by: Steven Gossett

Upstate New York is more of a mecca for snow than rock 'n' roll, but two bands are looking to change all that, although in distinctly different ways.

Indeed, 10,000 Maniacs, from Jamestown, and the Chesterfield Kings, from Rochester, have little in common besides their shared New York geography.

The Maniacs are getting national attention for complex yet intriguing music that embraces everything from calypso to the best of Europop. It's a soothing lining for disturbing lyrics on such topics as nuclear holocaust and working-class stuggles.

On the other hand, the Kings just want to dance, blasting into the past in tribute to a slew of 1960s garage bands, but expanding that limited style for a brand new sound 20 years later.

The name "10,000 Maniacs," which sounds like just another punk outfit, was chosen to set them apart from the many cover bands playing upstate when the group began in 1981.

That sense of individuality allowed the Maniacs to hone an eclectic brand of folk rock like none other. The music might sound innocent enough, but the band's message is definitely not tame.

"Music doesn't really play the role that it did in people's lives 15 years ago," guitarist John Lombardo, 32, said. "It doesn't really address social issues. It doesn't give people anything to rally around."

To counter that musical malaise, Natalie Merchant, the band's lyricist and lead singer, focuses on the plight of the factory worker in Maddox Table, forced Indian migration in Among The Americans and lost childhood innocence in Back O' The Moon.

Merchant, 22, does not mind leaving the love songs to someone else. Her music is driven by a lingering sense of fear and despair, and she believes that "if I can reach someone or change someone's mind with what I say, then that's what counts."

But 10,000 Maniacs know how to make a statement without preaching, which helped vaunt The Wishing Chair, their first album on a major label, onto the 10 best lists of many critics last year. So far, though, that acclaim has not been echoed in record stores -- only about 50,000 copies of the album, on Elektra, have been sold worldwide.

"We're a long way from big money. In fact, we're still in the red," Lombardo said, explaining why the six members of the band still live in Jamestown with their parents.