FEARLESS COUNTRY

Stranger things have certainly happened than ex-punk Lee Ving’s reincarnation as a straight-ahead country singer. Offhand, though, we’re hard-pressed to name any.

Ving’s new group, Range War, headlined the Music Machine on Friday with a truly bizarre set--bizarre only to those aware of Ving’s tumultuous past as the lead singer of Fear, that is. No one else would have found anything unusual about this picture-perfect country-western outfit, certainly not the urban cowboy types who showed up and had a wonderful time without raising so much as an eyebrow.

Ving now wears a cowboy hat and boots, what appear to be Lee jeans, and--get this--a handlebar mustache. Is it camp? You’d have to guess so, at least from Ving’s shady adoption of a Southern accent. Yet he has the Nashville style down perfect, and--surprise--he can sing the Hank Williams and Bob Wills tunes he trots out. His band was unmistakably the authentic thing--a stocky, bearded guy on pedal steel, a gorgeous female blond bass player, etc.

For all the extracurricular film jobs Ving has had in recent years, the role of country singer is his most impressive thespian work to date. Range War is a must-see.