FOR NRBQ, INSPIRATION IS REALLY THEIR THING

Pop fans who catch two shows in a row by an act are often chagrined to find that what appeared to be spur-of-the-moment inspiration on stage is in fact carefully calculated choreography.

It’s no wonder, then, that NRBQ--which plays the Lingerie Saturday--has attracted such a dedicated cult over the years. Not only does the band vary the order and content of its set from one night to the next, but, according to keyboardist Terry Adams, “We’ve never done two sets in our lives the same way.”

That’s no small achievement, considering that the group, which formed in Louisville and is now based in upstate New York, has been gigging steadily since 1967.

If NRBQ’s raucous live shows strike fans as unpredictable, they’re never less surprising to the band itself. The group’s repertoire encompasses rockabilly, country, jazz, swing, blues, ballads and bubblegum with a beat, not to mention various twisted combinations thereof. Even though NRBQ now rarely employs its “magic box,” in which crowd members would place bizarre requests to be picked at random and played, the band still takes the stage with no premeditated program.

“I don’t understand how anybody can plan out how something’s going to be in any kind of situation,” said Adams during a phone interview recently. “Now, if it’s a Broadway play or something, that’s different, but we go on vibrations of what exactly’s going on in this particular room on this particular night--who’s sitting there and who’s wearing a red hat and who isn’t. It’s the only way we can do it.”

The wild atmosphere at an NRBQ show can obscure a musical sophistication that’s downright scientific in its simplicity. “We may appear to be casual, but we’re the hardest-working, most professional showmen that there are today,” bragged founding member Adams. “What may appear to be just laziness or sloppiness is the real thing.”

Adams’ claims of virtuosity aren’t idle. NRBQ (short for its original name, New Rhythm & Blues Quintet) recently played both the Berlin Jazz Festival and the New York Folk Festival, not to mention backing country singer Skeeter Davis for a while. Adams has also toured behind free-jazz composer Carla Bley.

On the other hand, NRBQ predated the enthusiasm for roots revivalism by at least a decade, recording an entire album of collaborations with Carl Perkins in 1970. Such a wide range tends to endear NRBQ less to record companies than to hepcats. The band has had 10 albums released by five labels since its 1969 Columbia debut. The most recent and possibly most outstanding is Bearsville’s 1983 LP “Grooves in Orbit.” (A release on Rounder last year, “Tapdancin’ Bats,” was made up of “leftovers” from ‘70s sessions).

Each record has been as diverse as the last, but Adams doesn’t even like being categorized as uncategorizable.

“The eclecticism tag is actually kind of ridiculous,” he said. “You could never pin down the Beatles on what style of music they played. They did everything from country to Indian raga, and nobody seemed to mind. But nowadays, if you change the tempo of a song on your album, you get complaints.

“What people learned in the ‘60s from groups like the Beatles, they forgot. Now, they’re just all into dancing around the drum machine. If people continue dancing to rhythms that come from a computer, I think there are going to be spiritual problems someday down the road.”

Spiritual problems?

“Well, music has always been spiritual and something that lifts the spirits of the community,” said Adams. “They say it started with drummers here or there--Africa or wherever. The rhythm comes from the heart and feet. And when you start replacing that original spirit with a drum machine--the source starts with a computer. They may go back and overdub a drummer to that beat, but the guy has to play what the computer did. No rhythm section plays that steady. In fact, it’s unnatural. The whole purpose of music has now been changed and it’s not coming from the heart, it’s coming from a machine.”

When NRBQ launches into a rip-roaring update of Johnny Cash’s “Get Rhythm,” then, it’s not just a ballroom blitz--it’s a matter of survival.

“I think it’s bound to cause problems and it could be maybe the end of this country as we know it,” Adams said. “Like the discovery of nuclear weapons--once it starts, you can’t go back.”