MUSIC

Plugging into Phoenix: Persuaders, Fairy Bones, Le Zets

Serene Dominic
Special for the Republic | azcentral.com
Le Zets

This Friday, July 31, coming to a sky near you -- a Blue Moon!! The expression "once in a blue moon" seems to indicate an event that barely ever happens but it isn't quite the once-in-a-lifetime occurrence that, say, Halley's Comet or the Arizona Diamondbacks winning a World Series is. No, a blue moon visits us every three years or so, sometimes twice in a month, which this blue moon will do when it reappears in August. So it's an event of a less rare magnitude, like maybe you taking out the trash because it smells and not because you were told to.

And the blue moon isn't really blue, it's sorta orange, hence the citrus slice in your favorite Belgian-style wheat ale. Brewers take note that I'm not a paid spokesman but will consider being bought off with blatant music-column product placement in exchange for brewski bribes.

This week we cover rare appearances of artists we don't see quite so much of but perhaps by your kind patronage they may return again sooner than you think.

Friday, July 31: The Doobies Inc: A Tribute to the Doobie Brothers at Casino Arizona

Okay this event just made me chuckle and I don't chuckle lightly. Maybe it's because I can never shake the memory of the Michael McDonald-era Doobies appearing on a two part-episode of "What's Happening!!," where Raj, Dwayne and Rerun, three black inner-city kids, desperate to see the Doobies, can only get tickets by agreeing to bootleg the concert. When Rerun boogaloos to "Takin' It to the Streets" and a cheap Casio recorder tumbles out of his coat, the concert stops cold (in the form of Jeff "Skunk" Baxter bolting out of his onstage chair) and then the youths get a solemn lecture by the Doobies on how wrong it is for blacks to steal the white man's music.

It's comedic gold, partially because in the 43 years that the Doobies have been a long train runnin', I've never ever met anyone who was a bona-fide Doobie fan above all other groups. And yet they had quite a mighty run of schizophrenic hits, with the Tom Johnson biker dude rock and the Michael McDonald blue-eyed soul owing very little to one another besides a corporate logo. And yet this tribute band took up a challenge of aligning these two disparate career arcs and doing it quite well as this promo reel demonstrates. And you could probably get away with recording the whole show. Like the Doobies hit-making reign, that whole "home taping is killing music" thing has long since blown over.

Saturday, Aug. 1: Field Tripp, Boss Frog, Citizens Hero/The Persuaders at Pho Cao

You may think that Field Tripp plays as many shows as you make trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night because you're old. But surprisingly, this is their only show in August. And the lineup they have accompanying them is pretty unbeatable, including the only musicians to classify their music as "Midnight Circus Revenge," that being Boss Frog. Here they enact said midnight circus revenge in broad daylight at Lawn Gnome performing "Two Mouth, One Mouth."

Also appearing are prog-rockers Citizen Hero and the Persuaders (led by Lawrence Zubia of the Pistoleros), who has never been confused with the Persuaders who recorded "Thin Line Between Love and Hate" in print. Until now. Here they are at the Hard Rock Cafe performing a song about something Arizona could never be accused of having, a "Subway." As in underground transportation not sandwich shops. We have plenty of those. Surely that product placement is worth a couple of half-off coupons at the very least.

Here's a recent clip of Field Tripp performing a song from their recent "Woeful Common Terry" EP at the Crescent Ballroom. If the lyric "If it feels good let it slide" doesn't make you want to go out, the other line "It smells like death when I get home" will make you want to stay gone.

Sunday, Aug. 2: Fairy Bones, Le Zets, Bear Ghost at Valley Bar

If "once in a blue hair" is your credo, here is your chance to catch Chelsey Louise and Fairy Bones in their first below-street-level appearance at the Valley Bar. Here they are within the wood paneling confines of Yucca Tap Room, when gazing at a blue moon in the sky seemed so impossibly far off four months ago.

With them will be Bear Ghost and a band that you will not see gigging locally for the rest of the year -- Le Zets, fronted by Margo Swann, the teenage daughter of Nicole Laurenne Walker of the Love Me Nots, Motobunny and Zero Zero. I'm torn between which clip to include, this one from the Redwood Bar which has atrocious sound but good close-up visuals of Swann and Richard Romero's musicianship performing a song with the Nancy Drew-like title "Trouble in the Graveyard" or this clip which contains a whole show from this past New Year's Eve where, after performing the same song, drummer Bob Hoag steps out of the shadows to request more vocals through the monitors because "I barely know these songs and I have to hear what she's singing to know how to play them. It's not your fault. It's mine because I'm not a professional."

Sunday, Aug. 2: Chris Doyle at The Lost Leaf Gallery

The talented guitarist of Sunorus plays a rare solo acoustic performance followed by an exploratory jam with some surprise guests. In the interest of full disclosure, I've had the pleasure of playing with Chris in our side project M.B.E. Mutant Beatles Experiment and Chris is as adept at playing within the strict confines of early Beatles as he is at improvisation. Sorry, no sound clips or videos. For this one you have to be a go-to kind of person.