The Rudds

Live Review
Lizard Lounge, Cambridge MA
30 July 2005

The Rudds' CD release party boasts a line-up as glamorously inscrutable as the title of the new release, Get the Femuline Hang On. Get the what? Femu-whozi now? To wit, Peter Moore (Count Zero) opens with a performance confirming his fearlessness as an actor, a tart and a teller of twisted fables. With piano, kick drum and imaginary phone, Peter delivers a one-man melodrama featuring luckless loser "Charlie," his somewhat compassionate but terse Russian mentor "Boris" and the beautiful but unlikeable "Jeanine." With a series of phone calls Peter morphs swiftly and with total credibility from character to character. Each phone call ends with the Charlie persona playing and singing a song and in this way the story advances. "My only friend's the dial tone," he sings softly while summoning courage to court Jeanine. "I'm sitting by the phone, Hello Somebody, Hello Anybody." During this and other Count Zero favorites you could hear a pin drop, the crowd held in thrall. At the show's conclusion (which I won't ruin with any spoilers) the room erupts in riotous applause, those at tables leaping to their feet for a standing ovation. Only Peter Moore.

The Jumblies are a big surprise. Four years ago I'd seen this band, didn't take much away from the performance. Now they skillfully spin through a tight set of sweet and graceful pop, all airy lilting melodies and chimey guitars. Their layered and ethereal songs and the tone and timbre of vocalist Katherine Deakin make it impossible to avoid comparison to The Sundays. At times her singing style can get annoyingly fluttery (I've said the same thing about Bjork) but that's when guitarist Mark Heng introduces a fresh dynamic when he takes over lead vocals. The lush atmosphere is shaped greatly by violin player Clara Kebabian, whose name is also loads of fun to say. Kebabian.

Bleu begins his set, tonite in the form of what he's dubbed his "e-band," accompanied by a vast array of pedals, drum loops and triggered synth sounds. Though it occasionally looks as though the technology gets away from him -- envision a puppeteer with too many strings to manage -- Bleu's e-band is a cool format that allows the young pop marvel some interesting interpretations of his songs. For example on the favorite "Searching for the Satellites," the electronic twitters and peaks and swirls flesh out the delightfully spacey tune. Halfway through Bleu's set, the mood shifts when he summons a full band, including Shawn Marquis (Chauncey, Project Eno, January). The band ends the set with the infectious sing-along, "Get Up," the audience adding the lusty "Bah bah bah dah!" part that's usually sung by a thirty-member choir. The only problem with "Get Up" is that nobody can stop singing it for a week.

The Rudds, tonight's rock hard center of attention, look SO ready. When they start off with the quirky "Tony Savarino" and head straight into "Oh No!" it appears as though they are going to play the new disc in order. "Oh No!" is excellent -- catchy and anthemic -- and topically appropriate tonight. "Oh no! They're gonna make another one! They got another record to do," goes the chorus. "It's gonna sound exactly like the other one, just not as good and it won't rock you." Self-depreciation aside, these guys do kick some serious hard pop ass, and with new band additions Andrea Gillis and Dave Lieb (vocals and keys respectively) the material sounds even more like a direct order to leave your inhibitions on the sidewalk and shake your moneymaker. The great thing about The Rudds is that their songs are pure fun, pure rock sing-alongs that are all either about music or sex, or a moment somewhere along the timeline of a romantic escapade. Groovy, soulful, infectious, glamorous and just weird enough to make it infinitely interesting. Who let these hooligans into our town?

(Review originally appeared in The Noise, #254, September 2005)