We're in the basement of the Bug Jar and Ghostharm singer/guitarist Kelley Marcano is waxing poetic over his steadfast preference for LPs over compact discs. Meanwhile, I'm praying that he's too keyed up about the creeping evils of technology to notice that the recorder I'm currently shoving in his face is digital.

"The three of us are all vinyl junkies. None of us even have CD players," Marcano says. "We're writing songs that we would want to be hearing, so why not put it out in a medium we'd want to actually listen to? So we decided to only put music out on vinyl."

Before the month of July is over Ghostharm will do just that, releasing the ferocious and fuzzy "Hang Up" (B-side: "Ghost Lips") as a 45 rpm single and allowing anyone with a turntable to bask in the band's subtly sinister garage punk.

"We try to find the happy medium between the Germs and Sam Cooke," Marcano explains by way of describing Ghostharm's nonetheless classic sound, which features insistent vocals backed up by a balance of reverb-drenched guitar and bass, the atmospheric Farfisa organ, and a crisp yet heavy drum beat. "There's a lot of old soul stuff that we really like a lot. Early Rolling Stones are huge for us. The Cramps. Surf stuff like Davie Allan and the Arrows, the Ventures."

Ghostharm began a year and a half ago as a two-piece consisting of former Teenage Junkie Marcano and Kyle Brown on percussion, but the acquisition of a long-coveted Farfisa last autumn meant some adjustments. So Brown took on bass duties and learned his way around the legendary Italian keyboard ("I'm pretty proficient on most instruments, so it's not hard for me to pick things up," Brown confesses), while Marcano's longtime friend Tyler Farren settled in behind the drums.

"Tyler grew up being in, like, punk bands, like thrash bands, so he's used to playing with all four limbs going as fast as possible all the time," Marcano says. "We had to explain what we wanted, and very often we just want very simple drums. There's so many drummers whose main agenda is just to do as many fills as possible, and it's hard to get into a song when all you hear is fills like every four bars. He's gotten to the point where we'll start to write a song and he just keeps a beat and it's awesome."

Brown seconds that emotion. "That's kinda how we write our songs, I think. You're not gonna hear a lot of guitar solos or drum fills. The parts that we put in there we feel are really important and we don't want to clutter them up with bullshit, so we write simple songs that are potent, you know?"

Ghostharm's analog mindset shaped the recording process as well, Marcano says. "Keeping it stripped down is really the basis for what we do. Like the 45 we're putting out, we recorded in our basement with a four-track, and our friend Benoit manned the buttons."

Benoit, a/k/a Carbonic ("He won't tell us his last name," muses Marcano), seems like the unofficial fourth member of the band. "He's really important, I think, for our sound," Brown says. "For the 45 we tried to record with another guy, and it just came out really clean and didn't have an organic feel. He had a digital eight-track recorder."

"We listened to it and we were like ‘Wow. This doesn't sound like us at all,'" Marcano remembers. "It was weird."

As is the case for most young bands - Marcano, Brown, and Farren are all in their mid 20s - playing live is both the good part and the key to exposure. Lately, however, the venue options around these streets are dwindling. Asked about the city's recent cease-and-desist leveled at A|V Space, Marcano fumes: "I think it's bullshit. We've played here [at the Bug Jar] more than any other place, but we've played A|V and it's always been a good time. There's never been problems at all. It's just a really nice venue that you can go and not have to worry about pandering to the bar crowd or anything. You go there because you want to see the show that's happening."

So now Ghostharm looks beyond Rochester, albeit with its own rational brand of minimalism. "We don't have plans for stardom," says Marcano. "The next thing we wanna do is hit the road. Get the 45 out, keep recording, and just tour. That's the main objective right now."

As summed up by Marcano, though, the philosophy transcends whatever medium Ghostharm chooses: "Our priority has always been to write songs that we are all into and to do things the way we want to do it, the way we want things to be done."

Ghostharm,along with Beat the Devil and Handsome Jack, take the stageTuesday, July 31, at the Bug Jar, 219 Monroe Avenue, 454-2966. 10 p.m., $5-$7. 18+. www.ghostharm.com.