gossip ain't city folk. Their brand of rock 'n' roll is less studied than the White Stripes' blues; the band scorns the Hives' slick shtick.

So what do they have? Start with Mendonca's Mo Tucker-sparse drums. Fold in Howdeschell's guitar, plain as dirt, seductive as Mississippi mud pie. Top it all off with vocals from Ditto, a feminist, fat-friendly, queer-happy soul shouter, who shows by sure-as-shit example how a crowd should be getting down at a rock 'n' roll party.

It bears repeating: The Gossip are not city folk. They're not even Olympia folk. The band came to the Evergreen State a few years back from the Arkansas backwoods of Searcy and Judsonia—a move they're thankful for, particularly after a recent tour stop in Little Rock.

"It [was] really strange to be there and be at the place I am now," Mendonca, 23, says, shivering in a cool San Fran summer breeze. "I've seen so much stuff and experienced so much stuff that I never thought I'd do. I've seen the whole country. I've been so many places.

"It's really crazy to go back and see people that I went to high school with who I thought were so much better than I was. Now they're married and they have two kids, and they're like, 'You got out. I can't believe you got out. I envy you so much.'"

Searcy, Ark.: "Where thousands live like millions wish they could," according to the Chamber of Commerce. Largest employer: Wal-Mart, whose facility provides 1,325 jobs and has earned the company's award for best distribution center 11 of the past 14 years. Median household income: $32,321. Population: just under 19,000; add 1,900 for nearby Judsonia.

People know each other there. Howdeschell's great aunt is married to Mendonca's uncle. Ditto's mother and Mendonca's aunt both work at Central Arkansas Hospital. Mind you, White County isn't entirely cut off from the rest of the world; earlier this year, the local Army National Guard unit left to serve with the multinational force in the Sinai.

Life in Searcy was smaller when Howdeschell, now 22, was in high school. With a dog collar on his neck and a black suit on his back during even the hottest days, he was the kind of misfit that city folks would've recognized as an artist in training. His classmates saw him as a misfit, period.

"It was us vs. the world," he says.

Those were pre-Gossip days. Mendonca left town first, heading west for a year at Evergreen State College. Howdeschell and Ditto followed. The band was launched in Olympia in early 2000.

It's still them vs. the world, but now it's less a battle than a challenge: a challenge to break through the thick fog that's enveloped too many young kids; a challenge to get those kids wondering why they rarely see fat people, queers, or women portrayed as anything other than mere objects or sideshow spectacles on MTV or in Spin.

The Gossip have been furiously spreading the word. They've toured the U.S. three times, once with Sleater-Kinney, twice as headliners. They played the inaugural Ladyfest arts and activism event in Olympia in 2000 as well as the 2001 edition in Scotland. Preaching to the converted? Maybe, but the music's strong enough to reach for a broader audience. The Gossip's self-titled debut lays down their dare early on: "If you wanna do it, well, then come and do it!" Ditto sings on the opener, "Red Hott"—not so much a come-on as a "Come on!" Their full-length follow-up That's Not What I Heard is longer but less patient and positively Prince-like in its demands ("Better make it good, better make it now") and promises ("I'll show you things like you've never seen").