On the town

Swinging with Setzer, rocking with Rocket

by Carly Carioli

With the Intel Music Fest percolating down in New York City last week, Boston was treated to a wave of festival runoff. A week ago Wednesday, former Stray Cat Brian Setzer and his 18-piece "Rockin' Big Band" came to the Roxy, the glitzy ballroom that's served locally as ground zero for the swing revival. Setzer has had a headstart on the rest of the swingers, having honed his horn charts and Elvis-in-Vegas panache over a sequence of three albums that culminated in his recent The Dirty Boogie (Interscope). And the polish has paid off. The eternally spry and baby-faced Setzer stepped out to a letter-perfect rendition of the 007 theme (prior to Setzer, perhaps the only naturally occurring big-band song to use reverb guitar as a lead instrument) with his band -- seated except for a stand-up-bass player, all of them clad in matching Hawaiian shirts -- flanked by glowering tiki totems. It was a reminder that before the swing thing came along, Setzer had to make do playing to the lounge/exotica crowd. For a minute, you had to wonder whether he grasped that those days are behind him.

But by the time he hit the set's third song -- "This Cat's on a Hot Tin Roof," the leadoff on Boogie -- he had the crowd (split about 50-50 between youngish hipsters and an older, casual audience) in the palm of his hand. With the shrill horns shrieking brassy punctuation -- unbelievably clear in a room prone to hit-or-miss acoustics when it hosts straight rock bands -- Setzer's casually sparkling showmanship and his proclivity for using career, union players made for what may be the only neo-swing outfit that feels at home in the sophisticated schmaltz of big-banddom. His tight, tossed-off patter and the band's scripted, no-nonsense professionalism were the stuff of Vegas and Hollywood; but it was authentic schmaltz, genuine fakery, without a kitschy condescension in the set. It was pure show-biz, brand-name entertainment, your money's worth and then some.

A few gratuitous guitar solos aside, Setzer let his band shine on slick workouts like Boogie's down-low, bootleg-liquored title track (which allowed some enterprising twentysomethings to show off their new dance lessons), then slowed the tempo for the instrumental "Sleepwalk" and a sultry, breathless version of the ballad "Since I Don't Have You" that had folks dancing cheek-to-cheek (or piercing-to-piercing), and even the fortysomething Sinatraphiles getting choked up. But the biggest crowd pleasers were the three Stray Cats tunes that Setzer has rearranged for the big-band treatment: "Rock This Town," "Rumble in Brighton," and a steamy grindhouse-a-go-go take on "Stray Cat Strut."

Incognito at the back of the room that night were Setzer's labelmates Rocket from the Crypt, who know a few things about Elvis fixations, matching outfits, and rock-and-roll horns. They were in town to play at the Middle East the following night, where, clad in leopard-print shirts and flanked by two huge tiger's-head murals, they pounded out more than an hour's worth of prime R&B- and soul-inflected punk rock, beefing up the greaser/doo-wop-influenced hardcore as done by the Misfits with sax and trumpet straight out of Memphis's Stax and the Motor City. "We got into town yesterday and it was the hottest day in Boston history," cracked sideburned frontman Speedo in his jive-ass MC dialect. "And that's no coincidence, 'cause whenever we get to town, the temperature goes through the roof." Some of Speedo's more gratuitous ramblings had even his bandmates wincing, but the group had the piss and venom and heat to back them up.

Although they eventually reached back to '92's Circa: Now! (Headhunter) for "Sturdy Wrists," and to their 1995 major-label debut, Scream, Dracula, Scream (Interscope), for "Stuck in the Middle/Born in '69," they stuck mainly to material from their new RFTC. Streamlined into short volcanic bursts loaded with ridiculously catchy choruses and cathartic group harmonies, it's a leaner, meaner album than the layered, Phil Spector-style orchestral overkill of Dracula. And live the band hit early with RFTC's most turbocharged material: the searing three-chord, amphetamine-laced punk-rock-and-roll "I Know"; "Break It Up," with its sly "Jailhouse Rock" references; the teenage crime-wave soundtrack "Panic Scam"; the punkified roller-rink disco soul of "Made for You." After a brief respite during the lascivious frustrated-boyfriend come-on "Let's Get Busy" -- masquerading as a gentle, hand-holding soul ballad -- it was back into overdrive on the rumbling, obscene "Dick on a Dog" and the album's (actually sweet-themed) anthemic first single, "Lipstick." Nothing special, really -- just another stop for a group who, for all the flash of their matching suits, are simply one of the best no-nonsense rock-and-roll bands playing.