Crashing out of the gates with a delectable roar on its debut CD, Phoebus is Washington D.C.'s most rocking power trio. We're talking Phoebus the band, not Pheobus the man, who not coincidentally can be found front and center, a low-slung Les Paul hanging off his shoulder, words flying out of his mouth (from the heart and the gut) and slamming into the microphone. This is not mellow make-out music. This is not the quiet storm. This is gale-force hurricane music, music that takes the best rock from the past three decades--from Zep to Husker Du, Cheap Trick to the Ramones, Skynyrd to Nirvana--and distills it into a sonic blast loaded with melody and fishhook riffs. Pay attention! I'm talking about Phoebus. The son of a Greek diplomat, Phoebus Spiliotopoulos benefited from having an older brother who was music editor of the George Washington University newspaper. As he rifled through stacks of his brothers vinyl, he garnered a musical education starting with classes in Miles Davis and Weather Report before heading down the hall for Zepplin and Aerosmith tutorials, and finally soaking up the lessons of the Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks. But Phoebus couldn't sit and listen very long. He picked up his brother's guitar and taught himself to play "Smoke on the Water," and that was that. At Yorktown High, in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C., Phoebus created Freakbaby (featuring current Phoebus drummer Scott Frey), a band of youngsters whose name you might have read in some magazine somewhere, because the kid who replaced Phoebus on guitar when Phoebus moved on to form another band was Dave Grohl. Yep, the future Foo Fighter hadn't yet shown the world his drumming chops, and was rocking out on guitar, just like he is now. A few bands later, Phoebus and Scott (a rhythmic powerhouse you have to see to believe) and bassist Jim McNabb are the trio Phoebus. Vaya con dios, boys. The world is yours for the conquering.