CRITIC'S PICK: ASYLUM STREET SPANKERS

By Barry Gilbert
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

February 2, 2006

9 p.m. Friday at Off Broadway, 3511 Lemp Avenue. $12 advance, $14 at the door. 314-773-3363 or www.offbroadwaystl.com; 21 and over

Do you like a good spanking? How about old-timey country, bluegrass, jazz, blues and acoustic music in general? Then be at Off Broadway on Friday night for Austin, Texas, eccentrics the Asylum Street Spankers. Think Cab Calloway, Earl Scruggs and Southern Gothic voodoo, but be prepared for a side trip to B-52's territory ("Dance This Mess Around"), "Green Acres" ("TV Party") and, uh, rap ("Hick Hop"). It's all fed through some delightfully warped personalities -- the fiddle player, for example, sports a spiky Mohawk and answers to the name of Sick. Led by Christina Marrs, Wammo and Guy Forsyth, who met while busking in Austin in 1994, the seven Spankers offer spectacular musicianship without, as they say, the use of "demon electricity." They're touring behind "Re-Assembly," their 10th-anniversary reunion concert DVD. But a beer-soaked club is the place to hear about characters such as "Jerry the Junker," "Man From Harlem," "Paul Revere" and "Lee Harvey" -- yeah, Oswald.

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