The quirkier half of the songwriting team that helped define the outer limits of guitar-pop on the dB's "Stands for deciBels" and "Repercussion," Chris Stamey is back on the fast track after a decade spent behind the scenes, producing other peoples records. In the past year, he's released two very different albums, "Travels in the South" and the Yo La Tengo-assisted lost weekend recordings, "A Question of Temperature." And he's hoping to follow them up by the end of the year with another nearly finished album called "November," which he swears will be the greatest thing he's ever done. But the biggest surprise and most exciting news for dB's fans is he's making another dB's album, his first with the group since "Repercussion" back in 1982.

"I don't think I've written very differently since I was maybe 10 or 11, really. I mean, sometimes the players are better than they were when I was 10 or 11. But I think the writing has stayed kind of the same," says Chris Stamey. Click photo for larger image. Chris Stamey Where: Club Cafe, South Side. When: 7:30 tonight. Opening for: James McMurtry. Tickets: $12 in advance; $15 at the door; 412-431-4950

Attempting to explain the sudden surge in recording activity, Stamey says, "I got caught up in producing other people, and I've always kind of been without the benefit of a career plan. I'd be in the middle of one thing, and another thing would come up, and I'd never allowed the time. I also felt, for a while, that there are a lot of records that come out that sound very attractive but don't have content to them. And it's hard for me to say exactly what I mean by that, but I didn't feel like I had much to say. And now I do."

While "Travels in the South" finds Stamey in an introspective mood, on "A Question of Temperature," his choice in covers -- "Politician," "Shapes of Things," "Compared to What" -- bespeak a more political agenda, or what Stamey calls a re-election thread, extending to the 30-second album-closing PSA to get the vote out last November, cut as Yo La Tengo was about to head out on a Rock the Vote tour. Even the instrumentals carry names like "Conspiracy Theory" and "Dr. Strangelove's Assistant or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Marimba."

"I think some records are more like novels," he says. "And some records are more like magazines. I'm all for the magazines. The bad thing is when you record a magazine and then it sits on the shelf for a couple years before it hits the newsstands. It takes a long time to get a record out these days. But I think there's a currency to the 'Temperature' record."

Asked if there's a reason "Temperature" is more political than "Travels in the South," he fires back "Is there a reason we're at War in Iraq?"

The idea of coming together in the studio was spawned by Yo La Tengo having named its latest record "Summer Sun" in honor of a Stamey song, "The Summer Sun."

A plan was hatched to re-record the song together. And Stamey thought they'd be a perfect fit, which they were, for a haunting new epic he'd written, "McCauley Street (Let's Go Downtown)." It proceeded to snowball from there, as Stamey started writing new material and bringing covers in.

He's never been the type to shy away from doing covers.

"One week, it'll seem like 'Boy, I'd really like to play that song,' " he says. "And then, by the next week, I've forgotten it even happened. But in this case, the mikes were on."

With a laugh, he recalls the reaction of Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan as the sessions started going long.

"Ira kept saying 'This is gonna be a really long EP, Chris.'"

As it turns out, it's a very long EP. An album, really, with a guest list ranging from the Yo La Tengo crew to Tyson Rogers, Caitlin Cary and Gene Holder of the dB's playing bass on two cuts.

The dB's reunion, Stamey says, is looking like it could be out by April 2006. They've recorded about a third of it so far, and everything is sounding really good.

"Peter [Holsapple] and I were about to make another duet record," Stamey says, "but he had a couple of songs that just sounded like they were dBs songs so we suggested cutting them with [drummer] Will Rigby and Gene for a duets record, but it seems like there are enough songs that fit the quartet."

Asked what the music sounds like, Stamey pauses.

"Well, I mean, Radiohead of course," he replies with a laugh, before confessing, "It sounds like the dB's to me."

For his part, that's the way he's always written.

"I don't think I've written very differently since I was maybe 10 or 11, really," he says. "I mean, sometimes the players are better than they were when I was 10 or 11. But I think the writing has stayed kind of the same."

Looking back on his early material now, he says, "It's a song-by-song thing. I either think of a particular hotel room or I just cringe at the piano being out of tune. One of the two. I mean, I think an honest answer would be that I just hardly ever hear them. I like that people like them. But I guess I'm most proud of the record I've just written, 'November.' I think it's clearly my best record. But this is a world of delusion. The person making the record is always clueless."

He'll more than likely play a dB's song or two tonight at Club Cafe at the helm of a trio featuring bassist John Chumbris and drummer Anton Fier of Golden Palominos fame. Although he's opening for James McMurtry, Stamey stresses, "This is not an acoustic set. It's not an earplug show, but we're not doing the folk-rock thing."

As for the cult of dB's devotees who continue to worship his early material, Stamey does his best to keep it in perspective.

"Well, I mean, that's great," he says. "I'm all for it, but I have to take it with a grain of salt because there are people who feel really strongly that, say, Kiss records, you know, really make their heart sing."