It's as simple as this: In August, Chris Stamey headed into a recording studio for a weekend to make a single and came out with an album.

That probably calls for some elaboration. Stamey is best known as a founding member of the dB's, the early '80s outfit — four Carolinians transplanted to NYC — who brought the energy of nervy post-punk to effortless guitar-pop, or perhaps vice versa. He entered the Water Music studio in Hoboken with another former dB, Gene Holder, engineering the sessions. The band Stamey invited to support him was indie-rock avatars Yo La Tengo. (Their last album, Summer Sun, took its title from a '77 Stamey single.)

So they'd all take a new go-round at the song for one side of the proposed single. Plus, Stamey had a new song, "McCauley Street (Let's Go Downtown),"a leisurely stroll through Lou Reed-style storytelling ("Candy lives upstairs/ with a thousand stories cut out of The New Yorker"). It seemed custom-made for the kind of guitar solo YLT's Ira Kaplan specializes in, one that builds like a soft breeze ushering in a thunderstorm. That would go on the other side.

But once the crew, abetted by keyboardist Tyson Rogers, got to the studio, they began toying with other songs: hardy '60s chestnuts like Cream's "Politician" and The Yardbirds' "Shapes of Things"; a gentle, folky reading of Television's wiry "Venus"; unfussy new Stamey compositions like "Sleepless Nights" and "Desperate Man." They even pulled off a mash-up with Stamey singing "Summer Sun" over the YLT instrumental "Georgia vs. Yo La Tengo."

Before they knew it, they were looking at a full-length, A Question of Temperature (Yep Roc), credited to The Chris Stamey Experience. "It was fun that it was kind of an instant record, like spraying graffiti on a subway car," Stamey reflects on the phone from North Carolina. "They're a good band," he continues, with some understatement. "And good bands can have a little telepathy going on."

The musicians pulled from a number of inspirations. Stamey says, "We were in New Jersey, and [jazz engineer] Rudy Van Gelder used to make these records up in Inglewood, I think, where [Charles] Mingus or whoever would walk in at noon and walk out at 5 o'clock and have a record. It wasn't the novel approach; it was more like a magazine."

But Stamey and friends had more immediate concerns. "The record was made right before the last election," he remembers. They got their political ire on with covers like "Politician" ("I support the left / Though I'm really leaning to the right") and jazzman Les McCann"s "Compared to What" ("The president, he's got his war / Folks don't know just what it's for"). Stamey jotted a 30-second "V.O.T.E. PSA." Even the seemingly simple Chuck Berry-like "Desperate Man" contains subversive points. "I was really thinking about a classmate in high school who we all thought would become president," Stamey explains in a follow-up e-mail. "He instead was sent to prison for stealing silverware. Presidents were on my mind."

But what really distinguishes A Question of Temperature is its breezy effortlessness and a sense of fun that is truly contagious. Rather predictably, many critics have gently applauded the album as a minor work that achieves modest aims. But it's ostensibly tossed-off works like this that are more likely to hold the elusive elements that have kept rock 'n' roll from floating off into the ether.

Perhaps invigorated by Question's quick birth, Stamey isn't standing still. He's touring with a completely different Experience, with drummer Anton Fier (The Feelies, The Golden Palominos) and bassist John Chumbris. And he's nearly completed another solo album, November, recorded with Rogers and North Carolina band Roman Candle. "A little bit of T-Rex, a little bit of Miles Davis, a little bit of Soft Machine ... well, I could go on all day," he tantalizingly promises. And as if that weren"t enough, Stamey helps run a studio (Modern Recording) and production company (Orange Sound), and he has produced and recorded the likes of Whiskeytown, Le Tigre and Alejandro Escovedo.

But his most anticipated project is the recently confirmed reunion of the classic dB's lineup — Stamey, Holder, Peter Holsapple and Will Rigby. "I think the dB's record will be [released] spring of '06, with a tour. We are going to play some shows in September or October this year as well, as we get our sea legs."

The Chris Stamey Experience plays Sun., May 15, 7 p.m., $12, with Steve Poltz, The Tin Angel, 20 S. Second St., 215-928-0770. This column has floated off into the ether at undertherock.blogspot.com.