52nd City

Bugs that You Will Like

For years, the Ded Bugs have been my favorite live band in town, though I seldom actually see them. For shame! Oh, there's the occasional trip to the one-and-only Creepy Crawl for a set, but those are only intermittent visits to Downtown's dankest nightspot. Of course, there are the five records to listen to, but those slices of prerecorded music only do the band a fraction of justice.

It's onstage where the Bugs really make their mark. Befitting a group's that's been together the better part of a decade, the group's got that hard-to-define "tightness" onstage. The songs have the urgency of punk, but also the musicianship and chops that come with years of live work. Though all the members would share credit for their sound, primary vocalist Matt Meyer's got a certain "aw-shucks" star quality that just makes his - and the band's - work that much more appealing.

Often playing with bands that picked up instruments in the just the past few years, the group's also opened for a host of pop-punk acts over the years, seldom failing to better the groups on their bills, whether young or old. And they seem more the former, with songs and lyrics that jump back to the teenaged years; favorite topics include horror films and cereal. Tracks like the recent "Band on Tour" and "On the Punk Page" are clever enough. But as we're praising the live show, don't expect to hear them in crystal clear totality.

This weekend, the band offer oldtimers, cheapskates and the curious a chance to catch the Bugs in a near-matinee setting, as the group plays The Lot festival at the Tap Room, this Saturday, August 27. They'll start at 6:30 p.m. and will set a high bar for the rest of the groups on the bill that evening. There's no charge, though you may want to pack a dollar, or two, for a Ded Bugs button or 45. They're pretty neat.