WHO'S THE BOSS

As that comment implies, Martinez is a woman who doesn't need a man to make decisions for her. She's somewhat frustrated, then, by the image of her band that seems to be emerging. In specific: With the Blues Explosion a critical favorite thanks to Orange, last year's excellent Matador Records project, and Boss Hog inked to the David Geffen Company, associated with both Nirvana and Hole, some observers have pegged Spencer and Martinez as the Couple Most Likely to Become the Next Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.

"People ask about that all the time," Martinez says. "But we've been doing what we're doing since 1989, and Jon and I have been together in one way or another since 1985. So we're not the new anything. Besides, there were zillions of couples in bands before Kurt and Courtney. Look at Sonny and Cher. So we're just doing what we want to do. We aren't trying to be anyone else or do what anybody else had done before." Furthermore, Martinez goes on, Geffen hasn't exactly been cranking up the hype machinery on Boss Hog's behalf. She wanted to write, direct and produce a video for the canny Ike Turner cover "I Idolize You" ("I don't endorse Ike Turner's personal history, but I enjoy his music," she says) before the act's current tour started. Unfortunately, a disagreement over money and timing has pushed everything back until early 1996.

There's more confusion surrounding the Boss Hog cut "Punkture." Some listeners assume the tune alludes to the injectable narcotics that the members of Pussy Galore reportedly used with great frequency. When Martinez is asked about this reading, though, she hoots with delight.

"Oh, that is so funny you should ask that," she declares, "because when we were mastering the record, I said, `You know, people are going to think that this is about drugs.' It didn't dawn on me until after the record was done that it could be construed that way. I've heard all the rumors and I guess they make sense, because Pussy Galore's first drummer died from an overdose, and Neal Haggerty [a Pussy veteran now fronting Royal Trux] had his moments. But none of the rest of us did anything--and in Boss Hog, none of us do drugs, either. I drink, at least, but there are a couple members who don't drink at all. We're ridiculously healthy, relatively speaking, for a rock band, even though people always peg us as druggies.

"But I don't mind it, actually, because it's part of the rock-and-roll mystique, and I think people enjoy that kind of story. So print that we're all addicts, okay? Print that we're all drying out now, that we're all in rehab. That would make me very, very happy."

Boss Hog, with Cibo Matto. 9 p.m. Monday, December 4, Fox Theatre, 1135 13th Street, Boulder, $5.25, 447-0095.